Romanization of Russian

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For romanization of Russian on Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Romanization of Russian.

The romanization of the Russian alphabet is the process of transliterating the Russian language from the Cyrillic alphabet and into the Latin alphabet, such as the English alphabet and other Latin alphabets in particular (and sometimes non-Latin alphabets). Such transliteration is necessary for writing Russian names and other words in the alphabet of one's own language.

Romanization is also essential for the input of Russian text into computer by users who either do not have a keyboard or word processor set up for input of Cyrillic, or else they are not capable of typing rapidly on the distinct Cyrillic keyboard. In the latter case, they would type using a system of transliteration fitted for their Keyboard layout, such as for English QWERTY keyboards, and then use an automated tool to convert the text into Cyrillic.

Contents

[edit] Systematic transliterations of Cyrillic to Latin

Note that many phonetic transcription systems are intended for readers of a particular language audience, as the letters of the Latin alphabet differs, and are being used differently, in each language using the Latin script. For instance Russian „Воронин“ = “Voronin” in English, Czech or Spanish, «Voronine» in French and „Woronin“ in German or Polish.

[edit] Scientific transliteration

Main article: Scientific transliteration

Scientific transliteration, also known as the International Scholarly System, is a system that has been used in linguistics since the 19th century. It is based on the Czech and Latin alphabet used in some of the South Slavic languages, and formed the basis of the GOST and ISO systems.

[edit] GOST

[edit] GOST 16876 (1971)

Main article: GOST 16876-71

Developed by the National Administration for Geodesy and Cartography at the USSR Council of Ministers, GOST 16876-71 has been in service for over 30 years and is the only romanization system that does not use diacritics. Replaced by GOST 7.79-2000.

[edit] GOST ST SEV 1362 (1978)

This standard is an equivalent of GOST 16876-71. Adopted as an official standard of the COMECON.

[edit] GOST 7.79 (2002)

GOST 7.79-2000 System of Standards on Information, Librarianship, and Publishing – Rules for Transliteration of the Cyrillic Characters Using the Latin Alphabet is the newest document on transliteration in the series of GOST standards. This standard is an adoption of ISO 9:1995 and is now the official standard of both Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

[edit] ISO

Main article: ISO 9

[edit] ISO/R 9

ISO/R 9, established 1954 and updated 1968, was the adoption of the scientific transliteration by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). It covers Russian and seven additional Slavic languages.

[edit] ISO 9

ISO 9:1995 is the current transliteration standard from ISO. It is based on its predecessor ISO/R 9:1968, which it deprecates; for Russian they only differ in the treatment of five modern letters. It is the first language-independent, univocal system of one character for one character equivalents (by the use of diacritics), which faithfully represents the original and allows for reverse transliteration for Cyrillic text in any contemporary language.

[edit] United Nations romanization system

The UNGEGN, a Working Group of the United Nations, in 1987 recommended a romanization system for geographical names, which was based on GOST 16876-71. It may be found in some international cartographic products.

[edit] ALA-LC

Main article: ALA-LC romanization for Russian

American Library Association & Library of Congress (ALA-LC) romanization tables for Slavic alphabets (1997) are used in North American libraries.

The formal, unambiguous version of the system requires some diacritics and two-letter tie characters, which are often omitted in practice.

[edit] BGN/PCGN

Main article: BGN/PCGN romanization of Russian

The BGN/PCGN system is relatively intuitive for anglophones to read and pronounce. In many publications a simplified form of the system is used to render English versions of Russian names, typically converting ë to yo, simplifying -iy and -yy endings to -y, and omitting apostrophes for ъ and ь. It can be rendered using only the basic letters and punctuation found on English-language keyboards: no diacritics or unusual letters are required, although the Interpunct character (·) can optionally be used to avoid some ambiguity.

This particular standard is part of the BGN/PCGN romanization system which was developed by the United States Board on Geographic Names and by the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use. The portion of the system pertaining to the Russian language was adopted by BGN in 1944, and by PCGN in 1947.

[edit] Transliteration table

Common systems for romanizing Russian
Cyrillic Scholarly ISO/R 9:1968 GOST 1971 UN; GOST 1983 ISO 9:1995; GOST 2002 ALA-LC BGN/PCGN
А а a a a a a a a
Б б b b b b b b b
В в v v v v v v v
Г г g g g g g g g
Д д d d d d d d d
Е е e e e e e e e, ye [†]
Ё ё ë ë yo ë ë ë ë, yë [†]
Ж ж ž ž zh ž ž zh zh
З з z z z z z z z
И и i i i i i i i
Й й j j j j j ĭ y
К к k k k k k k k
Л л l l l l l l l
М м m m m m m m m
Н н n n n n n n n
О о o o o o o o o
П п p p p p p p p
Р р r r r r r r r
С с s s s s s s s
Т т t t t t t t t
У у u u u u u u u
Ф ф f f f f f f f
Х х x ch x h h kh kh
Ц ц c c   cz, c [‡] c c t͡s ts
Ч ч č č ch č č ch ch
Ш ш š š sh š š sh sh
Щ щ šč šč shh šč ŝ shch shch
Ъ ъ ʺ ʺ ʺ ʺ ʺ   ʺ [*] ʺ
Ы ы y y y' y y y y
Ь ь ʹ [††] ʹ ʹ ʹ ʹ ʹ ʹ
Э э è ė eh è è ė e
Ю ю ju ju yu ju û i͡u yu
Я я ja ja уа ja â i͡a ya
Pre-1918 letters
І і i i   i, i' [**] ĭ ì ī –
Ѳ ѳ f ḟ fh ḟ f̀ ḟ –
Ѣ ѣ ě ě уе ě ě i͡e –
Ѵ ѵ i ẏ yh ẏ ỳ ẏ –
Pre-eighteenth century letters
Ѕ ѕ dz – – – ẑ – –
Ѯ ѯ ks – – – – – –
Ѱ ѱ ps – – – – – –
Ѡ ѡ ô, o – – – – – –
Ѫ ѫ ǫ, u – – – ǎ – –
Ѧ ѧ ę, ja – – – – – –
Ѭ ѭ jǫ, ju – – – – – –
Ѩ ѩ ję, ja – – – – – –
Notes
*  ALA-LC: ъ is not romanized at the end of a word.
†  BGN/PCGN: ye and yë are used to indicate iotation word-initially, and after a vowel, й, ъ, or ь.
‡  GOST 7.79-2000: It is recommended to use C before I, Е, Y, J and CZ in all other cases.
**  GOST 7.79-2000: Cyrillic і in Ukrainian and Bulgarian is always transliterated as Latin i, as well as in Old Russian and Old Bulgarian texts where it is usually used before vowels. In the rare case where it falls before a consonant (for example, in the word мiръ) it is transliterated i.
††  ʹ is Unicode character 02B9, "modifier letter prime".

[edit] Roman alphabet

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In a second sense the romanization of Russian may also indicate the introduction of a separate, independent instance of the roman alphabet for writing the Russian language. Such an alphabet is not necessarily bound closely to the traditional Cyrillic orthography. The transition from Cyrillic to Latin has been proposed several times through history, but was never conducted on a large scale except for graphemic (e.g. volapuk) and phonemic (e.g. translit) adhoc transcriptions due to technological restrictions (e.g. ASCII, SMS, IRC).

There have been more advanced, systematic proposals nevertheless, some as late as during the 1990s, when demise of the Soviet Union and technological restrictions coincided. Some suggested to harmonize vowel glyphs within the five pairs. Based upon the common Latin vowel glyphs a, e, i, o, u, y, this would either mean putting diacritic marks (e.g. diaeresis, caron, circumflex) on the hard or the soft ones, unifying them and letting context decide which one was correct, or leaving the more common one accent-less and adopting separate diacritics or special characters for hard and soft. Alternatively y or j digraphs would be used for soft vowels, where й would map to the other glyph. Especially for о, mandatory stress or non-stress marks were suggested.

Base Hard Soft
a ă, å а я ä, â
e ĕ, ə э е ë, ê
ı (i) y, ĭ, ı ы и ï/i, î
o ŏ, ø о ё ö, ô
u (y) ŭ, ů у ю ü, û
·, ’, | ъ ь  :, ~, -

The concept that is resembled by hard and soft sign is foreign to the roman alphabet, therefore some see diacritic marks (e.g. tilde) on consonant letters (e.g. ñ, ł) to be the better choice.

Some roman letters, like w, q and either x or h have no modern Cyrillic equivalence and might therefore be used freely for sounds that would otherwise require diacritics or digraphs.

The following table gives consonant letters not in any traditional collation, but with voiced/voiceless pairs where possible. Most of the adaptations are straightforward and uncontroversial. The diacritic approach may be more Czech or more Turkish oriented, the digraph approach may be Polish, English, French or German oriented. As explained above, this does not give a true mapping, but approximate equivalents for many proposals.

b б п p
v в ф f
g (ğ, w) г к k
d д т t
z з с s
ц c, ţ; ts
ч č, ç, ť, ţ; q; ch, cz, tsh, tš, tş
ž, ʒ, ƶ, ż; j, x; zh ж ш š, ş; w; sh, sz
щ ŝ; w; šč, şç, šh, şh, shh, sch …
j, y й х h, x
l л р r
m м н n

Where г sounds rather like /v/ or /w/, ğ and ģ have been proposed.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] External links