# All Slavic languages: Cyrillic > Latin Script



## janecito

I was just wondering... what transcription system (u.e. system of transcrabing cyrillic into latin alphabet) is used in your country? This is the one I was taught at school and we were told that kind of "Slavic" transcription. I know that in English speaking countries they use a diferent substitutes for certain characters...

*А - a
Б - b
В - v
Г - g
Д - d
Е - e
З - z
Ж - ž
И - i
Й - j
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 - c
Ч - č
Ш - š
Щ - šč
Э - è
Ю - ju
Я - ja
Ы - y
ь - '
ъ - ''


Я очень люблю мoроженое. > Ja očen' ljublju moroženoe.

*I gave Russian as an example, but it goes for ather languages using Cyrillic as well (with some necessary additions etc., of course).


----------



## Etcetera

We use transliteration very often, for example, when writing sms. 
And Russian letters are normally transliterated as such:
*А - a
Б - b
В - v
Г - g
Д - d
Е - e
З - z
Ж - zh
И - i
Й - j
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 - c
Ч - ch
Ш - sh
Щ - sch *or (less frequently) *shch*
* Э - e
Ю - yu *(*ju* is also possible)
* Я - ya *(*ja* is also possible)
* Ы - y
ь - '
ъ - '
**
Я очень люблю мoроженое. > Ya ochen' lyublyu morozhenoe. 
*
There's many other variants of writing in Russian using Latin letters, for example, 3 (number) can be used to represent *З*. 
But that's the most popular and most widely acknowledged system.


----------



## janecito

Oh, thanks. I see that basically it's the same. Of course, you cannot use diacritical marks in SMSs.  So the help of H is needed (č, š, ž, šč > ch, sh, zh, s(h)ch).

So you don't make any distinction between твердый and мягкий знак? They are both ' ?


----------



## Etcetera

In fact, in books on the English language published by our Faculty of Philology in 1960s-1970s, ч, ш, ж, щ are transliterated as č, š, ž, šč. 
But in recent years (since 1990, I think) ch, sh, zh, sch are used much more frequently. I guess that's because the Russian ч and ш, for example, sounds rather close to the English 'ch' and 'sh', so it's easier to read fro a learner of English. 


> So you don't make any distinction between твердый and мягкий знак? They are both ' ?


They are. The difference between ь and ъ isn't so clear in many words, actually.  For example, адъютант and *адьютант sounds almost the same, and people sometimes get confused with the correct spelling. 
In sms, we (I mean, me and my friends) always use ' both for ь and ъ.


----------



## Anatoli

There is no standard transliteration but what Etcetera provided is used normally. I would change

Й - y (sometimes i), it is skipped in "ий" endings, Gor'ky or Gorky
Raikin/Raykin
Х - kh - Khar'kov/Kharkiv (Ukrainian)

Both ь and ъ can be rendered as "y" in front of a vowel (Vyuga). The role of letters is different but transliteration may be the same. After consonants ь is often skipped, ' is only given if you want to show palatalisation. Khar'kov -> Kharkov


----------



## natasha2000

Serbian uses both alphabets:

Аа - Aa
Бб - Bb
Вв - Vv
Гг - Gg
Дд - Dd
Ђђ – Đđ (Dj dj)
Ее - Ee
Жж - Žž
Зз - Zz
Ии - Ii
Јј - Jj
Кк - Kk
Лл - Ll
Мм -Mm
Нн - Nn
Њњ – Nj nj 
Оо - Oo
Пп - Pp
Рр - Rr
Сс - Ss
Тт - Tt
Ћћ -Ćć
Уу – Uu
Фф - Ff
Хх - Hh
Цц - Cc
Чч - Čč
Џџ - Dž dž
Шш - Šš


----------



## janecito

OK, I guess the colloquial, everyday use of transcription (like in SMS messages etc.) is quite open to personal interpretations and new ideas (the "economic" use of language would the the priority here, I'm guessing). But in academic, let's say scientific use there has to be a strict system that eliminates any ambiguity and possible misinterpretation. I guess with the modern technology that is not a problem any more as everyone can use Cyrillic when writing using a computer. But before, let's say, when people were writing articles (that included Russian, Bulgarian etc. text) on the old-fashioned typewriters (that only had Latin letters) that was different. And they had to stick to a system of transliteration that only allowed one interpretation. Using I sometimes for Й and also for И would give us the desired results.  Anyone (even someone who doesn't even speak the language) should be able to put the text back into Cyrillic simply buy changing letter by letter.



			
				natasha2000 said:
			
		

> Serbian uses both alphabets


 
Yes, in Serbian it's pretty clear. No room for discussion as both alphabet are officially used.  Oh, and thank you for putting down the whole alphabet – I always have doubts as to the Cyrillic equivalents of such letters as Ć, Đ, Nj, Lj, Dž.


----------



## werrr

*Czech*

_universaly for all languages:_

*А - a
Б - b
В - v
Д - d
Ж - ž
З - z
Й - j
К - k
Л - l
М - m
Н - n
О - o
П - p
Р - r
С - s
Т - t
У - u
Ф - f
Ц - c
Ч - č
Ш - š*

_Rest is dependent on language. For Russian:_

*Е*
- je ... at the beginning of word, after vocal or jer
- ě ... after д, т and н
- e ... otherwise (and after д, т and н in words of foreign origin)

*Ё - jo* ... everywhere excluding after д, т, н, ж, ш, ч and щ 
дё - ďo
тё - ťo
нё - ňo 
жё - žo
шё - šo
чё - čo 
щё - ščo

*Э - e*

*И*
- ji ... after ь
- i ... otherwise

*ъ (')* - omitted

*ь* - omitted excluding after д, т and н
дь - ď
ть - ť
нь - ň

*ы - y*

*Ю - ju* excluding after д, т and н
дю - ďu
тю - ťu
ню - ňu

*Я - ja* excluding after д, т and н
дя - ďa
тя - ťa
ня - ňa

*Г - g*

*Х - ch*

*Щ - šč*

Я очень люблю мoроженое. > Ja očeň ljublju moroženoe.


----------



## janecito

werrr said:
			
		

> *Czech*
> _universaly for all languages_



Thank you for the contribution. Specially the second part looks interesting (and a bit intriguing). It's very close to the phonetic transcription already. But is there a way of marking the difference between *чо* and *чё* or are they both transcribed as *čo*? The same goes for *шо*/*шё* etc.


----------



## werrr

janecito said:
			
		

> Thank you for the contribution. Specially the second part looks interesting (and a bit intriguing). It's very close to the phonetic transcription already. But is there a way of marking the difference between *чо* and *чё* or are they both transcribed as *čo*? The same goes for *шо*/*шё* etc.


No, this difference isn't marked since we've no available phones in Czech.

BTW, what about "З - y" in your first post? QWERTY vs QWERTZ?


----------



## janecito

werrr said:
			
		

> BTW, what about "З - y" in your first post? QWERTY vs QWERTZ?



That was a mistake, of course. Thank you for noticing it.  I've edited my post.


----------



## Insider

In Ukrainian language we also transcrabe from it to Latin script. We usually are trascrabing while writing short messages, when people live in foreign country and they don't ukrainian letters on a keyboard.

Transcrabing system from Ukrainian to Latin is only one, but basically almost noboby uses its correctly, just people who have relation with philology.

By the way, there was a futurism movement in Ukraine, in 1914-1930. As it known, they were quite strange people and artists, and they did some changes while they're writing their poems or articles. The most weird for ukrainian people were the usage of latin script in that times. There is quite big difference between nowadays trascrabe system and that times transcrabe system.


----------



## cyanista

Belarusian _Łacinka._

Belarusian written in Łacinka looks fairly similar to Polish.  But as far as I know, our "short u" ( у к_*ароткае*_ - ў in Cyrillic and ŭ in Łacinka) is a unique letter.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Łacinka


----------



## Maja

natasha2000 said:
			
		

> Serbian uses both alphabets:
> Аа - Aa;   Бб - Bb;  Вв - Vv;   Гг - Gg;   Дд - Dd;   Ђђ – Đđ (Dj dj);   Ее - Ee;  Жж - Žž;  Зз - Zz;   Ии - Ii;    Јј - Jj;   Кк - Kk;   Лл - Ll;   Мм -Mm;
> Нн - Nn; Њњ – Nj nj;  Оо - Oo;  Пп - Pp;  Рр - Rr;   Сс - Ss;  Тт - Tt;   Ћћ -Ćć;  Уу – Uu; Фф - Ff;  Хх - Hh;  Цц - Cc;  Чч - Čč;   Џџ - Dž dž;    Шш - Šš;


Just to add to Nataša's post, that in sms messages and email, we usually use latinic and write "š" as "s"; "ć" and "č" as "c"; "ž" as "z"; and "đ" as "dj".


----------



## ekhlewagastiR

Etcetera said:
			
		

> We use transliteration very often, for example, when writing sms.
> And Russian letters are normally transliterated as such:
> *Ц - c *


 
Yes, I would only change this:
*Ц - ts*
I think it´s more frequent and not so confusing.

I often see inow in the mails for example that 4 is used instead of "ch", but it´s "colloquial".


----------



## natasha2000

natasha2000 said:
			
		

> Serbian uses both alphabets:
> 
> Аа - Aa
> Бб - Bb
> Вв - Vv
> Гг - Gg
> Дд - Dd
> Ђђ – Đđ (Dj dj)
> Ее - Ee
> Жж - Žž
> Зз - Zz
> Ии - Ii
> Јј - Jj
> Кк - Kk
> Лл - Ll
> Љљ- Lj lj
> Мм -Mm
> Нн - Nn
> Њњ – Nj nj
> Оо - Oo
> Пп - Pp
> Рр - Rr
> Сс - Ss
> Тт - Tt
> Ћћ -Ćć
> Уу – Uu
> Фф - Ff
> Хх - Hh
> Цц - Cc
> Чч - Čč
> Џџ - Dž dž
> Шш - Šš


 
I have just noticed LJ is missing. Sorry.


----------



## natasha2000

Maja said:
			
		

> Just to add to Nataša's post, that in sms messages and email, we usually use latinic and write "š" as "s"; "ć" and "č" as "c"; "ž" as "z"; and "đ" as "dj".


 
This is called popularilly "alphabet with a haircut" (ošišana abeceda)....


----------



## Maja

natasha2000 said:
			
		

> This is called popularilly "alphabet with a haircut" (ošišana abeceda)....


 Super


----------

