Streamlined System for the Romanization of Bulgarian

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The Streamlined System for the Romanization of Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet
The Streamlined System for the Romanization of Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet
The system as used in a 1989 document:Note Burgas (Бургас), Ahtopol (Ахтопол), Vratsa (Враца), and Tarnovo (Търново)
The system as used in a 1989 document:
Note Burgas (Бургас), Ahtopol (Ахтопол), Vratsa (Враца), and Tarnovo (Търново)

The Streamlined System is the official Bulgarian system for the Romanization of Bulgarian. It was developed at the Department of Mathematical Logic at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences by L.L. Ivanov, and originally introduced by the Antarctic Place-names Commission of Bulgaria on March 2, 1995.[1][2]

The new system became subject to comparative study at the Department of English and American Studies at Sofia University,[3] and was subsequently adopted by the Bulgarian Government (Ordinances #61 of 2 April 1999, #10 of 11 February 2000, and #269 of 3 October 2006) in identity documents, road signs, street names, official information systems, databases, local authorities’ websites etc.[4][5]

The system is based on an English-oriented transliteration, taking advantage of the global lingua franca role of English. Diacritics are avoided, making it more user-friendly for the purposes of modern electronic communication (e-mail, instant messaging, short message service etc.), and obviating the need for additional conventions and explanation. In that respect the Streamlined System is dissimilar to the scientific transliteration of Bulgarian (1956 Bulgarian standard, or Andreychin System), with the latter using Ž·ž, Č·č, Š·š, ŠT·št and Ă·ă for Ж·ж, Ч·ч, Ш·ш, Щ·щ and Ъ·ъ respectively. Furthermore, the two systems differ in rendering the Cyrillic letters Й·й, Ц·ц, Ь·ь, Ю·ю, Я·я as Y·y, TS·ts, Y·y, YU·yu, YA·ya and J·j, C·c, J·j, JU·ju, JA·ja respectively.[6]

The essential difference between the Streamlined System and the closely related Danchev System is the case of the Cyrillic letters У·у and Ъ·ъ, rendered as U·u, A·a and OU·ou, U·u respectively.[4][6]

The Streamlined System is similar also to the 1952 BGN/PCGN System for the Romanization of Bulgarian, still official in the USA and the United Kingdom. The latter however transliterates the Cyrillic letters Х·х, Ь·ь and Ъ·ъ as KH·kh, ’ (apostrophe) and Ŭ·ŭ, while the former uses H·h, Y·y and A·a instead. [4][7]

The streamlined approach is applied also in the Romanization of other Cyrillic alphabets such as Russian,[8] as well as in the re-Romanization and pronunciation respelling of English.[9]

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Origins of the 1995 Streamlined System: Unofficial use in a 1989 document.
  2. ^ L.L. Ivanov, Toponymic Guidelines for Antarctica, Antarctic Place-names Commission of Bulgaria, Sofia, 1995.
  3. ^ M. Gaidarska. The Current State of the Transliteration of Bulgarian Names into English in Popular Practice, Contrastive Linguistics, XXII, 1998, 112, pp. 69-84.
  4. ^ a b c L.L. Ivanov, On the Romanization of Bulgarian and English, Contrastive Linguistics, XXVIII, 2003, 2, pp. 109-118.
  5. ^ Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works, Ordinance #3 of 26 October 2006 on the Transliteration of the Bulgarian Geographical Names in Latin Alphabet, State Gazette # 94, 21 November 2006 (in Bulgarian)
  6. ^ a b A. Danchev, M. Holman, E. Dimova, M. Savova, An English Dictionary of Bulgarian Names: Spelling and Pronunciation, Nauka i Izkustvo Publishers, 1989, 288 pp.
  7. ^ USBGN, Romanization Systems and Roman-Script Spelling Conventions, 1994, pp.17-18.
  8. ^ L.L. Ivanov, Romanization of Russian: The 2006 Streamlined System
  9. ^ L. Ivanov, V. Yule, Roman Phonetic Alphabet for English, Contrastive Linguistics, XXXII, 2007, 2, pp. 50-64.