English Wikipedia's Ukrainian romanization guideline
This page describes how
Ukrainian is romanized in Wikipedia
.
Ukrainian-language
text is written in the
Ukrainian alphabet
, a variant of
Cyrillic
. To be accessible to the readers of English-language Wikipedia, it is usually
romanized
, or transliterated into the Roman alphabet.
Different romanization systems are used for different subject areas in Wikipedia and elsewhere. More details and other systems are described in
romanization of Ukrainian
. Each system has a handy transliteration table, linked below.
- General romanization
- The
Ukrainian National system
of 2010 is used for general romanization of Ukrainian terms and names in Wikipedia. It is official for all proper names in Ukraine, and is used by the United Nations. It is intended for readers of English, and is easy to read and type. It also corresponds to the current
UNGEGN
2013 and
BGN/PCGN
2019 systems.
- [
Ukrainian National transliteration table
]
- Linguistics
- Scientific transliteration
is used in Wikipedia articles about language, in the
Wiktionary
project, and in other linguistics publications. This is an “international” romanization system, based on central and eastern European orthographies.
- [
Scientific transliteration table
]
Other systems
[
edit
]
The
ALA-LC
system is used in English-language library cataloguing and publishing. It is very similar to the Ukrainian National system, but reduces ambiguity by using special characters and diacritics: ? = i?e, ж = z?h, ? = i, й = ?, ц = t?s, ю = i?u, ь = ′, я = i?a.
Earlier, the former
BGN/PCGN romanization
1965 system was Wikipedia's default system for Ukrainian, but not for place names, so you may see it used in many articles.
BGN/PCGN transliteration table
.
Pronunciation
[
edit
]
Pronunciation is usually represented using the
International Phonetic Alphabet
(IPA). See
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (pronunciation)
,
Ukrainian phonology
.
Entering romanization
[
edit
]
Enter Ukrainian terms and their romanizations using templates
{{
lang-uk
}}
,
{{
lang
}}
, and
{{
transl
}}
to properly format and tag them. For example:
{{
lang-uk
|
Ки?вська Русь
|
translit
=
Kyivska Rus
|
translit-std
=
ungegn
|
lit
=
Kyivan Rus
}}
, or just
{{
lang-uk
|
Русь
|
translit
=
Rus
|
translit-std
=
ungegn
|
label
=
none
}}
.
Which yields:
- Ukrainian
:
Ки?вська Русь
,
romanized
:?
Kyivska Rus
,
lit.
'Kyivan Rus', or just
Русь
,
Rus
.
Romanizations in the national system can be tagged with the parameter
transl-std= ungegn
. Also valid and exactly equivalent is
transl-std= bgn/pcgn
, although it could be confused with the earlier 1965 BGN/PCGN standard. In citations,
transl-std= ala-lc
might be useful.
Keep the readers in mind: they read English, but might not be familiar with Ukrainian. Ukrainian words should be used for a reason, not as a substitute for English.
An object that has a conventional name in English should be named that way, instead of transliterating, for example:
Chorne more
?=
Black Sea
,
Ukraina
?=
Ukraine
. Living and very well-known people's names normally use their own preferred or most common spelling, e.g.,
Yulia Tymoshenko
(not
Yuliia
),
Jaroslav Rudnyckyj
(not
Yaroslav Rudnytskyi
),
Sergei Korolev
(not
Serhii Korolov
). A secondary spelling like
Kiev
may be appropriate in some contexts, but should be introduced initially in parentheses, as in "Kiev (
Kyiv
)".
Context and intent
[
edit
]
Is a term only
used
to refer to someone or something, or is there a reason to represent the original Ukrainian orthography?
- When
using
names or words in the running text of the article body, prefer English constructions, commonly used spellings, and Ukrainian National romanization:
Khmelnytskyi Oblast
, holubets (
cabbage roll
),
hryvnia
, Ruska Triitsia (
Ruthenian Triad
),
Ivan Kotliarevsky
,
Eneida
.
- When more precision is required, for example to convey Ukrainian spelling (as the title in an article's leading line), to clearly identify a work in a reference list, or when writing about Ukrainian language or orthography, prefer a detailed romanization with original capitalization, adhering to the appropriate standard:
Khmelnytska oblast
(official geographic name),
holubec′, hryvnja, Rus′ka Trijtsja
(scholarly transliterations for linguistics)
, Ivan Kotli?arevs′ky?, Eneida
(ALA-LC for citations in footnotes).
Naming conventions
Pronunciation
Wiktionary