Perhaps, many can remember the times when mobile phones did not support Cyrillic and SMS had to be written in Latin, that is, transliterated. Thus, transliteration is the transfer of signs of one language by signs of another.
Transliteration and transliteration
The word "transliteration" comes from the abbreviation of the term "transliteration". However, they are not exactly the same.
Transliteration is a linguistic term that refers to the transposition of the alphabetic characters of one language into characters of another script. It comes in different types and types, depending on the purpose and the languages involved. It is distinguished by the presence of a system and the rules by which it is produced.
Transliteration as a separate area of linguistics began to take shape in the 19th century. This was dictated by the practical needs of libraries, which needed to somehow systematize the catalogs of books, the titles of which were in various languages.
With regard to transliteration specifically from Russian to Latin, there are several recognized systems, such as, for example, ISO-9, the United States Library of Congress transliteration systemor international transliteration standard for passports.
Transliteration is, in turn, not a scientific concept, but rather an everyday one. Transliteration also means the transposition of words written in one alphabet with signs of another, but it allows a more “free” style, does not have clear rules and can contain any graphic characters other than letters, for example, numbers.
Thus, transliteration is a simplified transliteration. It often retains the basic transliteration rules, but they can be broken and vary from person to person. Most often, it relies on phonetic correspondences.
History of transliteration
The rudiments of transliteration, due to the need to write down foreign words in the letters of their native language, arose a very long time ago. Most often this was due to the fact that in one language culture there could simply be no phenomenon that is present in another. And when faced with this phenomenon, and, accordingly, with the word designating it, there was no translation. And the word was simply transliterated. Since transliteration took shape as a separate area of linguistics only two centuries ago, everything that was more logical would be called transliteration - as a chaotic phenomenon that does not have clear rules.
If you go to times closer to us, then, for example, it is known about the telegrams sent by Soviet businessmen from abroad, in which they used transliteration from Russian into Latin, using it as best they could. But these are all things long forgotten. The "golden age" of transliteration, of course, began in the computer age, and,good, the real history of transliteration must be conducted from its beginning.
Basically, the need for transliteration appeared due to the fact that at the dawn of the spread of the Internet, not all (or rather, almost none at first) computer platforms supported other types of writing, except for the Latin alphabet. Including support for the Russian language did not appear immediately. Therefore, in those days, one could find entire messages on the forums written by transliteration.
Fortunately, things have changed for the better a long time ago - now most platforms support many languages, even the rarest ones, not to mention Russian. As well as buying a keyboard with a Russian layout is no longer a problem.
Types of transliteration
There are many types of transliteration all over the world - just imagine how many different languages and situations exist in which transliteration may be needed. But since we live in Russia and most often face the need for transliteration from Russian into English (and sometimes vice versa), we will focus on those types that have become widespread among Russian-speaking Internet users.
Gamer transliteration
It has spread through online games. Not all games support the Russian keyboard layout, and even if they do, switching back and forth from Russian to English during the game is not very convenient.
Its distinguishing feature is the use of Latin letters, as well as numbers and other characters in such a way that the resulting word inwriting resembled Russian letters. For example, the phrase "Hello everyone!" in this version it will look like "BceM npUBeT!", And the name "Julia" like "I-OJIU9I".
Consumer transliteration
Now it is already quite difficult to imagine when a person may need transliteration in normal Internet communication. Especially if he sits at home at his own computer. Perhaps a rare exception may be perhaps registration on a forum or other resource that still for some reason does not support writing nicknames in Russian and you have to resort to transliteration into English. However, such a need may well rise sharply on trips. Being abroad and having at your disposal a keyboard without a Russian layout in a local Internet cafe, sometimes you have to remember this method in order to convey your messages to friends at home.
In this case, substitution is usually used according to the principle of relative phonetic correspondence, although not very accurate. For example, the same “Hi everyone!” and "Julia" will look like "Vsem privet!" and "Ulia"/"Yuliya".
As you can see from the example with the name, different variations are possible. Sometimes other graphic signs, in addition to letters, sneak out of the "gamer style" and here. The word "man" can be written as "chelovek", or as "4elovek", which saves some time.
Transliteration from English to Russian
Transliteration in Russian is also occasionally found in everyday Internet communication. Wesurrounded by many foreign names - it is logical to assume that it is easier for a person to write "Indesit washing machine" using phonetic correspondence than to switch to the English layout and remember how this word is spelled correctly in English.
Correct transliteration
We can meet with him, for example, when prescribing site addresses. In fact, this type of transliteration is inherently closer to transliteration, since it is often worth adhering to strict rules here. For example, adherence to accepted transliteration standards when creating page URLs will be extremely important for successful SEO promotion. However, this does not negate the fact that many in this case continue to transliterate at their own discretion.
Typical matches when using transliteration
Despite the fact that transliteration does not have strict rules, the main correspondences can be identified. We offer you a table for clarity.
| Cyrillic | Latin | Cyrillic | Latin |
| A a | A a | С с | S s |
| B b | B b | T t | T t |
| B to | V v | U y | U u |
| G r | G g | F f | F f |
| D d | D d | X x | H h |
| E e | E e | T ts | Ts ts |
| Yo yo | Yo yo | W h | Ch ch |
| F w | Zh zh (or) | Sh w | Sh sh |
| Z z | Z z | Sch sch | Sch sch |
| And and | I i | Ъ b | - |
| Y th | J j | S s | I i |
| To k | K k | b b | ' |
| L l | L l | Uh uh | E e |
| M m | M m | Yu yu | U u or Yu yu |
| N n | N n | I am | Ya ya or Ia ia |
| Oh o | O o | ||
| P p | P p | ||
| R p | R r |
Transliteration translators
In this case, by the way, there are good helpers. So, if it seems to you that transliteration is something too complicated, but you need to transliterate some text (especially in a large volume), numerous online translators from Russian into transliteration that have appeared recently can help.
Using them is very simple: just enter the text in Russian in the appropriate field and the program will do everything for you. You will only have to copy the resulting result and send it to the addressee.
