Russkaja Latinica Specification

Copyright (c) 1995 Alexy Khrabrov and Serge Winitzki

This is the complete specification of Russkaya Latinica. For a less formal description, see Overview and User's Guide.

General

All Russian letters are represented by one or two Latin characters. (With the exception of "tschcha", which can be represented as either "q", "w", or "shch".)
To each Russian letter in a given context, there corresponds at least one Latin combination, and to each Latin letter or combination there corresponds only one Russian letter. The defined two-letter Latin combinations are always interpreted as one Russian letter.

Latin characters are either "robust" or "malleable". Robust ones always translate to the same Russian characters. Malleable ones are translated to different Russian characters depending on the word context. All two-letter Latin combinations are robust. All Latin letters are robust. Only the following symbols are malleable:
' ` ~ @

More than one combination of Latin letters sometimes correspond to one and the same Russian letter. Therefore, one can use different combinations according to personal preference.

Specification

While converting from a native encoding to Latinica, Russian alphabet is transliterated as follows:

Uppercase:

A, B, V, G, D, E, YO, ZH, Z, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, F, X, C, CH, SH, W, ~, Y, ', E', YU, YA

Lowercase:

a, b, v, g, d, e, yo, zh, z, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, t, u, f, x, c, ch, sh, w, ~, y, ', e', yu, ya

When translating to Latinica, there are several alternatives to certain letters in the alphabet above. The letter "tshcha" is rendered by a single letter q or w or the combination sj or shch. Also, there is an option to make w synomymous to v instead of "tshcha", and an option to switch off sj.

The soft sign is ' or `, and the hard sign is ~. The letter "E oborotnoe" can be aliased by @.

Malleable symbols

The malleable symbols @, ', ` and ~ (meaning "e'" and the soft and the hard sign) are lowercase or uppercase depending on the case of surrounding letters, according to these rules:

A symbol is considered to be surrounded by lowercase letters if at least one of its neighbor letters is lowercase. A symbol is surrounded by uppercase letters if all of its neighbor letters are uppercase.
If a malleable symbol is surrounded by lowercase letters or used alone, it's lowercase; if surrounded by uppercase letters, it's uppercase.

The malleable symbol ` stands for the soft sign with the same uppercase or lowercase variations, unless it is used at the beginning of the word; in this case it is translated as the back quote (i.e. not changed).

The combinations of ^ and _ with the malleable symbols lead to fixed upper- and lowercase rendering of those symbols.

Aliased combinations

The following two-letter combinations are defined to be identical:

Ch = CH (as in "CHechnya")
Sh = SH (as in "SHahmaty")
Zh = ZH (as in "ZHiguli")
jo = yo (as in "prijom")
ja = ya (as in "zajac")
ju = ju (as in "v'juga")
YO = Yo = Jo = JO
YA = Ya = Ja = JA
YU = Yu = Ju = JU
JE = Je = E (as in Jel'cin)
je = e (but not "ye"!)
E` = E'
e` = e' (as in "e`poha")
J' = J` = J
j' = j` = j (as in "maj`or" or "j'oga")
SJ = Sj = Q = W
The following digraphs have special meaning:
\' = ' [single quote]
\` = ' [single back quote]
\@ = @
\~ = ~
\\ = \ [single backslash]
\ [backslash + space] switches between English and Russian modes.
^ with malleable symbols (@ ` ' ~)
_ with malleable symbols (@ ` ' ~)
The following characters are also defined:
\ = [no character output] - used to break digraphs
@ = e' or E' (it's a malleable symbol)
h = x (as in "xorosho") unless preceded by C, S, Z, c, s, z.
H = X unless preceded by C, S, Z.
By default, the letter w is defined as "tshcha",
w = q = sj [lowercase "tshcha"]
W = Q = SJ [uppercase "tshcha"]
However, there is an option to make it an alias for v.

Combining English and Russian text
To include a portion of English text, enclose it in \ signs (backslash with a following space). After a \ , no translation is done until another \ is encountered. The \ combination itself produces no output.

Emphasizing parts of text
The symbols * (star) and _ (underscore) are not used by Russkaja Latinica; they may be used for emphasizing words or parts of text. Capitalization of words or sentences is considered bad NETiquette and is not advised.

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