Palladius System

The cyrillization of Chinese is the transcription of Chinese characters into the Cyrillic alphabet.

The Palladius system is the official Russian standard for transcribing Chinese into Russian, with variants existing for Ukrainian, Belarusian and the various languages of Russia. It was created by Palladius Kafarov, a Russian sinologist and monk who spent thirty years in China in the nineteenth century. Other languages that use the Cyrillic script have systems designed for their own language.

Russian system

Initials

Note that because the Russian version of the Cyrillic alphabet has no letters for ''dz'' or ''dzh'' (although дз and дж are found in Bulgarian, and also ѕ and џ are found in Serbian and Macedonian Cyrillic), the digraphs цз and чж are used respectively.

Finals

In composites, coda ''ng'' is transcribed нъ when the following syllable starts with a vowel. For example, the names of the cities of ''Chang'an'' and ''Hengyang'' are transcribed as Чанъань and Хэнъян.

In syllables with no initial, ''w'' is transcribed as в in all cases except ''wu'', transcribed as у. For example, the names of the cities of ''Wuwei'' (both Wuwei, Anhui and Wuwei, Gansu) and '' Wanning'' are transcribed as Увэй and Ваньнин.

Comparison chart

This table establishes correspondence between the Russian Palladius system together with the two Romanization systems most commonly used in English-speaking countries: Pinyin and Wade–Giles. It contains every syllable found in ''Great Chinese–Russian Dictionary''.

Note that the Palladius system does not distinguish between pinyin ''luo'' (as in , ) and the rare syllable ''lo'' (as in , ); both are written ло.

Exceptions

The names of the cities of ''Beijing'' and ''Nanjing'' are transcribed as (instead of ) and (instead of ), much as ''Peking'' and ''Nanking'' were still used in English-speaking countries until recently. Hong Kong ( zh, p=Xiānggǎng) may be both () and (''Hong Kong''); the latter is more common.

In Russian borrowings from Chinese (such as place names), the syllable () is generally transcribed as ( Huizu, ) or occasionally (Anhui, ); this is because is a taboo word for "penis" in Russian and several other Slavic languages. Dictionaries, however, may contain the unaltered spelling; as is found in Palladius' own dictionary from 1888, and Oshanin's ''Great Chinese–Russian Dictionary''.

Older documents contain variants мэн — мын, мэнь — мынь, фэн — фын, фэнь — фынь, пэн — пын, hence Aomen (Macao) is traditionally spelled in Russian. Most modern texts contain э, with some exceptions.

Pre-reform version

Prior to the reform of Russian orthography in 1918, the system differed in a few respects, as can be seen in Palladius's 1888 dictionary:
* ъ was used at the end of a word ending in a consonant, as was standard in pre-reform orthography.
* е → ѣ
* ё → іо
* эр → эрръ
* -юэ → -юе
* мэн, мэнь and фэн were written мынъ, мынь and фынъ, respectively; this did not affect фэнь, however.

Ukrainian system

Initials

Finals

In composites, coda ''ng'' is transcribed н' when the following syllable starts with a vowel. For example, the names of the cities of ''Chang'an'' and ''Hengyang'' are transcribed as Чан'ань and Хен'ян.

In syllables with no initial, ''w'' is transcribed as в in all cases except ''wu'', transcribed as у. For example, the names of the cities of '' Wuwei'' and '' Wanning'' are transcribed as Увей and Ваньнін.

Comparison chart

This table establishes correspondence between the Ukrainian Palladius system together with the two Romanization systems most commonly used in English-speaking countries: Pinyin and Wade–Giles.

Cyrillization with the Ukrainian alphabet differs from the Russian as follows:
* е → є
* ё → йо
* э → е
* г → ґ
* и → і
** in жи, чжи, чи, ши ''(ri, zhi, chi, shi)'' still и is used
** Syllables without initial consonant start with ї (''yi, yin, ying'' → ї, їнь, їн).
* ы → и
* ъ → ' (apostrophe)

Belarusian system

Cyrillization with the Belarusian alphabet differs from the Russian as follows:
* ао, яо → аа, яа (in accordance with Belarusian akanye)
* и → і
** in ''ri, zhi, chi, shi'' there is ы (жы, чжы, чы, шы).
* ъ → ' (apostrophe)

Serbian system

The Serbian system is rather different from the Russian: for example, ''j, q, zh'' are transcribed as ђ, ћ, џ; the Serbian letters ј, љ, њ appear where the Russian system uses я, е, ю, й; final ''n'' and ''ng'' are н and нг.

Macedonian system

Source:

Initials

Finals

W- and y- are transcribed as в- and ј-.

Table of cyrillization systems

Sample texts

See also

* Palladius table
* Polivanov system
* Kontsevich system
*Dungan language (alphabets)
* Taz language
*Romanization of Chinese

References

External links

Automatic Cyrillic transliteration of pinyin

Annotation of Chinese with Palladius and other phonetic systems

{{Authority control

Chinese
Transcription of Chinese
China–Russia relations