From compcom@tigger.jvnc.net Mon Jul 24 12:52:17 1995 Date: Mon, 24 Jul 1995 12:52:15 -0400 From: Scott Andrews To: swinitzk@emerald.tufts.edu Xref: jvnc.net soc.culture.russian:12989 soc.culture.soviet:102501 soc.culture.usa:72417 Path: jvnc.net!newsserver.jvnc.net!newsserver2.jvnc.net!howland.reston.ans.net!math.ohio-state.edu!caen!night.primate.wisc.edu!newsspool.doit.wisc.edu!news.doit.wisc.edu!delitsin From: delitsin@geology.wisc.edu (Leonid L. Delitsyne) Newsgroups: soc.culture.soviet,soc.culture.russian,soc.culture.usa,relcom.news Subject: Re: New Russian Transliteration Standard Date: 22 Jul 1995 05:47:15 GMT Organization: University of Wisconsin, Madison Lines: 135 Message-ID: <3uq3d3$18eo@news.doit.wisc.edu> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: amethyst.geology.wisc.edu Keywords: Cyrillics Russian Latin Transliteration compcom@tigger.jvnc.net (Scott Andrews) proposed a new transliteration system recently. For the purpose of the comparison, I included your system in a summary of the transliteration tables. You can find it at the end of my article, as well as on my homepage. Now, I have some few notes: 1. GOST 16876-71 (#2 in my table) and Pokrovsky's EuroTex-92 (#3) both allow 1-to-1 two-way conversion, and satisfy the requirement to represent a letter by two characters. 2. Pokrovskij uses "W" for "shch" as well, as you do, but "Q" for the "soft sign yerik". The letter "Q" clearly cannot be considered as the "intuitive natural" for "shch". 3. The rule [When "a", "e", "o" or "u" follows a "j" ("i kratkoe"), use j' or j` instead of "j" to avoid ligatures. For example: maj'or, Maj'a, foj'e, J'eti, J`oshkar-Ola] consitutes two transliterations for the letter: [j] i. just [j], when not followed by the vowel ii. j' or j`, when followed by the vowel. which makes its transliteration, depending on the next character. This is a complication, which both GOST and Pokrovsky's system's lack. They require to use either "jj" or "ji" in all cases, which is simpler. So, from Occam's razor point of view your system loses. 4. I do not see, why [e'] or [e`] is intuitively better than "eh". Since you do not use "h" at all Overall your system looks like some extension to the systems, listed above, which allows to use "yo", "yu", "ya", and "x" together with "h", but which imposes some complications instead, which one has to keep in mind. Finally, I strongly doubt, that anybody is really going to write a long text in transliteration with an intention to convert it to KOI-8 later. The best tool, which I know so far, is D.Manin's "cyr.el", and if one cannot install it, the easier solution is still to use some qwerty. P.S. Here are some transliteration systems. The first three I copied from J.Labanowski's tables. (Unfortunately I didn't realise to erase ", when making the table using perl, and I am too lazy to redo it again or manually. Sorry ;) 1 -- US Library of congress 2 -- GOST 16876-71 3 -- Pokrovsky EuroTex-92 4 -- D.Manin's 5 -- yawerty from V.Maslov's readme (keyboard only, output is in KOI-8) 6 -- A.Khrabrov's and S.Winitzki's KOI 1 2 3 4 5 6 letter KOI-8 (cyrillic) -7 ________________________________________________________ a A A A A A A A a b B B B B B B Be b w V V V V V V Ve w g G G G G G G Ghe g d D D D D D D De d e E E E E E E,Je Je e $ JO JO Jo Yo JO,YO Yo 3 Jo,Yo v ZH ZH Zh ZH V Zh Zhe v z Z Z Z Z Z Z Ze z i I I I I I I I i j J JJ Ji J J J short I j k K K K K K K Ka k l L L L L L L El l m M M M M M M Em m n N N N N N N En n o O O O O O O O o p P P P P P O Pe p r R R R R R R Er r s S S S S S S Es s t T T T T T T Te t u U U U U U U U u f F F F F F F Ef f h KH Kh Kh H H X Kha h H, unless preceeded by C,S,Z c TS C C TS C C Tse c { Sh SH Sh SH { Sh Sha { } Shch HH W SCH } W,Q Shcha } \0x22 `` X ~ $ ~ hard sign (Ier)  y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y (Iery) y x ' ` Q ' X ',` soft sign Ierik x | EH EH Eh E | E",E',E`,@ reverse round E | ` JU JU Ju Yu ~ JU,YU Yu ` Ju,Yu q JA JA Ja Ya Q JA,YA Ya q Ja,Ya A a a a a a a a A B b b b b b b be B W v v v v w v ve W G g g g g g g ghe G D d d d d d d de D E e e e e e e,je je E # jo jo jo yo yo # V zh zh zh zh v zh zhe V Z z z z z z z z Z I i i i i i i i I J j jj ji j j j short i J K k k k k k k ka K L l l l l l l el L M m m m m m m em M N n n n n n n en N O o o o o o o o O P p p p p p p pe P R r r r r r r er R S s s s s s s es S T t t t t t t te T U u u u u u u u U F f f f f f f ef F H kh kh kh h h x kha H h, unless preceeded by c,s,z C ts c c ts c c tse C ^ ch ch ch ch = ch che ^ [ sh sh sh sh [ sh sha [ ] shch hh w shc ] q,w shcha ] _ \0x22 '' x ~ # ~ hard sign (ier) _ Y y y y y y y y (iery) Y X ' ' q ' x ',` soft sign (ierik) X \ eh eh eh e \ e',e",e`,@ reverse rounded e \ @ ju ju ju yu ` ju,yu yu @ Q ja ja ja ya q ja,ya ya Q -- Sincerely yours, Leonid Delitsin http://ice.geology.wisc.edu/~delitsin/public.html