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What is it?   The rules of transliteration   Participate in the improvement   Other transliterators

What is it?

The transliterator (also called the converter or transliter) is, as you can well imagine, a tool for transliteration, i.e. for the conversion of words written with the characters of the alphabet X into the same words written with the characters of the alphabet Y. The tool therefore performs a translation that is not linguistic but graphic: it should not be confused even with transcription (think of the phonetics found in dictionaries). This is precisely why there is more than one set of rules for transliteration from one alphabet to another. Each set of rules is drawn up by a national or international organisation to meet specific needs. More detailed and, in a certain sense, more scientific information can be found in specialist literature or Wikipedia (depending on which sources you prefer).
This transliterator, in particular, allows texts to be translated from the Ukrainian alphabet to the Latin alphabet and vice versa. By default – if no specific transliteration system has been chosen – this tool will follow the international scientific system (the one recommended by the UN and used in the scientific and library world). The rules of transliteration – or, if you prefer, conversion – for both the default system and the explicitly chosen one are given in the section «Transliteration rules» for information purposes and for possible «manual» checking of the result obtained. It is likely, in fact, that the need will arise to make manual corrections to the result of the «reverse» transliteration, the one corresponding to the possible sequence of Ukrainian – Latin – Ukrainian conversions (this is the fault of some distortions due to too great differences between the alphabets treated).

Participate in the improvement

You can help me to improve my Transliterator of Ukrainian alphabet in any of the following ways:
– write to me by e-mail about any observed error in transliteration (don’t forget to specify the system in which the error is detected);
– send me a list (or a link to it) of non-existent letter combinations in Ukrainian (needed to improve the reverse transliteration option);
– make any suggestion (or give advice) on improving transliteration, as well as its design, usability, etc.;
– donate to me an allowable amount of money, which will help me devote some more time to further work on improving the transliteration: see the yellow button in the right-hand column of the page.

The rules of transliteration

By default – if no specific transliteration system has been chosen – this tool will follow the international scientific system (the one recommended by the UN and used in the scientific and library world). The system will be followed both for the transliteration from Ukrainian cyrillic to Latin and for the transliteration from Latin to Ukrainian cyrillic. For information purposes — but also for the possible «manual» control of the result obtained — I report the rules of the applied system: