Cyrillization

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, 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 like with various Romanization schemes, each Cyrillization system has its own set of rules, depending on:

The source language or writing system (English, French, Arabic, Hindi, Kazakh in Latin alphabet, Chinese, Japanese, etc.), The destination language or writing system (Russian, Bulgarian, Kazakh in Cyrillic, etc.), the goals of the systems:
o o o

to render occasional foreign words (mostly personal and place names) for use in newspapers or on maps; to provide a practical approximate phonetic transcription in a phrase book or a bilingual dictionary; or to convert a language to a Cyrillic writing system altogether (e.g. Moldavian, Dungan, Kazakh)

Linguistic and/or political inclinations of the designers of the system (see, for example, the useor disuseof the letter for rendering the "G" of foreign words in the Ukrainian).

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:

Cyrillization of Chinese Cyrillization of Japanese Cyrillization of Korean

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: - ), which aims to render English words in

Russian based on their sounds and Transliteration of foreign words by a cyrillic alphabet (Ukrainian: ) 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.

See also

Volapuk encoding (Russian) - the articles on Transcription in the Russian Wikipedia

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Rules for practical English-Russian transcription (Russian) Transcription of German into Cyrillic (Russian)

(Ukrainian) - the articles on Transcription in the Ukrainian Wikipedia

o

Transliteration of English and German words by a Cyrillic alphabet (Ukrainian)

(Bulgarian) - Transcription into the Bulgarian

External links

Cyrillization of Polish

References

A. Danchev, Bulgarian transcription of English names, Narodna Prosveta, Sofia, 1982 (in Bulgarian) R.S. Gilyrevsky ( . .), editor: "Practical Transcription of Personal and Family Names" ( .) Moscow, Fizmatliz, 2004. ISBN 5-9221-0480-2. (covers 6 European languages, as well as Arabic, Chinese, Turkish, and Japanese)
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same, 2nd edition; Moscow, Nauka, 2006, 526. ISBN 5-02-033718-8. (11 European languages, as well as Arabic, Chinese, Turkish, Hindi, Vietnames, Korean, and Japanese)

R.S. Gilyrevsky ( . .), B.A. Starostin ( . .) "Foreign Names in the Russian Text: A Handbook" ( : ). 3rd edition. Moscow, Vysshaya Shkola, 1985.

D.I. Ermolovich ( . .) "Personal Names at the Junction of Languages and Cultures" ( ). Moscow, R. Valent, 2001. ISBN 5-93439-046-5. (23 languages) D.I. Ermolovich ( . .) "Personal Names: Theory and Practice of Interlanguage Transmission at the Junction of Languages and Cultures" ( : . Moscow, R. Valent, 2005. ISBN 5-93439-153-4. R.A. Lidin ( . ). "Foreign family names and personal names. Spelling and pronunciation. Practical transcription into Russian: Dictionary Handbook" ( . . : ) Moscow, Vneshsigma, 1998. ISBN 5-86290-378-0.

Cyrillization of Chinese
The Cyrillization of Chinese is effected using the Palladius system for transcribing Chinese characters into the Cyrillic alphabet. It was created by Pyotr Ivanovich Kafarov ( ), a Russian sinologist and monk who spent 30 years in China and was also known by his monastic name Palladius (). It is the Russian official standard for transcribing Chinese into Russian.

System
Cyrillic IPA Pinyin WadeGiles Bopomofo Cyrillic IPA Pinyin WadeGiles Bopomofo p b p p p p' m f t m f d m f t a a a t t t' Consonants n l k k x n l g k h n l k k' h Rhymes a e ai ei ao ai ei ao j q x ch ch' hs o ou ou zh ch an an an ch ch' / sh r z sh j ts/tz ang ang s c s ts'/tz' s eng eng er erh

-/- / -i ih/

e o/

n en en

Cyrillic IPA Pinyin WadeGiles Bopomofo Cyrillic IPA Pinyin WadeGiles Bopomofo Cyrillic IPA Pinyin WadeGiles Bopomofo

i i i u u u y

i ia ia u ua ua

i ie ieh u/u uo uo y e eh u uai uai ue ui ui

i iao iao

i iu iu

in ian ien a a uan uan uan a yn an an

in in in un un un yn n n

i iang iang a a u uang uang

i ing ing /u ong ung i iong iung

Comparison chart
This table establishes correspondence between the Palladius system together with the two Romanization systems most commonly used in English-speaking countries: Pinyin and WadeGiles. /B Cyrillic Pinyin WG ba bai bang ban pa pai pang pan /P MPS Cyrillic Pinyin WG pa pai pang pan p'a p'ai p'ang p'an /M MPS Cyrillic Pinyin WG ma mai man ma mai man /F MPS Cyrillic Pinyin WG MPS fang fang fan fan fa fa

mang mang

bao bie bi bing bin bo

pao

pao pie pi ping pin po pou pu

p'ao

mao mie mi ming min mo mou mu me mei

mao

pieh pi

p'ieh p'i

mieh mi

ping pin po

p'ing p'in p'o p'ou p'u

ming min mo mou mu me mei fei fei fo fou fu fo fou fu

bu

pu

bei beng ben

pei peng pen

pei peng pen

p'ei p'eng p'en

meng meng men miu mian miao men

feng feng fen fen

miu mien miao /L MPS Cyrillic Pinyin WG MPS la lai la lai

bian biao

pien piao

pian piao

p'ien p'iao

/D Cyrillic Pinyin WG da dai dang dan dao ta tai tang tan tao

/T MPS Cyrillic Pinyin WG ta tai tang tan tao t'a t'ai t'ang t'an t'ao

/N MPS Cyrillic Pinyin WG na nai nang nan nao na nai nang nan nao

lang lang lan lao lan lao

die di ding

tieh ti

tie ti ting

t'ieh t'i

nie ni ning nin nuo nou nu nuan

nieh ni

lie li ling lin luo lou lu

lieh li

ting

t'ing

ning nin no nou nu

ling lin lo lou lu

duo dou du duan dui dong dun de dei deng den diu

to tou tu

tuo tou tu tuan tui tong tun te tei teng

t'o t'ou t'u

tuan tui

t'uan t'ui

nuan

luan luan

tung tun t tei teng ten tiu

t'ung t'un t' t'ei t'eng

nong

nung

long lung lun le lei lun l lei

ne nei neng nen niu n nue

n nei neng nen niu n

leng leng

liu l lue lia

liu l

neh

leh lia

dia

tia

niang niang nian niao nien niao

liang liang lian liao lien liao

dian diao

tien tiao

tian tiao

t'ien t'iao

/G

/K

/H

Cyrillic Cyrillic

Pinyin WG ga ka gai kai gang kang gan kan gao kao guo kuo gou kou gu ku gua kua guai kuai guang kuang guan kuan gui kui gong kung gun kun ge ko gei kei geng keng gen ken / J Pinyin WG jie chieh ji chi jing ching jin chin jiu chiu juan chan ju ch jiong chiung jun chn jue cheh jia chia

MPS Cyrillic Pinyin WG MPS ka k'a kai k'ai kang k'ang kan k'an kao k'ao kuo k'uo kuo k'ou ku k'u kua k'ua kuai k'uai kuang k'uang kuan k'uan kui k'ui kong k'ung kun k'un ke k'o keng k'eng ken k'en /Q MPS Cyrillic Pinyin WG MPS qie ch'ieh qi ch'i qing ch'ing qin ch'in qiu ch'iu quan ch'an qu ch' qiong ch'iung qun ch'n que ch'eh qia ch'ia

Cyrillic Pinyin WG ha ha hai hai hang hang han han hao hao huo huo hou hou hu hu hua hua huai huai huang huang huan huan hui hui hong hung hun hun he ho hei hei heng heng hen hen /X Cyrillic Pinyin WG xie hsieh xi hsi xing hsing xin hsin xiu hsiu xuan hsan xu hs xiong hsiung xun hsn xue hseh xia hsia

MPS MPS

jiang chiang qiang ch'iang xiang hsiang jian chien qian ch'ien xian hsien jiao chiao qiao ch'iao xiao hsiao / ZH / CH / SH /R Cyrillic Pinyin WG MPS Cyrillic Pinyin WG MPS Cyrillic Pinyin WG MPS Cyrillic Pinyin WG MPS zha cha cha ch'a sha sha zhai chai chai ch'ai shai shai zhang chang chang ch'ang shang shang rang jang zhan chan chan ch'an shan shan ran jan zhao chao chao ch'ao shao shao rao jao zhi chih chi ch'ih shi shih ri jih zhuo cho chuo ch'o shuo shuo ruo jo zhou chou chou ch'ou shou shou rou jou zhu chu chu ch'u shu shu ru ju zhua chua chua ch'ua shua shua rua jua zhuai chuai chuai ch'uai shuai shuai zhuang chuang chuang ch'uang shuang shuang zhuan chuan chuan ch'uan shuan shuan ruan juan zhui chui chui ch'ui shui shui rui jui zhong chung chong ch'ung rong jung zhun chun chun ch'un shun shun run jun zhe ch che ch' she sh re j zhei chei shei shei zheng cheng cheng ch'eng sheng sheng reng jeng zhen chen chen ch'en shen shen ren jen / Z /C /S Cyrillic Pinyin WG MPS Cyrillic Pinyin WG MPS Cyrillic Pinyin WG MPS za tsa ca ts'a sa sa zai tsai cai ts'ai sai sai zang tsang cang ts'ang sang sang zan tsan can ts'an san san zao tsao cao ts'ao sao sao zuo tso cuo ts'o suo so

 zou zu zuan zui zong zun zi ze zei zeng zen

tsou tsu tsuan tsui tsung tsun tzu ts tsei tseng tsen

cou cu cuan cui cong cun ci ce ceng cen

ts'ou ts'u ts'uan ts'ui ts'ung ts'un tz'u ts' ts'eng ts'en

sou su suan sui song sun si se

sou su suan sui sung sun ssu s

MPS Cyrillic Pinyin WG yu y yong yung yun yn yue yeh ya ya yai yai yang yang yan yen yao yao MPS

Cyrillic Pinyin WG a a ai ai ang ang an an ao ao wa wa wai wai wang wang wan wan

MPS Cyrillic Pinyin WG wo wo wei wei weng weng wen wen ye yeh yo yo yi i ying ing yin in

seng seng sen sen Others MPS Cyrillic Pinyin WG o o ou ou wu wu e ei ei en en er rh you yu yuan yan

Exceptions
The names of the cities of Beijing and Nanjing are transcribed as (instead of ) and (instead of ), much as Peking and Nanking were still used in English speaking countries until recently. Hong Kong (pinyin: Xianggang) may be both (Xianggang) and (Hong Kong); the latter is more common. Syllable hui is transcribed not as but as (Huizu, ) or, less often, as (Anhui, ) for aesthetic reasons, since (chuj) is a taboo word for "penis" (a lot more strict than "cock" in usage) in Russian and several other Slavic languages. Older documents contain variants , , , , , hence Aomen (Macao) is traditionally spelled in Russian. Most modern texts contain , with some exceptions.

See also

Dungan language Romanization of Chinese Cyrillization of Japanese

External links

Automatic Cyrillic transliteration of pinyin Annotation of Chinese with Palladius and other phonetic systems

Cyrillization of Arabic
System
Consonants Cyrillic IPA b d d d f g h j k l m n q r s s t t w Vocals Cyrillic IPA i o Example Cyrillic rbijj ( mr'b ( m'nzl ( wikibidi ( ddl ( lrsi ( IPA ) ) ) ) ) ) z sr ( )

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

Modern Greek to Russian

The following system has been used for Cyrillization of modern Greek into Russian.[1][2] Cyrillic example , , before , , , , , , , , or a vowel before , , , , , , , , or before , , , , , , or , , before vowels word-initial within a word before a voiced consonant or a vowel within a word before an unvoiced consonant before a vowel before , , , , , , , or a vowel before , , , , , , , , before a vowel Greek note

word-initial within a word word-initial within a word

before a vowel

before , , , , , , , , , or a vowel before , , , , , , , , , or

before a vowel

See also

Cyrillization Romanization of Greek

References
1. ^ Salnova, A. V. (2005). - - [GreekRussian and RussianGreek Dictionary] . Moscow: . ISBN 59576-0124-1. 2. ^ Borisova, A. B. (2004). [Greek Without a Tutor]. Moscow: . pp. 810. ISBN 5-89-815-482-5.

Cyrillization of Japanese
Cyrillization of Japanese is the practice of expressing Japanese sounds using Cyrillic characters. It is commonly accepted in Russia. The Japanese term for the resulting transliteration is kiriji (?) cf. rmaji. Below is a cyrillization system for the Japanese language known as the Yevgeny Polivanov system. Note that it has its own spelling conventions and does not necessarily constitute a direct phonetic transcription of the pronunciation into the standard Russian usage of the Cyrillic alphabet.

Main table
Hiragana and Katagana to Polivanov cyrillization correspondence table, for single/modified kana.[citation needed] Kana Cyrillic Hepburn a ka sa ta na ha ma ya ra wa -/- -n Kana Cyrillic Hepburn / i ki shi chi ni hi mi / ri i Kana Cyrillic Hepburn u ku su tsu nu fu mu yu ru Kana Cyrillic Hepburn e ke se te ne he me re e Kana Cyrillic Hepburn o ko so to no ho mo yo ro o

ga za da ba pa Kana Cyrillic Hepburn Kana

gi ji ji bi pi Cyrillic Hepburn Kana

gu zu zu bu pu Cyrillic Hepburn

ge ze de be pe

go zo do bo po

kya sha cha nya hya mya rya gya ja ja bya pya

kyu shu chu nyu hyu myu ryu gyu ju ju byu pyu

kyo sho cho nyo hyo myo ryo gyo jo jo byo pyo

Geminate Consonants
Consonants are geminated exactly as they are in romaji: e.g. -kk- > --.

Syllabic n
Before , , and the syllabic is transcribed as according to pronunciation, similar to Railway Standard () in romanization of Japanese; before vowels and y it is transcribed as in order to indicate syllable boundary; in all other cases it is transcribed as .[citation needed] Examples Japanese Hepburn Cyrillic shinbun sanka kan'i hon'ya

Common errors
In English texts, Japanese names are written with the Hepburn system.[1] People then try to transcribe Japanese names as if they were English.

Very often people[1] want to transcribe shi as and ji as . This is incorrect, because in Russian is pronounced as and as . The Russian sound // is in fact closer to Japanese /u/ than to Japanese /i/. It would probably be closer to Japanese to write , but the system uses and . Actually, Russian is pronounced like Japanese sshi.[1] Equally often people transcribe cha, chi, chu, cho as , , , . This is acceptable phonetically, but for reasons of consistency, it is better to follow the rules and write , , , .[1] Sometimes is replaced with (but, ironically, not at the beginning of a word, even though there are Roman transliterations such as "yen" and "Yedo" which one might expect to be written as and ).[1] This is tolerable only for the words that are in general use (e.g. kamikaze > instead of ).[1] One should, however, never replace (yo) with (ye) it will change the Japanese word too much. The initial (yo) or after a vowel, is often written as (yo), which has the same pronunciation: -> (Yokosuka), -> (Toyota). Although, the spelling "" is not common in Russian words, these are more generally accepted for Japanese names than the transliterations using "".[1] Despite the rules, some Japanese words either are now spelled without following the system or have alternative spellings: Hitachi (the corporation, while the city is ), Toshiba (not ), sushi is spelled "" and "", the latter is more common.[citation needed] Many anime fandom members intentionally use the cyrillized Hepburn system and other alternative transcriptions because they believe the system distorts the Russian reading of Japanese pronunciation too much. Preference of a cyrillization system often becomes a matter of heated debates.[citation needed]

Exceptions
Some proper names, for historical reasons, do not follow the above rules. Those include but are not limited to:[citation needed] Examples Russian spelling

English (Rmaji) Japan (Nihon, Nippon) Tokyo (Tky) Kyoto (Kyto) Yokohama Yokosuka Toyota jujitsu (jjutsu) yen (en)

Cyrillization Japanese , (, ) () :: () : () (also ) () (originally: ) ( in older publications) () - : () (also )

Some personal names beginning with "Yo" (or used after a vowel) are written using "" instead of "" (e.g. for Yoko Ono, but for Yoko Kanno and all other Yoko's). The letter "" is not often used in Japanese Cyrillization due to its facultative use in the Russian language (and possible substitution with the letter "" which would affect the pronunciation), but professional translators use mandatory.[citation needed]

See also

Japanese language education in Russia Romanization of Japanese

Referens
1. ^ a b c d e f g , (21 1999). " . "" """. . http://www.susi.ru/SiOrShi3.html. Retrieved 2011-03-13.

External links

Online romaji<->kiriji converter Proposal for a coordinated Japanese transcription system for several Slavic languages or (Susi or Sushi) Cyrillization of (and others) controversy (Russian) Automatic cyrillization of hiragana and katakana Say no to romaji!, a resource promoting the use of kana in the Japanese learning industry, contains a discussion between students and teachers of Japanese on the subject of rmaji and kiriji. Kiriji and Yevgeny Polivanov

Kontsevich system
The Kontsevich system (Russian: /Sistema Kontsevicha) for the Cyrillization of the Korean language was created by the Russian scholar Lev Kontsevitch (Russian: ) on the basis of the earlier system designed by Aleksandr Holodovich (Russian: ). It is currently the main system of transcribing Korean words into the Russian language.

Introduction
Cyrillization systems for Korean were developed domestically in both North and South Korea; Kontsevich carried out work on the systemisation of these rules. In contrast with some systems of romanization of Korean, the transcription is based primarily on the pronunciation of a word, rather than on its spelling.

Consonants
Initial
Hangul Cyrillic McCuneReischauer Revised Romanization k g n n t d r r m m p b s s ch j ch' ch k' k t' t p' p h h kk kk tt tt pp pp ss ss tch jj -

Final
Hangul Cyrillic McCuneReischauer Revised Romanization k k n n t t l l m m p p t t t t t t k k t t p p h h k k t t ng ng

Medial consonant rules

Some letters are transcribed differently in the middle of a word when following certain other letters. Next initial Previous ending

Vowels
Hangul Cyrillic McCuneReischauer Revised Romanization a a ya ya y eo yeo o o yo yo u u yu yu eu i i ae ae /- /- yae e/- ye oe wi i wa w wae we yae e ye oe wi ui wa wo wae we

Examples
English wall on the wall outside
(uninflected)

Hangul (Hanja) ( )

RR
(RR transliteration in parentheses)

Kontsevich
(Latin transliteration in parentheses)

outside kitchen

byeok (byeog) byeoge (byeog-e) bak (bakk) bakke (bakk-e) bueok (bueok)

(pyok) (pyoge) (pak) (pakke) (puok)

to the kitchen Wikipedia Hangul Hanja character, letter (an) easy (+ noun) Four seasons are distinct. Just check the line colour and width you want.

bueoke (bueok-e) wikibaekgwa () (wikibaeggwa) hangeul or han-geul (han-geul) hancha or han-cha () (han-ja) geulja ( - ) (geul-ja) swiun (swiun) Sagyejeori tturyeotada. () . (Sa-gye-jeol-i ttu-lyeoshada.) Wonhasineun seon saekkkalgwa gukgie () () () chekeuhasimyeon doemnida. (Won-ha-si-neun seon saegkkal-gwa gulg-gie . che-keu-ha-si-myeon doebni-da.)

(puokhe) (vikhibekkva) (hangyl') (hancha) (kyl'chcha) (sviun) . (Sagedzhori tturyothada) . (Vonhasinyn son se`kkal'gva kukkie chhekhyhasimyon tvemnida.)

External links

(Russian) Degrees of Courtesy and Communication Styles in the Korean Language, by K. B. Kurotchenk. (Russian) Entry for Lev Kontsevich on the Institute of Oriental Studies. (Russian) Russian and Latin Transcription of Korean Words, by Lev Kontsevich.

Automatic transcription of Korean based on the Kontsevich system

"Cyrillization"

Cyrillization

Cyrillization of Chinese Cyrillization of Arabic

Cyrillization of Greek

Cyrillization of Japanese

Kontsevich system

Ortografia cyrylicka dla jzyka polskiego A Cyrillic orthography for the Polish language
Ever wondered what Polish would look like if it were written in Cyrillic? Perhaps you have. Or not. In any case, I have. That's what happens when you spend
half of your life working on language projects that one way or another are related to Polish or the Slavic languages in general. Toying around with Polish, Slavic, as well as with several Slavic orthographies, it is hard not to think about the possibilities of a Cyrillic orthography for Polish. Many people have argued that Cyrillic would be unsuitable for Polish. I disagree with that opinion. Granted, Polish phonology differs from that of the other Slavic languages in several ways, but these two facts remain: Polish is a completely Slavic language by any standard, and Cyrillic, unlike the Latin alphabet, was made especially to fit Cyrillic phonology, and therefore is perfectly suited for it. Therefore, I am convinced that Polish and Cyrillic are a perfect match. Much more so, in fact, than Polish and the Latin alphabet. Latin orthographies of Slavic languages always have one of the following two disadvantages: either

they are full of diacritical marks, or they look horribly like English or another Western language. Slovene manages best, but still has , and . Other languages have more of those babies. Polish orthography has managed to avoid haeks, but has a whole bunch of other diacritics instead: , , , , , , , , . Besides, Polish in addition tends to favour digraphs like sz and ie, so Polish words tend to be appear longer than they actually are. Now, I am quite fond of Polish orthography, and therefore my Cyrillic orthography of Polish should by no means be treated as a serious proposal to replace Polish orthography. If anyone would ever make such a proposal, I would be the first to stand up against it. This project, therefore, is primarily a thought experiment, my answer to the question if such an orthography would be possible at all. The idea, by the way, is not new at all. If we have to believe Wikipedia, Russia's czar Nikolay I intended to cyrillify Polish in the mid-19th century as a means for russification, although at last nothing came of his plans. Here is a sample: , . , , , , , , . . , , , ; , , . ;(...) A few pecularities in this text deserve our attention:

the use of the letter for Polish rz; the hard sign at the end of many words (a feature common in prerevolutionary Russian); the fact that Polish remains untouched; this orthography inherits the Polish ogonek and adds it to Cyrillic letters; the use of and where Polish has and d, a feature also present in contemporary Belarusian.

My own Cyrillic orthography for Polish is largely based on the same premises, but there are a few differences as well, which I will describe below. By the way, it should be noted that the transcription quoted above is not the only attempt at a Cyrillic alphabet for Polish. Several people have played with the idea, seriously or less seriously. An interesting example is Jusowica (), created by Szymon Pawlas.

The biggest problem related with the Cyrillisation of Polish are sounds that do not exist in other languages, nor do they correspond closely with anything else
that exist in them: the nasal vowels and . The 19th century Russian solution is in fact a pretty funny one: it simply teleports the ogonek to Cyrillic, thus producing four characters that have never seen before in Cyrillic: , , and (the latter two representing j and j respectively). A funny solution indeed! And an unnecessary one to that, because Old Church Slavonic has precisely four Cyrillic characters for exactly these four sounds: , , and . True, they are uncommon, because the only living Slavic language that preserved these sounds is Polish, a language that happens to be written in Latin alphabet. But since these letters are around, why shouldn't we simply use them? After all, they exist, and are indefinitely more Cyrillic than Cyrillic letters with ogoneks beneath them. Besides, the choice for and is equally unlogical as the Polish letter itself, since it is pronounced as nasalised o; it is not for nothing that the Latin transcription of Old Church Slavonic uses . Another specifically Polish letter is the , pronounced as [u] (its Czech equivalent is ). The transcription mentioned above conveniently keeps it. But why would we? It has no pronunciation of its own; the only thing that distinguishes it from u is that it alternates with o. Incidentally, mixing up those two is the most common spelling mistake in Polish. As far as I am concerned, there is no reason to keep it. Since miasto alternates with miecie (and not with micie or something), why can't grud alternate with grodzie? So let's be bold and use instead. The characters and d could of course be rendered like Belarusian (and in a way, Polish) does, by using and , but I'd much prefer and . Etymologically speaking, this is more correct; after all /d are the softened equivalents of t/d, not of c/dz. Sequences like ti and di are rare in Polish and occur only in foreign words. In these rare cases, we could write and (a Pole will know that they are to be read as radio and tiara and not like radzio or ciara). Or, if we want to be really sure that the t will not be softened in these cases, we could use the hard sign and write and . Using / instead of / has one more advantage: now at least will not have to worry about the sequence cja, which is unambiguously rendered as . Same goes for the digraphy rz, which in Polish is pronounced like . Another common source of spelling errors. Yet, I wouldn't propose transcribing it to , for the same etymological reasons: rz comes from softened r, while comes from softened g. The fact that it sounds very different does not change that fact. Therefore, we simply use (and not this weird creation from the 19th century, ). Just like ti and di, ri is a rare sequence in Polish that occurs only in foreign words, so I propose the same solution for it as well. And then we have the letter e. Because in Polish palatalising e is way more numerous than its non-palatalising equivalent, we will use Cyrillic e for the former (usually rendered as je or ie) and for the latter. This is also what the 19th century version does. The choice for other Cyrillic letters is merely a matter of picking an option. For example, how do we represent i and y? Do we follow the Russian model and pick / or do we prefer the Ukrainian model and pick /? Both are possible, but I've decided to follow the Russian model. Also, when preceded by cz, sz or we write instead of just like Russian does. Again, a matter of etymology.

So, let's see now what Cyrylica Polska looks like.

Alphabet
Cyrylica Polska has 37 letters. Exactly the same as the 33 letters of the Russian alphabet, with four additional characters for the nasals:

Vowels
Every vowel has a hardening and a softening version. Both can occur in two possitions: either it follows a consonant, or it doesn't (in that case it is either wordinitial or after another vowel). In Polish orthography, when a softening vowel follows a consonant, it is preceded by i, unless the consonant in question is inherently soft. In other positions this vowel is preceded by j. The only exceptions are i, which is softening by definition, and y, which is never softening. Just like i and y form a pair, in Cyrillic all vowels come in pairs, as you can see in the table below: Latin hard a e y o u ia/ja ie/je i io/jo i/j iu/ju i/j i/j soft Cyrylica hard soft

Consonants
Now that the question of palatalised vs. non-palalalised consonant has been resolved by the vowels that follow them, the consonants have suddenly become
very simple to handle. Here goes: Latin p Cyrylica sz Latin Cyrylica

b f w t, d, d s, z, k g ch h A few notes:

cz szcz c m n , l r, rz j

soft sign hard sign

Most consonants can be soft (palatalised) or hard. Whether a Cyrillic should be read as d or d is decided by the consonant that follows it: should be read as de, should be read as dzie. If a soft consonant is not followed by a vowel, i.e. when it is word- or syllable-final, it is followed by the soft sign: bat becomes , ba becomes . In reality, the soft sign will occur only after , , , , and . However, in a few cases it can be placed after another consonant as well, although that wouldn't affect pronunciation. For example, take these two Polish cities: Krakw and Wrocaw. When declined, the former has a hard w, the latter a soft w, and so their genitives are Krakowa and Wrocawia respectively. In Cyrillic, we could easily write for "Wrocaw", to make this fact predictable. Most consonant clusers as palatalised as a whole, and only in a few cases consonants in such a cluster are palatalised individually. Therefore, miao is written , and not . The consonant clusters r and r (historically from ser-/zer- > srze-/zrze-, in some dialects strz/zdrz or r/r) are treated as sr/zr + palataliser: roda therefore becomes , rdo becomes . When a hard consonant is followed by a palatalising vowel, the hard sign is used to prevent it from being palatalised. For example, zje is written , because would be read as zie. This alphabet contains the Cyrillic letters for szcz, but that is just an arbitrary choice. Russian, Ukrainian and Bulgarian have this letter, Belarusian, Serbian and Macedonian manage without it.

Example
To give an example of Polish Cyrillic, let's use the same text as the one quoted above: Powrt Taty, przez A. Mickiewicza Pjdcie o dziatki, pjdcie wszystkie razem Za miasto, pod sup na wzgrek, Tam przed cudownym klknijcie obrazem, Pobonie zmwcie paciorek. Tato nie wraca ranki i wieczory we zach go czekam i trwodze; Rozlay rzeki, pene zwierza bory, I peno zbjcw na drodze;Syszc to dziatki biegn wszystkie razem Za miasto pod sup na wzgrek, Tam przed cudownym klkaj obrazem, I zaczynaj paciorek. Cauj ziemi, potem w Imi Ojca, Syna i Ducha witego, Bd pochwalona przenajwitsza Trjca Teraz i czasu wszelkiego. (...) , . , , , , . ; , , ; , , . , , , . (...)

Transcription
Wpisz tutaj swj tekst rdowy: : Insert your source text here: /// /// Result: Rezultat: :