Cyrillization

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The Cyrillic letter Dwe, a commonly cited example of both Cyrillization and a native language's ability to influence its imposed writing system Cyrillic letter Dwe.svg
The Cyrillic letter Dwe, a commonly cited example of both Cyrillization and a native language's ability to influence its imposed writing system

Cyrillization or Cyrillisation is the process of rendering words of a language that normally uses a writing system other than Cyrillic script into (a version of) the Cyrillic alphabet. Although such a process has often been carried out in an ad hoc fashion, the term "cyrillization" usually refers to a consistent system applied, for example, to transcribe names of German, Chinese, or English people and places for use in Russian, Ukrainian, Serbian, Macedonian or Bulgarian newspapers and books. Cyrillization is analogous to romanization, when words from a non-Latin script-using language are rendered in the Latin alphabet for use (e.g., in English, German, or Francophone literature.)

Just as 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 (e.g., Spanish, Turkish), 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 Eastern Slavic languages:

Similarly, simple schemes are widely used to render words from Latin-script languages into Cyrillic-script languages.

When the source language does not use a particularly phonetic writing system—most notably English and French—its words are typically rendered in Russian, Ukrainian, or other Cyrillic-based languages using an approximate phonetic transcription system, which aims to allow the Cyrillic readers to approximate the sound of the source language as much as it is possible within the constraints of the destination language and its orthography. Among the examples are the Practical transcription of English into Russian (Russian : Правила англо-русской практической транскрипции), which aims to render English words into Russian based on their sounds, and Transliteration of foreign words by a Cyrillic alphabet (uk:Транслітерація іншомовних слів кирилицею) and Cyrillization of the English language (uk:Кирилізація англійської мови) in the case of Ukrainian. While this scheme is mostly accepted by a majority of Russian and Ukrainian 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, especially considering the fairly large number of French loanwords that have been borrowed into Russian.

See also

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The Cyrillic script, Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, North Asia, and East Asia, and used by many other minority languages.

Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters in predictable ways, such as Greek ⟨α⟩ → ⟨a⟩, Cyrillic ⟨д⟩ → ⟨d⟩, Greek ⟨χ⟩ → the digraph ⟨ch⟩, Armenian ⟨ն⟩ → ⟨n⟩ or Latin ⟨æ⟩ → ⟨ae⟩.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Romanization</span> Transliteration or transcription to Latin characters

Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and transcription, for representing the spoken word, and combinations of both. Transcription methods can be subdivided into phonemic transcription, which records the phonemes or units of semantic meaning in speech, and more strict phonetic transcription, which records speech sounds with precision.

Polivanov system is a system of transliterating the Japanese language into Russian Cyrillic script, either to represent Japanese proper names or terms in Russian or as an aid to Japanese language learning in those languages. The system was developed by Yevgeny Polivanov in 1917.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">I (Cyrillic)</span> Letter of the Cyrillic script

I is a letter used in almost all Cyrillic alphabets with the exception of Belarusian.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bulgarian alphabet</span> Writing system of the Bulgarian language

The Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet is used to write the Bulgarian language. The Cyrillic alphabet was originally developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 9th – 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Romanization of Russian</span> Romanization of the Russian alphabet

The romanization of the Russian language, aside from its primary use for including Russian names and words in text written in a Latin alphabet, is also essential for computer users to input Russian text who either do not have a keyboard or word processor set up for inputting Cyrillic, or else are not capable of typing rapidly using a native Russian keyboard layout (JCUKEN). 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Soft sign</span> Letter of the Cyrillic script


The soft sign is a letter in the Cyrillic script that is used in various Slavic languages. In Old Church Slavonic, it represented a short or reduced front vowel. However, over time, the specific vowel sound it denoted was largely eliminated and merged with other vowel sounds.

The romanization of Ukrainian, or Latinization of Ukrainian, is the representation of the Ukrainian language in Latin letters. Ukrainian is natively written in its own Ukrainian alphabet, which is based on the Cyrillic script. Romanization may be employed to represent Ukrainian text or pronunciation for non-Ukrainian readers, on computer systems that cannot reproduce Cyrillic characters, or for typists who are not familiar with the Ukrainian keyboard layout. Methods of romanization include transliteration and transcription.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ukrainian alphabet</span> Alphabet that uses letters from the Cyrillic script

The Ukrainian alphabet is the set of letters used to write Ukrainian, which is the official language of Ukraine. It is one of several national variations of the Cyrillic script. It comes from the Cyrillic script, which was devised in the 9th century for the first Slavic literary language, called Old Slavonic. In the 10th century, it became used in Kievan Rus' to write Old East Slavic, from which the Belarusian, Russian, Rusyn, and Ukrainian alphabets later evolved. The modern Ukrainian alphabet has 33 letters in total: 20 consonants, 2 semivowels, 10 vowels and 1 palatalization sign. Sometimes the apostrophe (') is also included, which has a phonetic meaning and is a mandatory sign in writing, but is not considered as a letter and is not included in the alphabet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Romanization of Bulgarian</span> Transliteration of Bulgarian text

Romanization of Bulgarian is the practice of transliteration of text in Bulgarian from its conventional Cyrillic orthography into the Latin alphabet. Romanization can be used for various purposes, such as rendering of proper names and place names in foreign-language contexts, or for informal writing of Bulgarian in environments where Cyrillic is not easily available. Official use of romanization by Bulgarian authorities is found, for instance, in identity documents and in road signage. Several different standards of transliteration exist, one of which was chosen and made mandatory for common use by the Bulgarian authorities in a law of 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hard sign</span> Letter of the Cyrillic script

The letter Ъ of the Cyrillic script is known as er golyam in the Bulgarian alphabet, as the hard sign in the modern Russian and Rusyn alphabets, as the debelo jer in pre-reform Serbian orthography, and as ayirish belgisi in the Uzbek Cyrillic alphabet. The letter is called back yer or back jer and yor or jor in the pre-reform Russian orthography, in Old East Slavic, and in Old Church Slavonic.

The romanization of Macedonian is the transliteration of text in Macedonian from the Macedonian Cyrillic alphabet into the Latin alphabet. Romanization can be used for various purposes, such as rendering of proper names in foreign contexts, or for informal writing of Macedonian in environments where Cyrillic is not easily available. Official use of romanization by North Macedonia's authorities is found, for instance, on road signage and in passports. Several different codified standards of transliteration currently exist and there is widespread variability in practice.

Informal or ad hoc romanizations of Cyrillic have been in use since the early days of electronic communications, starting from early e-mail and bulletin board systems. Their use faded with the advances in the Russian internet that made support of Cyrillic script standard, but resurfaced with the proliferation of instant messaging, SMS and mobile phone messaging in Russia.

The cyrillization of Chinese is the transcription of Chinese characters into the Cyrillic alphabet.

Orthographic transcription is a transcription method that employs the standard spelling system of each target language.

Cyrillization of Greek refers to the transcription or transliteration of text from the Greek alphabet to the Cyrillic script.

Cyrillization of Arabic is the conversion of text written in Arabic script into Cyrillic script. Because the Arabic script is an abjad, an accurate transliteration into Cyrillic, an alphabet, would still require prior knowledge of the subject language to read. Instead, systems of transcription have normally been used.

The cyrillization of Japanese is the process of transliterating or transcribing the Japanese language into Cyrillic script in order to represent Japanese proper names or terms in various languages that use Cyrillic, as an aid to Japanese language learning in those languages or as a potential replacement for the current Japanese writing system. This can be done in an ad hoc fashion or using one of a number of systems.

Latin-script German words are transcribed into Cyrillic-script languages according to rules based on pronunciation. Because German orthography is largely phonemic, transcription into Cyrillic follows relatively simple rules.

References

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