A Cyrillization is a system for rendering words of a language that normally uses a writing system other than the Cyrillic script into a (version of) Cyrillic alphabet. A Cyrillization scheme needs to be applied, for example, to transcribe names of German, Chinese, or American people and places for use in Russian, Serbian or Bulgarian newspapers and books. Cyrillization is analogous to romanization, when words from a non-Latin-alphabet-using language are rendered in the Latin alphabet for use e.g. in English, German, or Francophone literature.
Just like with various Romanization schemes, each Cyrillization system has its own set of rules, depending on:
When the source language uses a fairly phonetic spelling system, a Cyrillization scheme may often be adopted that almost amounts to a transliteration, i.e. using a mapping scheme that simply maps each letter of the source alphabet to some letter of the destination alphabet, sometimes augmented by position-based rules. Among such schemes are several schemes universally accepted in Russia:
Similarly simple schemes are widely used to render Spanish, Italian, etc. words into Russian etc.
When the source language uses a not particularly phonetic writing system — most notably English and French — its words are typically rendered in Russian or other Cyrillic-based languages using an approximate phonetic transliteration system, which aims to allow the Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, etc. readers to approximate the sound of the source language as much as it is possible within the constraints of the destination language and its alphabet. Among the examples is the Practical transcription of English into Russian (Russian: Правила англо-русской практической транскрипции), which aims to render English words in Russian based on their sounds and Transliteration of foreign words by a cyrillic alphabet (Ukrainian: Транслітерація іншомовних слів кирилицею) in case with Ukrainian. While this scheme is mostly accepted by a majority of Russian authors and publishers, transcription variants are not uncommon.
A transliteration system for the Bulgarian Cyrillization of English has been designed by the Bulgarian linguist Andrey Danchev.
Similarly phonetic schemes are widely adopted for Cyrillization of French.