Meeting of the UNGEGN Working Group on Romanization Systems
Tallinn, 9-10 October, 2006

Byelorussian: possible changes in romanization

The information is based on documents presented by Belarus at the 7th meeting of the Eastern Europe, Northern and Central Asia Division of UNGEGN (L'viv, Ukraine, 26-28 September, 2006), specifically on "Применение системы романизации географических названий в Республике Беларусь" [Application of the system of romanization of geographical names in the Republic of Belarus]).

The Instructions for Transliteration of Geographical Names in the Republic of Belarus into Letters of the Roman Alphabet establish rules for converting names from their Byelorussian system of writing to the Roman alphabet on cartographic and other documents produced in foreign languages for international use.

These Instructions have been followed since 2001 in cartographic production (romanized maps of Belarus and Minsk region), and in preparing gazetteers of populated places for the regions of Belarus (Назвы населеных пунктаў Рэспублікі Беларусь [Names of Populated Places of the Republic of Belarus]) of which the gazetteers for three regions (Minsk, Hrodna, Homiel') have already been produced. In the gazetteers Byelorussian names are also given in romanization.

While practically applying the system in maps and gazetteers several comments and suggestions were made by the specialists involved in the work. Analysis of these suggestions indicated that there needs to be some revision of the Instructions.

A draft Government Resolution was prepared to amend the Instructions, this was discussed by specialists on toponymy and approved by the Committee on Toponymy at the Council of Ministers.

The proposed changes into the Resolution of the Government Committee on Land Resources, Geodesy and Cartography (as approved on November 23, 2000) are summarized in Annex to this document.

Specialists have concluded that the proposed changes facilitate a more correct, exact and compact rendering of Byelorussian geographical names in Roman letters intended for international use.

The application of additional diacritical signs, etc. (e.g. distinction between a soft L, and hard Ł) significantly simplifies the technical processing and layout and improves the reading of names in maps (in current Instructions, the softness of L is indicated by an apostrophe adjacent to the letter, so the name is visually cut into two parts: Kal'varyja, Tal'ka; the proposed changes remove this shortcoming: Kalvaryja, Talka). It is important to note that the proposed changes do not affect the reversibility of the system.

Consideration has also been given to comments given by the UNGEGN Working Group on Romanization Systems regarding the romanization of soft sign (ь) and the apostrophe (').

Annex

Proposed changes can be summarized into three groups.

1. The letter Ú as romanization of Cyrillic Ў will be substituted by Ŭ (U with a breve).
2. Distinction will be made between soft (palatalized) L and hard Ł.
3. Instead of the apostrophe, palatalization of several sounds will be marked by a combining acute: дзь → dź, зь → ź, нь → ń, сь → ś, ць → ć.

The table of romanization will be as follows.

* word-initially, after vowel letters, apostrophe, separating soft sign and ў.
** after consonant letters (excluding L l).

Some comments to the table [PP].

For a person who is not familiar with the Cyrillic orthography of Byelorussian there are certain ambiguities in the table, especially concerning the romanization of Л as L or Ł (in combinations with vowels), and the use of combining acute instead of apostrophe (as romanization of the Cyrillic soft sign ь). Also it would be useful to add the apostrophe (in Cyrillic) to the table.

Below is a possible clarification of some of the difficult characters.

(1) word-initially, after vowel letters, apostrophe, separating soft sign and ў.
(2) after consonant letters (except Л л).
(3) after Л л.
(4) Л л is romanized L l if it is followed by vowel characters е, ё, і, ю, я; ль is always romanized l.
(5) Л л is romanized Ł ł word-finally, also if followed by consonant characters, apostrophe or vowel characters а, о, у, ы, э.
(6) Cyrillic soft sign is romanized with a combining acute on the preceding letter as follows: дзь → dź, зь → ź, нь → ń, сь → ś, ць → ć. The combination ль is romanized l.