Last updated: Mar. 9, 2019

Fifi's Russian Transliteration Chart


These are my Roman-alphabet equivalents for the modern Russian alphabet, with Cyrillic underneath:
abvgdezhzijklmnoprstufkhcchshshch"y'`ejuja
а Аб Бв Вг Гд Де/ё Е/Ёж Жз Зи Ий Йк Кл Лм Мн Но Оп Пр Рс Ст Ту Уф Фх Хц Цч Чш Шщ Щъ Ъы Ыь Ьэ Эю Юя Я

As you can tell, mine borrows much from the system used by the Library of Congress, except for c (=ts), ju (iu with ligature), ja (ia with ligature), and `e (uniotated e). "Je" is avoided as a transliteration for "e", despite its affinity with "ju" and "ja", because "`e" is far less frequent and less typing would be needed overall. The iotated vowel letter "yo" (e with umlaut) is subsumed under the transliteration "e" and not rendered "jo", as this can create ambiguity in reverse transliteration if "j" is used also by itself (e.g. "N'ju-Jork"). For pre-reform texts, old-style letters are considered in their modern equivalents, and modern spelling is applied as well (e.g. "eja" becomes "ee").

This system avoids diacritics and, as far as I've been able to determine, is unambiguous, except that there is no difference between upper and lower case soft or hard signs.


Author: Lyle K. Neff, lneff@udel.edu