What is transliteration?

Perhaps many can recall those times when mobile phones did not support the Cyrillic alphabet and SMS had to be written in Latin, that is, transliterated. Thus, transliteration is the transfer of characters from one language to characters from another.

Translit and transliteration

The word “transliteration” comes from the abbreviation of the term “transliteration”. However, this is not exactly the same thing.

Transliteration is a linguistic term for translating letters from one language into signs of another. It can be of 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 catalogs of books whose names were in various languages.

As for transliteration specifically from Russian to Latin, there are several recognized systems, such as, for example, ISO-9, the transliteration system of the Library of Congress or the international standard transliteration for foreign passports.

Translit is, in turn, not a scientific concept, but rather a household one. Transliteration also means the arrangement of words written in one alphabet with characters of another, but it allows a more “free” style, does not have clear rules and can contain any graphic characters besides letters, for example, numbers.

Thus, transliteration is a simplified transliteration. Often, the basic rules of transliteration are preserved in it , but they can be violated and vary from person to person. Most often, it relies on phonetic correspondences.

Translit History

The beginnings of transliteration, due to the need to spell foreign words in the letters of their native language, have arisen for a very long time. Most often, this was due to the fact that in one linguistic culture a phenomenon that was present in another could simply be absent. And when confronted with this phenomenon, and, accordingly, with the word designating it, no translation was found. And the word was simply transliterated. Since transliteration took shape in a separate direction 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 closer times to us, then, for example, it is known about telegrams that were sent by Soviet business travelers from abroad, in which they used transliteration from Russian to Latin, using it as they could. But these are all things of long forgotten days. The "Golden Age" of transliteration, of course, began in the computer age, and, in a good way, the real history of transliteration must be kept from its very 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 Latin. Including support for the Russian language did not appear immediately. Therefore, in those days it was possible to find whole posts on the forums written in transliteration.

Fortunately, the situation has long changed for the better - now most platforms support many languages, even the rarest, 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 around the world - just imagine how many different languages ​​and situations in which transliteration may be needed. But since we live in Russia and most often we encounter the need to translate from Russian to English (and sometimes vice versa), we will focus on those species that have become widespread among Russian-speaking Internet users.

Game transliteration

He gained distribution thanks to online games. Not all games support the Russian keyboard layout, and even if they support, switching back and forth from Russian to English during the game is not very convenient.

Its distinctive feature is the use of Latin letters, as well as numbers and other signs in such a way that the resulting word in the spelling resembles Russian letters. For example, the phrase "Hello everyone!" in this performance it will look like “BceM npUBeT!”, and the name “Julia” as “I-OJIU9I”.

Domestic translit

Now it’s quite difficult to imagine when a person may need transliteration in ordinary Internet communication. Especially if he is sitting at his own computer. Perhaps, a rare exception may be the registration on a forum or other resource, which until now for some reason does not support spelling nicknames in Russian and has to resort to translate into English. However, such a need may well become acute when traveling. 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 "Hello everyone!" and “Julia” will look like “Vsem privet!” and Ulia / Yuliya.

As you can see in the example with the name, different variations are possible. Sometimes other graphic characters, in addition to letters, sneak out of the "gaming style" and here. The word “person” can be written as “chelovek”, or it can be written as “4elovek”, which saves some time.

Translite from English to Russian

Translit in Russian is also occasionally found in everyday Internet communication. We are surrounded 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 registering the addresses of sites. In fact, this type of transliteration is essentially closer to transliteration, since it is often worthwhile to adhere to strict rules. For example, adhering to accepted transliteration standards when creating page URLs will be crucial for successful SEO promotion. However, this does not negate the fact that many in this case continue to transliterate at their discretion.

Typical matches when using transliteration

Despite the fact that translit does not have strict rules, the basic correspondence can be identified. We offer you a table for clarity.

Translite 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), the recently appeared numerous online translators from Russian to transliterate.

Using them is very simple: just enter the text in Russian in the appropriate field and the program will do everything for you. You just have to copy the result and send it to the addressee.