The romanization of Macedonian is the

transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or L ...

of text in Macedonian from the

Macedonian Cyrillic alphabet The orthography of the Macedonian language includes an alphabet consisting of 31 letters ( mk, Македонска азбука, Makedonska azbuka), which is an adaptation of the Cyrillic script, as well as language-specific conventions of spelli ...

into the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and th ...

Romanization Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, a ...

can be used for various purposes, such as rendering of

proper name A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (''Africa'', ''Jupiter'', ''Sarah'', ''Microsoft)'' as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (''continent, ...

s in foreign contexts, or for informal writing of Macedonian in environments where Cyrillic is not easily available. Official use of romanization by

North Macedonia North Macedonia, ; sq, Maqedonia e Veriut, (Macedonia before February 2019), officially the Republic of North Macedonia,, is a country in Southeast Europe. It gained independence in 1991 as one of the successor states of Yugoslavia. It ...

's authorities is found, for instance, on road signage and in passports. Several different codified standards of transliteration currently exist and there is widespread variability in practice.

Romanization systems

For a number of Cyrillic letters, transliteration into matching Latin letters is straightforward. Cyrillic а, б, в, г, д, е, з, и, к, л, м, н, о, п, р, с, т, у, ф are matched with Latin ''a, b, v, g, d, e, z, i, k, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, t, u, f'', according to all conventions. Cyrillic ц (pronounced ) is mostly rendered as ''c'', in accordance with the conventions for many other Slavic (and non-Slavic) languages. The letter х is typically rendered as ''h'', matching the pronunciation in Macedonian. For the Macedonian/Serbian letter ј, the preferred transliteration is its visual Latin counterpart ''j'' (rather than ''y'', otherwise widely used in English for the rendering of the same glide sound in other languages). For other Cyrillic letters, the choice is between a single Latin letter with a

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...

, and a digraph of two Latin letters. This goes mainly for the letters denoting palatalised consonants, and for those denoting

fricative A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...

s and affricates in the alveolar and palatal range.

Digraph system

This system uses digraphs instead of

s, making it easier for use in environments where diacritics may pose a technical problem, such as typing on computers. Common usage has ''gj, kj'' for ѓ, ќ, either ''dj'' or ''dzh'' for џ, and sometimes ''ts'' for ц. Such a diacritic-free system, with digraphs ''zh, gj, dz, lj, nj, kj, ch, sh, dj'' has been adopted since 2008 for use in official documents such as passports, ID cards and driver's licenses. The system adopted for digraph transliteration i
ICAO Doc 9303
CadastreICAO Doc 9303 (page 33, 34)
The Macedonian Journal of Medical Sciences and the State Statistical Office of North Macedonia use similar digraph system.State Statistical Office

ISO 9 system

A standardized system of transliteration based on

Gaj's Latin alphabet Gaj's Latin alphabet ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Gajeva latinica, separator=" / ", Гајева латиница}, ), also known as ( sh-Cyrl, абецеда, ) or ( sh-Cyrl, гајица, link=no, ), is the form of the Latin script used for writing Serb ...

has been used since 1950s and defined in ISO 9:1968; this system was also adopted by the Macedonian Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1970,Macedonian Latin alphabet, BGN/PCGN (in 2013), and ALA-LC and is taught in schools in North Macedonia It uses letters with diacritics ''ž, č, š'' for Cyrillic ж, ч, ш respectively (as for many other Slavic languages), and '' ǵ, ḱ'' for the special Macedonian letters ѓ, ќ. The palatalised consonants of Cyrillic љ, њ are rendered with digraphs ''lj, nj'' (although the academic orthography also permits using ''ĺ, ń''), and the voiced affricates of Cyrillic ѕ, џ with ''dz, dž'' respectively. The most recent edition of the Macedonian orthography mentions this system as well as the digraphic system, saying that the latter is used for personal names in official documents. The palatal plosives ѓ, ќ are also sometimes rendered as Latin ''đ, ć'', following a Serbian convention (''đ, ć'' are the

Gaj's Latin Gaj's Latin alphabet ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Gajeva latinica, separator=" / ", Гајева латиница}, ), also known as ( sh-Cyrl, абецеда, ) or ( sh-Cyrl, гајица, link=no, ), is the form of the Latin script used for writing Serb ...

equivalents of Serbian Cyrillic ђ and ћ, which etymologically correspond to Macedonian ѓ, ќ in many words.) This convention is found in the system adopted by the

US Board on Geographic Names The United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) is a federal body operating under the United States Secretary of the Interior. The purpose of the board is to establish and maintain uniform usage of geographic names throughout the federal govern ...

(BGN) and the British

PCGN The Permanent Committee on Geographical Names (PCGN) is an independent inter-departmental body in the United Kingdom established in 1919. Its function is to establish standard names for places outside the UK, for the use of the British governme ...

in 1981, (before 2013) as well as by the

United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographic Names The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN) is one of the nine expert groups of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and deals with the national and international standardization of geographical names. Ev ...

(UNCSGN).UNGEGN Working Group on Romanization Systems: Report on the Current Status of United Nations Romanization Systems for Geographical Names, Version 2.2, January 200

According to this system, ѓ, ќ are transliterated as plain ''g'' and ''k'' before front vowels (е, и), but as ''đ'' and ''ć'' respectively in other environments. Otherwise, this system is identical to that of ISO 9 (R:1968). The Macedonian Academy of Arts and Sciences uses ''gj'' and ''kj'' for the palatal plosives on its official website. The ISO 9, ISO 9:1995 is a standard that completely avoids digraphs and permits to romanize any Cyrillic text without knowing in what language it is. However, it is rarely used because of having unusual diacriticized letters.

Notes

References

*British Standard 2979 : 1958, London: British Standards Institution. *G. Selvelli
Su alcuni aspetti ideologici dei sistemi di traslitterazione degli alfabeti cirillici nei Balcani.
''Studi Slavistici'' XII (2015). pp. 159–180. {{Romanization Macedonian language Macedonian

Romanization systems

Digraph system

ISO 9 system

See also

Notes

References