1.6. Is there a key to the romanization used here?
Description
This article is from the Mongolia FAQ, by Oliver Corff with numerous contributions by others.
1.6. Is there a key to the romanization used here?
The FAQ maintainer uses the MLS system for romanizing Mongolian. The
MLS system offers round-trip compatibility (Cyrillic texts can be
transliterated, the romanized version can be retransliterated and will
be identical with the Cyrillic original). Software for MS-DOS and UNIX
based computers is available at no charge.
The basic principles underlying MLS are simple: if ever possible, use
one Latin character for one Cyrillic letter, and if not possible, use
an unambiguous digraph. Vowels are classified as front (female) or
back (male); front vowels are all marked with diacritics. It is a fact
that Mongolian *has* seven basic vowels, and it is not possible to
avoid these in writing.
Furthermore, if ever possible, one transliteration symbol should be
used for Cyrillic *and* Classical Mongolian letters of the same
linguistic origin.
The following simple table tries to avoid graphics and foreign
character sets but uses conventional names and positions to identify
Cyrillic letters.
Position Name Romanization Notes
__________________________________________________________________
1 A A/a
2 Be B/b
3 Ve W/w (1)
4 Ge G/g
5 De D/d
6 Ye E/e
7 Yo Yo/ë or yo (2)
8 Je J/j
9 Ze Z/z
10 Ih I/i
11 Xagas I (I kratkoye) I or Ï/ï (3)
12 Ka K/k
13 eL L/l
14 eM M/m
15 eN N/n
16 O Ö/o
17 Front (barred) O Ö/ö
18 Pe P/p
19 eR R/r
20 eS S/s
21 Te T/t
22 U U/u
23 Front (Straight) U Ü/ü
24 Fe F/f
25 Xa X/x (4)
26 Ce C/c
27 Che Q/q
28 Sha Sh/sh
29 Shcha Qh/qh (5)
30 Xatuu Temdeg (Hard Sign) ` (6)
31 61-Y Y/y (7)
32 Zöölön Temdeg (Soft Sign) ' (6)
33 E (not Ye) Ä/ä
34 Yu Yu/yu (8)
35 Ya Ya/ya
Notes:
1. W was chosen over v because v serves a slightly different purpose
in the transliteration of Classical Mongolian. And, there is no w,
only b, in Classical Mongolian.
2. Small yo can be written as e+diaeresis (#137 in the good old IBM
cp437 codepage) or as yo. Pick what you like. Actually, for ISO
8859-1 users, there is also a capitalized Ë available. (Not so for
IBM cp437 users). The converter software is lenient and accepts
both; so should humans.
3. Xagas i (lit. ``half i'') can be entered as #139 by IBM cp437
users; a capitalized version of this letter is available for ISO
8859-1 users only.
4. X may look strange at first glance but is optically close to its
Cyrillic partner; H could not be used because it is reserved for
Buriad (e.g.: hain baina uu) where it coexists with it/x/.
5. Yes, Qh for Shch is odd. However, this letter never occurs in
genuinely Mongolian words, so it should not be too insulting to the
eye. And, unlike shch, it is round- trip compatible!
6. Both hard and soft signs are expressed by simple accents, the
transliteration does not make a difference between uppercase and
lowercase letters. It is possible to judge by context.
7. Why ``61-...''? In Mongolian called jaran-nigän, lit. ``sixty-
one'', reproduces the hand-written image if this letter.
8. Yu and yu can also be written as Yü and Yü so as to avoid things
like *yuülüür. yüülüür looks nicer!
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