Romanization of Belarusian explained

Romanization or Latinization of Belarusian is any system for transliterating written Belarusian from Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet.

Standard systems for romanizing Belarusian

See also: Belarusian Latin alphabet. Standard systems for romanizing Belarusian include:

• BGN/PCGN romanization of Belarusian, 1979 (United States Board on Geographic Names and Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use), which is the US and Great Britain prevailing system for romanising of geographical information
• British Standard 2979 : 1958
• Scientific transliteration, or the International Scholarly System for linguistics
• ALA-LC romanization, 1997 (American Library Association and Library of Congress)
• ISO 9

1995, which is also Belarusian state standard GOST 7.79–2000 for non-geographical information

• Instruction on transliteration of Belarusian geographical names with letters of Latin script, which was an official standard for geographical names, adopted by the Committee on Land Resources, Geodesy and Cartography of Belarus (2000), and recommended for use by the Working Group on Romanization Systems of the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN).^[1] It was significantly revised in 2007, then replaced with a new system in 2023.^{[2] [3]}

Comparative table of some standard romanisations of the Belarusian letters

Cyrillic	Scholarly^[4]	ALA-LC	British^[5]	BGN/PCGN^[6]	ISO 9	National 2000^[7]	National 2007	National 2023
А а	a	a	a	a	a	a	a	a
Б б	b	b	b	b	b	b	b	b
В в	v	v	v	v	v	v	v	v
Г г	h	h	h	h	g	h	h	g
Ґ ґ^[8]	g	g	g	g	g̀
Д д	d	d	d	d	d	d	d	d
Е е	e	e	e	ye	e
Ё ё	ë	i͡o	ë	yo	ë	jo, io	jo, io	jo, io
Ж ж	ž	z͡h	zh	zh	ž	ž	ž	zh
З з	z	z	z	z	z	z	z	z
І і	i	i	i	i	ì	i	i	i
Й й	j	ĭ	ĭ	y	j	j	j	j
К к	k	k	k	k	k	k	k	k
Л л	l	l	l	l	l	l	l	l
М м	m	m	m	m	m	m	m	m
Н н	n	n	n	n	n	n	n	n
О о	o	o	o	o	o	o	o	o
П п	p	p	p	p	p	p	p	p
Р р	r	r	r	r	r	r	r	r
С с	s	s	s	s	s	s	s	s
Т т	t	t	t	t	t	t	t	t
Тс тс			t-s	t·s
У у	u	u	u	u	u	u	u	u
Ў ў	ŭ (w)	ŭ	w	w	ǔ	ú	ŭ	w
Ф ф	f	f	f	f	f	f	f	f
Х х	x (ch)	kh	kh	kh	h	ch	ch	h
Ц ц	c	ts	ts	ts	c	c	c	c
Ч ч	č	ch	ch	ch	č	č	č	ch
Ш ш	š	sh	sh	sh	š	š	š	sh
	-	-	ˮ, "			-	-	-
Ы ы	y	y	ȳ	y	y	y	y	y
Ь ь			, '				combining acute	-
Э э	è	ė	é	e	è	e	e	e
Ю ю	ju	i͡u	yu	yu	û	ju, iu	ju, iu	ju, iu
Я я	ja	i͡a	ya	ya	â	ja, ia	ja, ia	ja, ia
Historical letters
И и		ī
Щ щ		shch
Ъ ъ			ˮ, "
Ѣ ѣ		ě	ê

Examples

Transliteration of some common words

scope=row style="text-align:center;"	Cyrillic	Беларусь	Лукашэнка	Магілёў	сям’я
scope=row style="text-align:center;"	Łacinka	Biełaruś	Łukašenka	Mahiloŭ	siamja
scope=row style="text-align:center;"	BGN/PCGN	Byelarus′	Lukashenka	Mahilyow	syamʹʹya
scope=row style="text-align:center;"	Scholarly	Belarus′	Lukašènka	Mahilëŭ	sjamja
scope=row style="text-align:center;"	ALA-LC	Belarusʹ	Lukashėnka	Mahili͡oŭ	si͡ami͡a
scope=row style="text-align:center;"	British	Belarus’	Lukashénka	Mahilëw	syam”ya
scope=row style="text-align:center;"	ISO 9	Belarus′	Lukašènka	Magìlëǔ	sâm’â
scope=row style="text-align:center;"	National 2000	Bielarus’	Lukašenka	Mahilioú	siamja
scope=row style="text-align:center;"	National 2007	Bielaruś	Lukašenka	Mahilioŭ	siamja
scope=row style="text-align:center;"	National 2023	Bielarus	Lukashenka	Magiliow	siamja

See also

• Belarusian alphabet
• Belarusian Latin alphabet (Łacinka / лацінка)
• Scientific transliteration of Cyrillic
• Cyrillic alphabets
• (WP:BELARUSIANNAMES)
• (essay; WP:BLR)

References

• British Standard 2979 : 1958, London: British Standards Institution.
• United Nations Statistics Division, Geographical Names
• 2023 Transliteration Instruction

Notes and References

1. Web site: Archived copy . 2009-07-26 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20090824062135/http://unstats.un.org/unsd/geoinfo/9th-UNCSGN-Docs/E-CONF-98-CRP-21.pdf . 2009-08-24 .
2. Web site: Instrukcija po peredache naimenovanij geograficheskih objektov s belorusskogo i russkogo jazykov na drugie jazyki i transliteracii naimenovanij geograficheskih objektov bukvami latinskogo alfavita. Gosudarstvennyj komitet po imushchestvu Respubliki Belarus. 2023. 13 August 2024.
3. News: Писать "Ščučynščyna" уже нельзя: в Беларуси отменили белорусскую латиницу в географических названиях . Hrodna.life - новости Гродно . 4 April 2023 . ru-RU.
4. Parentheses ( ) denote older variants.
5. Diacritics may be omitted when back-transliteration is not required
6. Web site: Romanization Systems Currently Approved by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (BGN) and the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use (PCGN). National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. 5 April 2017.
7. For е, ё, ю, я, the digraphs je, jo, ju, ja are used word-initially, and after a vowel, apostrophe (’), separating ь, or ў.
8. The letter Ge (Ґ ґ) has never been part of the standard Belarusian alphabet.