The writing of the Russian language is based on the Cyrillic script. However, most world languages use the Latin alphabet for this. Later in the article we will tell you how to write correctly in Latin letters. This is a very important skill that can be useful in any situation. As an example, you need to be able to write your name correctly in Latin when traveling abroad.
History of the Latin alphabet
Historically, the Latin alphabet is divided into archaic and classical. The first of them is very similar to Greek, from which it probably originated.
The original alphabet included 27 letters, some of which were practically not used. The classical alphabet included 23 letters. Latin was official language V Ancient Rome, and thanks to Roman expansion this alphabet became widespread. In progress historical development Several more letters were added to the Latin alphabet, and at the moment the “basic Latin alphabet” has 26 letters and is completely identical to modern English.
However, almost every language that currently uses the Latin alphabet has its own additional Latin characters, such as the letter "thorn" (Þ), which is used in Icelandic. And there are many examples of such expansion of the Latin alphabet.
How to write capital Latin letters that are part of the “basic Latin alphabet”? There are several rules. And according to them, some capital letters are smaller copies of capital letters, while some letters are slightly different.
Russian Latin alphabet
The very first cases of using the Latin alphabet to write East Slavic languages date back to the period of the 16th-17th centuries, when the Latin alphabet appeared in documents of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Later, on the territory of the Russian state, the question of changing the Cyrillic alphabet to the Latin alphabet was repeatedly raised. Initially, this idea appeared to Peter I, who, against the backdrop of economic transformations with a European bias, also conceived a language reform. However, Peter never fulfilled this desire.
Calls for a change to the alphabet intensified even more in the 19th century. Representatives of the “Westernization” movement especially advocated for this. And again, there was no change in the alphabet. After all, opponents of the Latin alphabet had many supporters. Including Minister Uvarov, the author of the theory of official nationality. The introduction of the Latin alphabet, according to opponents of the transition, would mean a loss of cultural uniqueness.
After the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks planned to transfer all nationalities to the Latin alphabet. Several options for the Russian language were proposed. However, the period of “Romanization” quickly ended, and the leadership of the USSR began, on the contrary, to translate all languages into Cyrillic. After this, the issue of changing the alphabet in the USSR was closed.
After the fall of the communist regime, the issue of parallel circulation of the Cyrillic alphabet with the Latin alphabet, as in Uzbekistan, was also repeatedly raised, but the public blocked such proposals. Despite all the ambiguity of this issue, the introduction of the Latin alphabet could be useful for the Russian language. This would leave it open to further cultural expansion. But the introduction of the Latin alphabet in the Russian language also has a small disadvantage - it will be difficult for the older generation to understand how to write in Latin letters.
Transliteration from Cyrillic to Latin
There are no uniform rules for transliteration from Cyrillic to Latin. However, currently in the Russian Federation a certain standard is used, which is adhered to by employees of the Federal Migration Service.
It is periodically criticized, but accepted as official. It replaces letters that are not in the Latin alphabet with phrases: E, Sh, Shch, Yu, Zh, Ts, Ch, Ya. The remaining letters are virtually identical to their Latin counterparts.
How to write last name and first name
Typically, this procedure must be completed when obtaining a foreign passport or visas. All documents that require transliteration are completed according to the ISO 9 rule, which is followed by the Federal Migration Service. According to this rule, surnames are translated into Latin. We offer you a transliteration scale.
Thanks to this table, you can write any word written in Cyrillic in Latin. For example, Ivanovich in Latin will be Ivanov Ivan Ivanovich.
Conclusion
The debate about what alphabet the Russian language requires has not subsided for a long time. Each of the opinions has its own advantages and disadvantages. Discussions have been going on in our country for centuries, and there is no end in sight. However, being able to write in Latin letters is a fairly important skill. It can be useful when obtaining a foreign passport, visa, or processing documents in other countries.
In this article we showed how to correctly write your first and last name in Latin. But that's not all. Using the table given here, you can write any Cyrillic word in Latin. We hope that after reading this article you understand how to write in Latin letters.
Transliteration of the Russian alphabet in Latin- transmission of letters, words, expressions and related texts written using the Russian alphabet (Cyrillic) using the Latin alphabet.
ISO 9:1995- the current standard adopted by the International Organization for Standardization. According to this standard, each letter of the Cyrillic alphabets uniquely corresponds to one letter of the Latin alphabet (including diacritics), regardless of the position of the letter and the language of the original text. The standard allows you to transliterate any Cyrillic text in any modern language into Latin, and then restore the original using the transliteration.
| Letter | Driver's license certificate (2000) |
international passport (1997-2010) |
GOST R 52535.1-2006 | System B GOST 7.79-2000 |
ALA-LC | BGN/PCGN |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| e | e, ye | e, ye | e | e | e | e, ye |
| e | e, yo, ye | e, ye | e | yo | ë | ë, yë |
| And | i, yi | i | i | i | i | i |
| th | y | y | i | j | ĭ | y |
| X | kh | kh | kh | x | kh | kh |
| ts | ts | ts | tc | c, cz | t͡s | ts |
| b | " | " | not displayed | " | " | " |
| ъ | " | "" | not displayed | "" | "" | "" |
| Yu | yu | yu | iu | yu | i͡u | yu |
| I | ya | ya | ia | ya | i͡a | ya |
Notes:
1: At the beginning of words, as well as after vowels and b, b. 2: After consonants Ch, Sh, Shch, Zh. 3: After consonants, except Ch, Sh, Shch, Zh. 4: After b (Vasilyev) 5: After b. 6: Recommended to use c before letters e, i, y, j; And cz- in other cases.
International telegrams
When composing an international telegram originating from Russia in Russian, it must be written in Latin letters. For this, the transliteration table defined by the Instructions on the procedure for processing international telegrams in post offices, approved by the Ministry of the Russian Federation for Communications and Informatization in 2001, should be used.
UN transliteration system
UN transliteration system developed by the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN) and was officially adopted in 1987 at the Fifth UN Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names in Montreal. Recommended for transliteration of geographical names and can be used in the production of maps. Almost identical to ISO/R 9 and GOST 16876-71, but differs from GOST 7.79-2000 in the display of the letters Shch, Yu, Ya.
BGN/PCGN system
Main article: Transliteration BGN/PCGN
BGN/PCGN system- standard adopted by the US Geographical Names Commission (in 1944) and the UK Standing Committee on Geographical Names (in 1947) for the transmission of geographical names. It is essentially a standardization of the existing practice of transferring Russian names and is well understood by native speakers in English. The standard does not use diacritics or unusual letters. In the strict version of the standard, the midpoint (·) may be used to avoid ambiguities.
In practice, a simplified version of the standard is often used, in which the letter e transmitted as yo, endings -th And th simplified to -y(but not -iy And -yy), and apostrophes conveying letters are omitted b And ъ. A similar system has been adopted for the transfer of Russian names and titles in the English Wikipedia (see BGN/PCGN romanization of Russian).
Library systems
ALA-LC
Transliteration system of the American Library Association and the Library of Congress- used by libraries in the USA, Canada and Great Britain since 1975 (updated 1997).
It has two versions - practical and strict. The latter uses diacritics, and the letters of some digraphs are connected at the top by a bow.
British standard
BS 2979:1958- the main system used by Oxford University Press and used by the British Library until 1975.
Comparative table of transliteration systems
| Scientific | ISO 9:1995 GOST 7.79-2000 |
ISO/R 9 (1968), GOST 16876-71, ST SEV 1362-78, UN (1987) |
BGN/PCGN (1944) | British standard (1958) |
ALA-LC | GOST R 52535.1-2006 | International telegrams | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| system A | system B | Table 1 | table 2 | |||||||
| Ah, ah | a | |||||||||
| B, b | b | |||||||||
| In, in | v | |||||||||
| G, g | g | |||||||||
| D, d | d | |||||||||
| Her | e | e | e | e,je | e | e, ye | e | e | E | e |
| Her | ë | ë | yo | ë | jo | ë, yë | ë | ë | E | e |
| F, F | ž | ž | zh | ž | zh | zh | zh | zh | ZH | j |
| Z, z | z | |||||||||
| And, and | i | |||||||||
| Y, y | j | j | j | j | jj | y | ĭ | ĭ | I | i |
| K, k | k | |||||||||
| L, l | l | |||||||||
| Mm | m | |||||||||
| N, n | n | |||||||||
| Oh oh | o | |||||||||
| P, p | p | |||||||||
| R, R | r | |||||||||
| With, with | s | |||||||||
| T, t | t | |||||||||
| Uh, uh | u | |||||||||
| F, f | f | |||||||||
| X, x | ch, x | h | x | h, ch | kh | kh | kh | kh | KH | h |
| Ts, ts | c | c | cz, c | c | c | ts | ts | t͡s | TC | c |
| H, h | č | č | ch | č | ch | ch | ch | ch | CH | ch |
| Sh, sh | š | š | sh | š | sh | sh | sh | sh | SH | sh |
| sch, sch | šč | ŝ | shh | ŝ, šč | shh | shch | shch | shch | SHCH | sc |
| b, b | ″ | ″ | `` | ″ | ″ | ″ | ″ | ″ | - | - |
| Y, y | y | y | y` | y | y | y | ȳ(ui) | y | Y | y |
| b, b | ′ | ′ | ` | ′ | ′ | ′ | ′ | ′ | - | - |
| Uh, uh | è | è | e` | è | eh | e | é | ė | E | e |
| Yu, Yu | ju | û | yu | û, ju | ju | yu | yu | i͡u | IU | iu |
| I, I | ja | â | ya | â, ja | ja | ya | ya | i͡a | I.A. | ia |
Notes:
1: Valid alternatives. 2: According to the order of the GUGK No. 231p for 1983 and the following UN recommendations for 1987 for e, x, c, sch, yu, i V geographical names are used only e, h, c, šč, ju, ja. 3: At the beginning of words and after vowels. 4: Recommended to use c before letters e, i, y, j; And cz- in other cases. 5: The correspondence for the characters of the Russian alphabet Ъ and ь is not defined by the standard. 6: Russian letters Ъ and ь should not be used when transliterating telegrams; correspondence for them has not been established. 7: For technical reasons, only capital letters are used in documents.
Transliteration systems based on specific languages
There are also traditional systems built taking into account the characteristics of a particular language. They were actively used until the middle of the 20th century before the adoption of international systems.
German is used in the German Wikipedia and in German publications (for example, in Duden). The French one was used in Soviet-style international passports.
| German | French | |
|---|---|---|
| Ah, ah | a | a |
| B, b | b | b |
| In, in | w | v |
| G, g | g; w (at the end -th/-his) | g; gu (before e, i) |
| D, d | d | d |
| Her | e; je (at the beginning of words and after vowels) | e; ïe (after a vowel, but not after “and”); ie (at the beginning of words, after “ь” and “ъ”) |
| Her | jo; o (after hissing ones) | io; e (in some traditional spellings) |
| F, F | sch (or sh) | j |
| Z, z | s | z |
| And, and | i | i; ï (after a vowel, but not after “and”) |
| Y, y | i (after vowels); j (at the beginning of syllables); (in endings -th/-th omitted) | ï; (in endings -th, th omitted) |
| K, k | k; ("ks" = x) | k; ("ks" = x) |
| L, l | l | l |
| Mm | m | m |
| N, n | n | n; ne (at the end of words after “and”, “s”, “y”) |
| Oh oh | o | o |
| P, p | p | p |
| R, R | r | r |
| With, with | s, ss (between vowels) | s; ss (between vowels) |
| T, t | t | t |
| Uh, uh | u | ou; u (in some traditional spellings) |
| F, f | f | f |
| X, x | ch | kh |
| Ts, ts | z | ts |
| H, h | tsch | tch |
| Sh, sh | sch | ch |
| sch, sch | schtsch (or stsch) | chtch |
| b, b | (lowered); j (before "e") | (lowers) |
| Y, y | y | y |
| b, b | " (or omitted); j (before "e" and "i") | " (or omitted) |
| Uh, uh | e | e |
| Yu, Yu | ju | iou; ïou (after a vowel, but not after “and”); ou (after “and”); you (in some traditional spellings) |
| I, I | ja | ia; ïa (after a vowel, but not after “and”); a (after “and”); ya (in some traditional spellings) |
see also
- Translit (spontaneous practice of transmitting the Russian language in Latin letters in SMS and the computer sphere)
- Russian Latin alphabet (proposals for the transition of the Russian language to the Latin alphabet)
- Latinization (a campaign to translate the writings of the peoples of the USSR into the Latin alphabet, carried out in the 1920s - 1930s)
- Romanization (transmission of non-Latin writing using the extended Latin alphabet)
- Wikipedia:Romanization of Russian - rules for transliteration of the Russian language adopted in the English section of Wikipedia.
Notes
Links
Services
- Translitor.net - online service Cyrillic transliterations
- Translit.ru - transliterator for Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian languages
Documentation
- GOST 7.79-2000: System of standards for information, library and publishing. Rules for transliteration of the Cyrillic script into the Latin alphabet
- Order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation of May 26, 1997 N 310 “On approval of the Instructions on the procedure for issuing and issuing passports to citizens of the Russian Federation for leaving the Russian Federation and entering the Russian Federation” (lost force from March 16, 2010)
- Orders for the Main Directorate of Geodesy and Cartography under the Council of Ministers of the USSR
Below is a table of correspondence between the letters of the Russian alphabet and the letters of the Latin alphabet.
|
Table of correspondence between Russian letters and Latin letters |
|||
| Russian | Latin | Russian | Latin |
| A | A | P | P |
| B | B | R | R |
| IN | V,W | WITH | S |
| G | G | T | T |
| D | D | U | U, OU |
| E | E | F | F, PH |
| Yo | YO | X | KH, H |
| AND | ZH | C | T.S. |
| Z | Z | H | CH, TCH |
| AND | I | Sh | SH |
| Y | Y | SCH | SCH |
| TO | K | Y | Y |
| L | L | E | E |
| M | M | YU | YU, IU |
| N | N | I | YA, JA |
| ABOUT | O | ||
A table of correspondence between Russian letters and Latin letters can be useful when selecting a domain name if the domain name must be read in Russian. The table is useful when creating file names that are intended to be published on the Internet. The correct Latin spelling of file names will undoubtedly tell the user what he is going to download from a particular link.
It won’t hurt to remember the abbreviation “CNC” (human-readable URL) or the foreign expression “Friendly URL” (URL - Uniform Resource Locator, a unique address of a page on the Internet). These concepts talk about the same thing, about readable and understandable addresses on WEB pages on the Internet. A clear URL gives the user more confidence when deciding whether to click on a given link or not.
It should also be noted that search engines are good at reading and translating the names of site pages and use them when responding to a search query. If the page name contains a word from the user's request, then it is highlighted in bold in the search engine results. Little is known to what extent page names influence the relevance of a site when a search engine responds to a user’s query. One thing is for sure, CNCs are useful for visitors to your site, which means they should be used. The table of correspondence between Russian letters and Latin analogues will help you with this.
A couple of CNC examples:
http://avto.ru/prodazha/bu_avtomobili/bmw_x5_2007.html
After reading this URL, it becomes clear that the page it represents contains an advertisement for the sale of a 2007 BMW X5.
http://lib.ru/arhiv/statya-kak-kormit-sobaku.html
Looking at this URL, you can tell that the link is an article that talks about how to feed a dog.
From the examples you can see that the words in the page titles are separated by a dash and an underscore. Folder names tell the user which group the page located at a particular address can be assigned to. Domain names make it clear what can be located on the sites that are linked to them.
Before as create a website page with a readable address, you can try typing the page name in Latin in Yandex or Google search. If the search engine tries to tell you how to correctly write a query in Russian, it means that the name of your page does not contain errors. Do not forget, before making a request in a search engine, remove all underscores and dashes from the page name.
There is nothing more natural than starting to learn English by writing your own name in letters of the Latin alphabet.
Writing Russian names in English often causes difficulties, largely because there are no uniform rules in this regard. However, a set of general principles can still be defined.
- Read further in our article about the special transliteration rules currently used when issuing foreign passports.
General rules for transliterating names
The first thing to remember is first and last names are not translated, especially when it comes to documents and business correspondence. You should not select English-language analogues and call Elena Helen, and Mikhail Michael. Instead, the name should be transliterated, that is, write in Latin. In this case, you can use the following correspondence system:
| A | A | Andrey (Andrey) | ABOUT | ABOUT | Olga (Olga) |
| B | B | Boris (Boris) | P | P | Pavel (Pavel) |
| IN | V | Valery (Valery) | R | R | Roman |
| G | G | Gleb (Gleb) | WITH | S | Sergey (Sergey) |
| D | D | Dmitry (Dmitry) | T | T | Tatyana (Tatyana) |
| E | Ye/E | Yelena, Elena (Elena) | U | U | Ulyana (Ulyana) |
| Yo | Yo/E | Pyotr, Petr (Peter) | F | F | Philip (Philip) |
| AND | Zh | Zhanna (Zhanna) | X | Kh | Khariton (Khariton) |
| Z | Z | Zinaida (Zinaida) | C | Ts | Tsarev (Tsarev) |
| AND | I | Irina (Irina) | H | Ch | Chaykin (Chaykin) |
| Y | Y | Timofe y(Timofe th) | Sh | Sh | Sharov (Sharov) |
| K | K | Konstantin (Konstantin) | SCH | Shch | Shchepkin (Shchepkin) |
| L | L | Larisa (Larissa) | Y | Y | M y skin (M s skin) |
| M | M | Margarita (Margarita) | E | E | Eldar (Eldar) |
| N | N | Nikolay (Nikolai) | YU | Yu | Yury (Yuri) |
| I | Ya | Yaroslav (Yaroslav) |
Special rules for transliterating names
Apart from the more obvious rules of transliteration, there are cases where it is not entirely clear how a given name should be written. Let's look at these options.
Letters b And Kommersant are not transmitted in transliteration. Using an apostrophe (") in their place is also not recommended:
- Daria - Darya
- Igor
- Olga - Olga
Letters Y And Y transmitted by letter Y:
- Bystrov
- Sadyrova
- Mayorov
If the last name ends with "th", remains in transliteration "-y":
- White
Since the letter H sometimes unreadable in English, to convey Russian sound "X" combination is used KH:
- Akhmatova
- Rakhmaninov
Russian combination KS better to convey in letters KS, but not X:
- Ksenia — Ksenia
- Alexander - Alexander
If the letter E denotes one sound (as in the name Vera), it is represented by a Latin letter E— Vera. If it denotes two sounds (after a soft sign), it is conveyed by the combination YE— Astafyev.
But: If E stands at the beginning of the name, both options are possible: the name Elena can be written as Elena or Yelena.
Letter E usually written the same way as E, but if you want to emphasize the pronunciation of the name, then you should use the letter combination YO— Fyodor, Pyotr.
Letter Ш can be written in the form SCH, but in German this combination will be read as "sh". In order to avoid confusion, it is recommended to use a seemingly unpronounceable combination of letters SHCH.
Ending "-and I" can be transliterated as -IA or -IYA. However, to avoid unnecessary bulkiness, Y usually don't write:
- Maria - Maria
- Valeria — Valeria
Important note: transliteration when issuing international passports
Transliteration rules for registration foreign passports change often. At the moment, as of 2015, the following transliteration rules apply (we present the differences from the main table):
- Previously, when issuing foreign passports, the rules of GOST R 52535.1-2006, introduced in 2010, were used.
If you want the previous spelling of your first and last name to be retained when receiving a new passport, you can write a corresponding application to the issuing authority, duly justifying your desire. The basis for such an application is the presence of documents with a different spelling of your first and last name: passports, diplomas, residence permits, visas, as well as other registration and banking documents, including bank cards.
It will help you perform the correct transliteration from Russian into English of the necessary data: names, titles, URLs of website pages. Transliteration online (translit online) is a convenient and easy-to-use program that will make your work easier and help you correctly present the necessary information in Latin.
Advantages of our online transliterator:
- Taken into account the rules of various systems;
- Ready URL for inserting into the site;
- Online translation in real time.
Use proven resources and don’t waste time on lengthy transliteration!
Translit online
Below you can find out what transliteration is and also get acquainted with the main transliteration systems.
What is transliteration?
Transliteration is the most correct and relatively easy way of transmitting text written in one alphabetic system through another, for example, Russian words in Latin letters. This method was developed by Schleicher and is still in demand. This is logical, because thanks to this method it becomes possible to correctly and accurately issue a driver’s license, international passport, diplomas and other documents.
In other words, this is the rendering of Russian words in Latin letters (in English), that is, the representation of Russian words using the English alphabet. For example, “goodbye” will sound not “bye”, but “dosvidaniya”.
Where is it used?
Initially, transliteration from English into Russian was studied and used mainly by translators, but today the scope of its use has expanded significantly. Transliteration has become very popular on the Internet.
When translating, professional translators use the transliteration method if:
- It is necessary to write your full name in documents, addresses (streets), as well as other Russian letters in Latin letters. For example, Kovalenko - Kovalenko; Lebedinaya street - ylitsa Lebedinaya;
- We are talking about the realities of a locality or country that have no designation in the target language or there is a need to emphasize the flavor of the language. So, we can cite as an example the well-known borscht, which is translated as “borsch”, grandmother - “babushka”.
If we talk about Internet technologies, then transliteration into English serves to:
- Come up with a name for the site. Despite the English letters, many site names are easy to read in Russian.
Use in correspondence or online communication. Here letters are often replaced by numbers or other symbols. H is often expressed in writing as 4. Cap - Shapo4ka. It is also a favorite method of communication for gamers, who often use transliteration into English.
The most popular transliteration systems
There are various transliteration systems. They may have some differences between them. We propose to consider several of the most current methods transliteration.
Transliteration according to GOST. This is an approved document that defines how to transliterate Cyrillic languages using the Latin alphabet. GOST 7.79-2000 - adapted to the international standard ISO9, adopted in Russia.
Transliteration for documents according to ICAO requirements. ICAO stands for International Organization civil aviation. This organization has developed its own system of transliteration of surnames and given names. This system is often included in online transliteration from Russian into English.
Transliteration using the TYP system(Traveller's Yellow Pages Transliteration). Despite the wide variety of transliteration systems, this system is quite popular and most used. It has its own distinctive rules for transliteration from Russian to English, which can be seen in the table below.
Transliteration by order of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs N 4271 used for issuing international passports.
Transliteration by order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs N 995 used for issuing driver's licenses and at the moment (2018) coincides with the transliteration for international passports.
Transliteration for Yandex. Often, the name of the article itself in English letters is used as the title of the site page. To achieve good results in search engines, you need to use the Yandex algorithm.
When transliterating some letters of Russian (or any other Slavic language), such as sch, c, s, ch, y, zh, yu, in English cause the greatest difficulties. Let's look at how they are transliterated according to the systems discussed above using a summary transliteration table.
Final table of transliteration from Russian to English
Below is a summary table for transliteration from Russian into English, which shows the systems discussed above.
|
Russian letters |
TYP system |
ICAO system |
GOST 7.79-2000 |
Orders of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs N 4271 / Ministry of Internal Affairs N 995 |
|
|
You may be interested in studying the topic of English letters and sounds in more detail. With the help of the online tutorial Lim English, you can take a specialized course on this topic. and start some fun activities! |
