Additional names of settlements in the Podlaskie Province of Poland as a unique phenomenon in Belarusian toponymy

The article deals with the successful initiative of the Belarusian national minority in Poland to approve local names of settlements in the Orla Municipality, Bielsk County, Podlaskie Province, in addition to the official Polish-language names. The linguistic analysis of these additional names has shown that representatives of the Belarusian national minority consider the names of settlements that are linguistically non-Belarusian to be Belarusian as well. This fact is unique for Belarusian toponymy because in Belarus, names of settlements in official usage are formed in strict compliance with the norms of modern Belarusian literary language. In the case of additional names of settlements in the Orla Municipality, the national identity of the Belarusian minority turned out to be more significant compared to the language affiliation of local toponyms.