Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Romanization of Ukrainian

This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style.

It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though occasional exceptions may apply. Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

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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.

Romanization systems

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

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: є = i͡e, ж = z͡h, ї = ï, й = ĭ, ц = t͡s, ю = i͡u, ь = ′, я = i͡a.

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

Pronunciation is usually represented using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (pronunciation), Ukrainian phonology.

Entering romanization

Enter Ukrainian terms and their romanizations using templates {{lang-uk}}, {{lang}}, and {{transl}} to properly format and tag them. For example:

{{langx|uk| Київська Русь| translit= Kyivska Rus| translit-std= ungegn| lit= Kyivan Rus}}, or just {{langx|uk| Русь| translit= Rus| translit-std= ungegn| label= none}}.

Which yields:

Ukrainian: Київська 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.

Romanization style

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

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), holubéc′, hrývnja, Rús′ka Tríjtsja (scholarly transliterations for linguistics), Ivan Kotli͡arevs′kyĭ, Eneïda (ALA-LC for citations in footnotes).

External links

Wiktionary