CyrillicLatin

CyrillicLatin is a general term for the transliteration and transcription systems used to render Cyrillic-script text in Latin letters and, conversely, to map Latin-script representations back to Cyrillic. It covers the range of schemes developed for languages that use the Cyrillic alphabet, including Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Macedonian, and others, as well as the reverse direction. The purpose is to facilitate reading, indexing, data exchange, and international communication where Latin script is preferred or required.

Transliteration and transcription are related but distinct. Transliteration aims for a reversible mapping of letters, producing a one-to-one representation that can be reconstructed into the original Cyrillic text. Transcription focuses on representing pronunciation and may be less strictly reversible, especially across languages with different phonologies. In practice, many CyrillicLatin systems balance reversibility with readability and phonetic approximation.

Standards and variants are numerous. ISO 9 provides a scientific, largely reversible transliteration between Cyrillic and Latin scripts, with defined mappings for many languages. ALA-LC and library-oriented standards adapt ISO 9 for cataloging and indexing. National or regional standards, such as GOST or BGN/PCGN, offer country- or language-specific rules. Ukrainian and Kazakh, among others, have popular transliteration practices that reflect political and cultural preferences, such as Київ being rendered as Kyiv in contemporary usage and as Kiev in older conventions.

In digital and practical contexts, CyrillicLatin appears in library catalogs, academic writing, geographic names, and software localization. It also interacts with diacritics, digraphs, and language-specific features, which can affect readability and searchability across platforms. There is no single universal CyrillicLatin system; it is a family of related standards used to meet varying linguistic, academic, and bureaucratic needs.