Content uploaded by Lyubomir Ivanov
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Lyubomir Ivanov on Sep 13, 2017
Content may be subject to copyright.
66 Съпоставително езикознание/Сопоставительное языкознание/Contrastive Linguistics, ХLII, 2017, № 2
Streamlined Romanization of Russian Cyrillic
Lyubomir Ivanov
Institute of Mathematics and Informatics
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
Настоящая работа вводит Обтекаемую систему транслитерации русской кирилли-
цы латинским алфавитом и сравнивает её с некоторыми существующими стандар-
тами транслитерации. Статья использует опыт накопленный в процессе разработки
и внедрения Обтекаемой системы транслитерации болгарской кириллицы, ставшей
официальной для Болгарии, ООН, США и Великобритании.
The present work introduces the Streamlined System for the Romanization of Russian
Cyrillic, and compares it with some of the existing transliteration standards. This paper
draws from the experience gained with the development and implementation of the
Streamlined System for the Romanization of Bulgarian Cyrillic, which is now offi cial for
Bulgaria, the UN, the USA and the UK.
Key words: transliteration, Russian Cyrillic, Streamlined System
1. Introduction
The streamlined approach to transliteration was initiated by the author
with the development of the Streamlined System for the Romanization of
Bulgarian. Originally, that system was introduced in Antarctica in 1995
(Ivanov 1995, Ivanov 2003), then in Bulgaria in 2000–2006 (Ivanov et al.
2010), and eventually codifi ed by the Transliteration Act of 2009 (ДВ 2009).
It was endorsed for offi cial use by the United Nations in 2012 (UNGEGN
2013), and by the USA and the UK in 2013 (NGA 2014). The author proposes
similar streamlined systems for the transliteration of other Slavic languages
using Cyrillic script, notably the present one for Russian.
2. Latin transliteration (Romanization) of the Russian alphabet
There is a variety of different systems for the Romanization of the Russian
alphabet (Beloozerov 2014). In particular, these include: the offi cial Russian
State Standard GOST R 7.0.34–2014 (ФАТРМ 2015); the ICAO system (ICAO
67
2015), used in Russian international passports, slightly modifi ed to transliterate
Russian hard sign ъ as ie; the BGN/PCGN 1947 system (USBGN 1994), for
offi cial US and UK use but also, with some modifi cations concerning Cyrillic ё
and ъ, in Russian driving licenses; and the Library of Congress ALA-LC 1997
system (LOC 2012), used by American libraries, the British Library and some
academic journals. That regulated offi cial use goes along with an extensive
practice of electronic communication in informally transliterated Russian
(Zaliznyak and Mikaelyan 2006).
Far from becoming universal, the GOST R 7.0.34 standard has been
largely disregarded with Russian and international institutions adopting other
transliteration systems or turning to transcription instead, such as the IIHF 2010
system for transcribing the names of Russian ice hockey players (IIHF 2011).
An attempt to introduce the GOST R 7.0.34 transliteration on Moscow street
name plates puzzled Muscovites and foreign visitors alike (Streltsova et al.
2014) due to some of its features bordering on the bizarre, such as using Latin x
and shh for Cyrillic х and щ respectively, and has apparently been abandoned.
In general, the present practice of Russian transliteration would seem fairly
messy, inconsistent, and subject to not infrequent change.
3. The Streamlined System
The Streamlined System stands out among other approaches to the
transliteration of Russian Cyrillic script in its sticking to transliteration proper
(no transcription elements brought in), its being consistently English-oriented,
taking advantage of the global lingua franca role of the English language (not
only as a spoken language but also as a target language for the Romanization
of a great number of languages including Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, Arabic
etc.), and its seeking to strike an optimal balance between the following partly
overlapping and partly confl icting priorities:
First, the primary purpose of this system is to ensure a plausible phonetic
approximation of Russian words by English speaking users, including those
having no knowledge of the Russian language and no available additional
explanations;
Second – and of lesser priority, the system should allow for the retrieval of
the original Cyrillic spellings as much as feasible;
Third, transliterated Russian words should fi t an English language
environment i.e. not be perceived as too ‘un-English’; and
Fourth, transliterated word forms should be streamlined and simple.
(Ivanov 2003, Ivanov et al. 2010)
Other possible considerations may relate to respecting established usage,
avoiding undesirable associations in the case of overlapping forms of some
words in different languages, or refl ecting ideological motivation; see (Danchev
68
et al. 1989: 20–22) and (Selvelli 2015). These, however, are not prioritized
highly by the streamlined approach.
Let us extend the standard Latin alphabet by adding the additional
symbols ` (grave accent, used as a distinct symbol rather than diacritical
mark), " (vertical double quotation mark) and ' (vertical apostrophe). Then
the Optimized Streamlined System for the Romanization of Russian alphabet
(optimized with respect to the abovementioned priorities) is introduced by the
following graphemic correspondences scheme:
а→a, б→b, в→v, г→g, д→d, е→e, ё→``e, ж→zh,
з→z, и→i, й→y, к→k, л→l, м→m, н→n, о→o,
п→p, р→r, с→s, т→t, у→u, ф→f, х→h, ц→ts,
ч→ch, ш→sh, щ→shch, ъ→" (or none), ы→`i,
ь (before е, ё, и, o, э) → y, ь (otherwise) →' (or none),
э→`e, ю→yu, я→ya
The Basic Streamlined System for Russian is defi ned by the above scheme
with its additional symbols removed:
а→a, б→b, в→v, г→g, д→d, е→e, ё→e, ж→zh,
з→z, и→i, й→y, к→k, л→l, м→m, н→n, о→o,
п→p, р→r, с→s, т→t, у→u, ф→f, х→h, ц→ts,
ч→ch, ш→sh, щ→shch, ъ→ (none), ы→i,
ь (before е, ё, и, o, э) → y, ь (otherwise) → (none),
э→e, ю→yu, я→ya
Typical for the streamlined approach is its non-use of diacritics, its use of
Latin y for rendering only Cyrillic й rather than both й and ы, its non-use of
Latin j, as well as its use of Latin h rather than kh for Cyrillic х.
In terms of compliance with the four priorities postulated above, the
Optimized and the Basic version rate comparably with respect to the fi rst one,
while the former system complies better with the second one, and the latter has
advantage with respect to the last two priorities.
4. Illustration
To illustrate the application of the streamlined approach, here follows
some Russian text (excerpt from a novel by N.V. Gogol) transliterated both by
the Optimized Streamlined System and by its basic version:
Russian Cyrillic
Эх, тройка! птица тройка, кто тебя выдумал? знать, у бойкого наро-
да ты могла только родиться, в той земле, что не любит шутить, а ров-
нем-гладнем разметнулась на полсвета, да и ступай считать версты, пока
69
не зарябит тебе в очи. И не хитрый, кажись, дорожный снаряд, не же-
лезным схвачен винтом, а наскоро живьём с одним топором да долотом
снарядил и собрал тебя ярославский расторопный мужик. Не в немец-
ких ботфортах ямщик: борода да рукавицы, и сидит чёрт знает на чём; а
привстал, да замахнулся, да затянул песню — кони вихрем, спицы в коле-
сах смешались в один гладкий круг, только дрогнула дорога, да вскрикнул
в испуге остановившийся пешеход — и вон она понеслась, понеслась,
понеслась!
Н.В. Гоголь
Optimized Streamlined System
`Eh, troyka! ptitsa troyka, kto tebya v`idumal? znat', u boykogo naroda t`i
mogla tol'ko rodit'sya, v toy zemle, chto ne lyubit shutit', a rovnem-gladnem
razmetnulas' na polsveta, da i stupay schitay verst`i, poka ne zaryabit tebe v
ochi. I ne hitr`iy, kazhis', dorozhn`iy snaryad, ne zhelezn`im shvachen vintom,
a naskoro zhivy``em s odnim toporom da dolotom sobral tebya yaroslavskiy
rastoropn`iy muzhik. Ne v nemetskih botfortah yamshchik: boroda da
rukavits`i, i sidit ch``ert znaet na ch``em; a privstal, da zamahnulsya, da
zatyanul pesnyu — koni vihrem, spits`i v kolesah smeshalis' v odin gladkiy
krug, tol'ko drognula doroga, da vskriknul v ispuge ostanovivshiysya peshehod
— i von ona poneslas', poneslas', poneslas'!
N.V. Gogol'
Basic Streamlined System
Eh, troyka! ptitsa troyka, kto tebya vidumal? znat, u boykogo naroda ti
mogla tolko roditsya, v toy zemle, chto ne lyubit shutit, a rovnem-gladnem
razmetnulas na polsveta, da i stupay schitay versti, poka ne zaryabit tebe v
ochi. I ne hitriy, kazhis, dorozhniy snaryad, ne zheleznim shvachen vintom,
a naskoro zhivyem s odnim toporom da dolotom sobral tebya yaroslavskiy
rastoropniy muzhik. Ne v nemetskih botfortah yamshchik: boroda da
rukavitsi, i sidit chert znaet na chem; a privstal, da zamahnulsya, da zatyanul
pesnyu — koni vihrem, spitsi v kolesah smeshalis v odin gladkiy krug, tolko
drognula doroga, da vskriknul v ispuge ostanovivshiysya peshehod — i von
ona poneslas, poneslas, poneslas!
N.V. Gogol
5. Comparisons
By way of comparison, we present in the following table some sample
words from the above text as transliterated also by the GOST R7.0.34, BGN/
PCGN and ICAO systems.
70
Russian
Cyrillic
Optimized
Streamlined
Basic
Streamlined
GOST
R 7.0.34 BGN/PCGN ICAO
эх
тройка
птица
выдумал
любит
хитрый
схвачен
ямщик
чёрт
вихрем
только
`eh
troyka
ptitsa
v`idumal
lyubit
hitr`iy
shvachen
yamshchik
ch``ert
vihrem
tol'ko
eh
troyka
ptitsa
vidumal
lyubit
hitriy
shvachen
yamshchik
chert
vihrem
tolko
e`x
trojka
ptica
vy`dumal
lyubit
xitry`j
skhvachen
yamshhik
chyort
vixrem
tol`ko
ekh
troyka
ptitsa
vydumal
lyubit
hitryy
skhvachen
yamshchik
chërt
vikhrem
tol'ko
ekh
troika
ptitsa
vydumal
liubit
hitryi
skhvachen
iamshchik
chert
vikhrem
tolko
Notice that the Basic Streamlined and ICAO transliterations use letters
only, without any additional symbols.
6. Reversibility
The Optimized Streamlined System for Russian is not reversible, for it
transliterates the Cyrillic letters and combinations of letters ж, ц, ш, щ, тш,
тщ, ю, я, ье, ьё, ьи, ьо and ьэ in the same way as зх, тс, сх, шч, цх, цхч,
йу, йа, йе, йё, йи, йо and йэ respectively. However, an auxiliary reversible
variant of the system could be appropriate for certain special purposes (such
as bibliographical documentation) where the exact retrieval of Russian words
from their Romanized forms is deemed a priority. Namely, one may take the
additional symbol · (interpunct) — or a conveniently available keyboard symbol
such as | (vertical bar), drop the option of skipping " and ', and transliterate
зх, тс, сх, шч, цх, цхч as z·h, t·s, s·h, sh·ch, ts·h, ts·hch respectively, and
й before у, а, е, ё, и, o and э as y·. The plain optimized transliteration word
form could be retrieved from its reversible variant by removing the additional
symbol ·.
Although some of the letter combinations considered here would be
infrequent or indeed unusual in Russian texts, they might occur in words of
non-Russian origins or in misspelled Russian words. Furthermore, taking care
of arbitrary Cyrillic letter combinations does not unnecessarily complicate the
application of the reversible system as the transliteration of a given Russian
text only depends on those members of the list зх, тс, сх, шч, цх, цхч, йу, йа,
йе, йё, йи, йо, йэ that actually occur in the text.
We use the sample words from the preceding section to illustrate some
differences between the reversible variant of the Streamlined System and the
ALA-LC system, also reversible.
71
Russian
Cyrillic
Reversible
Streamlined ALA-LC
эх
тройка
птица
выдумал
любит
хитрый
схвачен
ямщик
чёрт
вихрем
только
`eh
troyka
ptitsa
v`idumal
lyubit
hitr`iy
s·hvachen
yamshchik
ch``ert
vihrem
tol'ko
ėkh
troĭka
ptit
͡sa
vydumal
li
͡ubit
khitryĭ
skhvachen
i
͡amshchik
chërt
vikhrem
tol’ko
7. Conclusion
The Romanization of Russian Cyrillic is currently carried out by means of
several different transliteration systems (and their numerous versions), as well
as by a multitude of informal ad-hoc transliteration methods commonly known
as ‘translit’. Yet none of the existing systems has proved potentially capable of
gaining wider acceptance. We believe that the Streamlined System for Russian
introduced in the present work has certain advantages making it promising in
that respect.
The author is most grateful to Dimiter Skordev, Christo Stamenov and two
anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions.
References
Beloozerov 2014: Б е л о о з е р о в, В. Латинский алфавит для русских слов. –
Проблемы современного образования, 2014 № 2. 89–95. Available online at http://
www.pmedu.ru/res/2014_2_11.pdf (accessed 25 February 2017)
Danchev et al. 1989: D a n c h e v, A., M. H o l m a n, E. D i m o v a, M. S a v o v a. An
English Dictionary of Bulgarian Names: Spelling and Pronunciation. Sofi a, Nauka i
Izkustvo Publishers, 1989.
ДВ 2009: Закон за транслитерацията. Държавен вестник бр. 19, 13 март 2009, 6–8.
Available at http://dv.parliament.bg/DVWeb/showMaterialDV.jsp?idMat=16943
(accessed 25 February 2017).
ФАТРМ 2015: Национальный стандарт Российской Федерации ГОСТ Р 7.0.34–2014:
Правила упрощённой транслитерации русского письма латинским алфавитом.
Федеральное агентство по техническому регулированию и метрологии. Москва,
Стандартинформ, 2015. Available online at http://elib.pstu.ru/docview/docs/2503.
pdf (accessed 25 February 2017).
72
ICAO 2015: Transliteration of Cyrillic Characters. – In: Machine Readable Travel
Documents: Transliterations recommended for use by States. International Civil
Aviation Organization, 2015. Doc 9303 (Seventh Edition) Part 3. 33–34. Available
online at http://www.icao.int/publications/Documents/9303_p3_cons_en.pdf (accessed
25 February 2017).
IIHF 2011: IIHF Transcription of Russian. International Ice Hockey Federation,
February 2011. Available online at http://www.iihf.com/fi leadmin/user_upload/PDF/
TranscriptionRUS.pdf (accessed 25 February 2017).
Ivanov 1995: I v a n o v, L. Toponymic Guidelines for Antarctica. Antarctic Place-names
Commission of Bulgaria. Sofi a, 1995. Available online at https://en.wikisource.org/
wiki/Toponymic_Guidelines_for_Antarctica (accessed 25 February 2017).
Ivanov 2003: I v a n o v, L. On the Romanization of Bulgarian and English. – Contrastive
Linguistics, XXVIII/2. 109–118. Errata: id., XXIX/1. 157.
Ivanov et al. 2010: I v a n o v, L., D. S k o r d e v, D. D o b r e v. The New National
Standard for the Romanization of Bulgarian. – Mathematica Balkanica. New Series,
Vol. 24, Fasc. 1-2. 121–130. Available online at http://www.fmi.uni-sofi a.bg/fmi/logic/
skordev/B1-Ivanov-Skordev-Dobrev.pdf (accessed 25 February 2017).
LOC 2012: ALA-LC Romanization Tables: Russian. The Library of Congress, 2012.
Available online at https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/russian.pdf (accessed
25 February 2017).
NGA 2014: Romanization system for Bulgarian: BGN/PCGN 2013 System. National
Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, September 2014. Available online at http://geonames.
nga.mil/gns/html/Romanization/Romanization_Bulgarian.pdf (accessed 25 February
2017).
Selvelli 2015: S e l v e l l i, G. Su alcuni aspetti ideologici dei sistemi di traslitterazione
degli alfabeti cirillici nei Balcani. – Studi Slavistici XII. 159–180. Available online
at http://www.fupress.net/index.php/ss/article/download/17975/16784 (accessed 25
February 2017).
Streltsova et al. 2014: С т р е л ь ц о в а, О., М. Г л е б о в а, А. Д е р з а е в а. Адресные
таблички в Москве путают иностранцев. ТВ Центр, октябрь 2014. Available
online at http://www.tvc.ru/news/show/id/53538/ (accessed 25 February 2017).
UNGEGN 2013: Report on the Current Status of United Nations Romanization Systems
for Geographical Names: Bulgarian. Compiled by the UNGEGN Working Group on
Romanization Systems. Version 4.0, February 2013. Available online at http://www.
eki.ee/wgrs/rom1_bg.htm (accessed 25 February 2017).
USBGN 1994: Romanization System for Russian: BGN/PCGN 1947 System. – In:
Romanization Systems and Roman-Script Spelling Conventions. Defense Mapping
Agency, 1994. 93–94. Available online at http://libraries.ucsd.edu/bib/fed/USBGN_
romanization.pdf (accessed 25 February 2017).
Zaliznyak and Mikaelyan 2006: З а л и з н я к, A., И. М и к а э л я н. Переписка по
электронной почте как лингвистический объект. – In: Труды международной
конференции Диалог 2006 по компьютерной лингвистике и ее приложениям.
157–162. Available online at http://www.dialog-21.ru/digests/dialog2006/materials/
pdf/Zaliznyak.pdf (accessed 25 February 2017).
73
Обтекаема система за транслитерация на руската кирилица
Любомир Иванов
Институт по математика и информатика
Българска академия на науките
Настоящата работа въвежда Обтекаемата система за транслитерация
на руската кирилица с латиница и я сравнява с някои съществуващи стан-
дарти за транслитерация. Статията използва опита, натрупан в процеса
на разработката и внедряването на Обтекаемата система за транслите-
рация на българската кирилица, станала официална за България, ООН,
САЩ и Великобритания.
e-mail: lyubomail@yahoo.com
Institute of Mathematics and Informatics
Acad. Georgi Bonchev Street, Block 8
1113 Sofi a
