Wikipedia talk:Romanization of Russian/Archive 4

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Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4

Convenience header

NO CONSENSUS:

Closed as no consensus. There is a lack of clarity about the discussion, and about the straw poll which was intended to find that clarity. Under the circumstances it would be inappropriate to either mark this page as a Wikipedia guideline, or as a non-functioning historical page. As there appears to be a lack of interest in moving this forward it would also be inappropriate to nominate it for promotion to a guideline. The recommendation is to resolve remaining issues, and to make clearer the relationship with Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Russia), BGN/PCGN romanization of Russian and WP:UE before nominating in future. SilkTork ✔Tea time 08:01, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Hard sign

  • Text says : omitted,
  • Table says : omitted when followed by a vowel.

If table is followed, it would mean using BGN/PCGN romanization of Russian when not followed by a vowel, i.e. using "”". Is this really desired? Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 02:45, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I put " When followed by a vowel " into comment. The comment now also says "...in text version of rule not mentioned. In modern Russian, is it ever not followed by a vowel?" Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 03:01, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I think this was an oversight; it was meant to be "iotated vowel", not just "vowel". When the hard sign is followed by a non-iotated vowel, "y" or ” is used to indicate the hard sign (Мусийкъонгийкоте→Musiykyongiykote or Musiyk”ongiykote; a tiny rural locality in Ingushetia), but such cases are so far and few between that the "always omit the hard sign" rule works for pretty much all practical intents and purposes.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 23, 2011; 13:38 (UTC)
I added that special rule so that the Ingushetia locality is covered. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 17:35, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Double letters

The only reason to discuss the Cyrillic е at all is to say that the combination -йе- is to be transliterated -ye- not -yye-. By changing this, we can get rid of several lines in the table which say effectively "follow the BGN transliteration". Similarly, the lines which explicitly say "follow BGN except" are unnecessary; all we need are the cases where it doesn't. Doing this will not change guidance atr all; it will just make it much easier to comprehend. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:37, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Can you please clarify if you are suggesting adding a section dealing with the -йе- combination in addition to simplifying the "e" section, or if you are suggesting simplifying the "e" section and not mentioning -йе- at all? This combination is very rare, so it's probably not worth being covered separately.
Another instance of double letters the guideline fails to mention in its current form is the "-ые" ending. The current practice is to romanize it as "-ye" ("y" for "ы" and "e" for "е"), not "-yye" ("y" for "ы" and "ye" for "е")—see, for example, Naberezhnye Chelny. Unlike -йе-, this combination is very common and is worth being covered, but (things are never easy, are they) it is seldom romanized as "ye" in the middle of the words, only when it's an ending. Otherwise it would be impossible to distinguish "въезд" from "выезд" and their numerous derivatives.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 23, 2011; 15:15 (UTC)
I'm proposing to replace the e section with a -йе- section. I would have no objection to a -ые section in parallel. But the rest of e only repeats BGN. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:19, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
Done Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:12, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
I added the rule for "-ые" [1] Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 09:56, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Ё (ё)

Yo-yo

Our actual practice, independent of this guideline, appears to be to Romanize ё as e and to transcribe it as yo; that's also what most Romanizations do:

  • Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (Russian: Михаил Сергеевич Горбачёв, romanized: Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachyov, IPA: [mʲɪxɐˈil sʲɪrˈɡʲejəvʲɪtɕ ɡərbɐˈtɕof] ⓘ;

Let us take this as default. As usual, we can vary from the default for good reasons. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:37, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Gorbachev isn't a good example. His last name is spelled with "e" not because it's an exception to the default romanization table, but because that's what you end up with if you go through the steps outlined in the "People" section. Do you have a better example?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 23, 2011; 15:24 (UTC)
And so do most other people and places. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:26, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
People, maybe. At least those who have coverage in the English-language sources. There are also plenty of people who meet our notability criteria, but the coverage is in the sources which are not in English. The omnipresent soccer players who, unfortunately, manage to pass our notability tests, are the best illustration.
Places, not so much. The easier the use of "ё" can be documented, the more likely we are to see a push to using "yo" and not "e". From what I've observed, our articles gradually migrate to the variants with "yo", not the other way around. (And no, it wasn't me who moved them all :))—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 23, 2011; 20:46 (UTC)
Because you move them, relying on the former text of this guideline? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:49, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
See the fine print above.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 23, 2011; 20:56 (UTC)

Instead of examples we would need statistics. WP:ROMRUS is meant to document most common deviations from BGN/PCGN found in English language publications. Maybe this is a case where people are treated different to places. For people a lot of "-ёв" -> "-ev" seems to be documented. What about place names, what about non-endings? Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 17:54, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Where does it say ROMRUS is meant to document most common deviations? This page is meant to guide WP editors on how to provide 'English' versions of Russian names to a largely non Russian-speaking audience. I think the purpose of choosing variations from the over-academic system is to make the spelling less intimidating to that audience while continuing to give an idea of the pronunciation. Anyway we could not easily find statistics to answer some of the questions we might pose.
I can understand the idea of a specific rule that says "-ёв" -> "-ev" (and "-ёва" -> "-eva" ) but if that is adopted it should be an exception to a general rule of ё -> yo. I expect there are more cases of Fyodor than Fedor, for example, and the "yo" indicates how the name/word is pronounced (so I prefer Oryol to stay put). Sussexonian (talk) 19:52, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
One of the ways in which this rule "intimidates" is by providing our readers with versions of well-known people and places which they have not seen before. It is not necessary for Romanizations to indicate pronunciations, any more than it is necessary for native English spellings to do so (Worcestershire, anybody?). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:26, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
My reference to "intimidating" is the same as yours: unfamiliar strings like "yy" in Sosnovyy Bor mean nothing to a non Russophone reader and if we can do without them so much the better. The average reader will assume that a name that has been rendered into script readable in English conveys the rough pronunciation. There is nothing we can do with Worcestershire or Łódź but we can help by using Oryol and Fyodor rather than the alternatives. Subject always to the common English name rule. Sussexonian (talk) 12:03, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
I don't feel helped by reading a page about Oryol, which means nothing to me. I've heard of Orel; I know something about it. What we should do is to indicate that Orel, like Gorbachev, is not pronounced as it is spelt.
Fyodor is another question; it is now the conventional and customary spelling, understood by most readers. Therefore one necessary step is to indicate that the default spelling (whichever it is, even the BGN ë) should rarely be used. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:02, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
@Sussexonian "Where does it say ROMRUS is meant to document most common deviations?" - My understanding was, that WP:ROMRUS is a deviation from BGN/PCGN and that the differences to BGN/PCGN that WP:ROMRUS contains are commonly found. Ezhiki wrote: The "simplifications" were the observations of real-life usage, both indirect and direct [2]. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 13:26, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

WP:ROMRUS Ё rule has been removed

The WP:ROMRUS Ё rule has been removed [3], that would mean articles need to be moved now? Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 13:56, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Not until we have a consensus guideline (which we don't), that requires their being moved. Even if we did, that would only apply to articles which don't have a customary English title. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:27, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
@customary English title - of course. So how can we get Ё out of the way. Maybe even without consensus, I mean, some people may just stay with different opinions. Shall there be a vote about Ё treatment? Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 18:41, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Ё summary 2011-June

As far as I can see there are

  • BGN/PCGN romanization of Russian: Yë (yë) + Ë (ë)
    • supported by:
      • indirectly via the removal of the old WP:ROMRUS rule [4]
  • Old WP:ROMRUS, from start of the page in 2005-12-14 [5], modified 2006-01-02 [6], removed 2011-06-24 [7] : Yo (yo)
    • supported by:
      1. Ezhiki
      2. Sussexonian
      3. Bogdan (only for procedural reasons, no opinion on the rule itself)
  • Personal name based suggestion: E (e)
    • supported by:
      1. Pmanderson

Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 10:44, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Voting on Yo rule re-introduction for procedural reasons

The Yo rule that existed since 2005/2006 should be added back to WP:ROMRUS for procedural reasons and to allow the WP romanization system to be back in policy status. The Yo rule existed since at least 2005/2006. Since the rule affects a lot of article names, its removal or change should be discussed and if people cannot get a consensus a voting should be done.

Support re-introduction of the 2005/2006 Yo rule for procedural reasons
  • Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 10:37, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
  • Sussexonian (talk) 16:43, 28 June 2011 (UTC) as there is no consensus for its removal and because there is no consensus what would replace it.
  • the discussion above demonstrates that it has only one substantive opposer, and therefore removal of the clause is not consensus. Texts of amendments should be consensus; when adopted and preferably thereafter. When amendments have no consensus, the usual practice is to retain the existing wording.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 29, 2011; 16:56 (UTC)
  • GreyHood Talk 16:40, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
Oppose re-introduction of the 2005/2006 Yo rule for procedural reasons
  • the discussion above demonstrates that it has only one substantive supporter, and therefore is not consensus. Texts of guidelines should be consensus; when adopted and preferably thereafter. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:26, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Neutral
  • When any rule is being seriously questioned, it should either be removed, or have an "under discussion" tag, while the discussion is on-going. Mlm42 (talk) 21:03, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Voting on Yo rule re-introduction for substantive reasons

Oppose Yo rule re-introduction for substantive reasons
  • In most cases, including almost all (all?) of the common -ёв ending, the English is -ev, not -yov. In many of the other uses of Ё, the prevalent English is e, not yo. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:26, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
  • I think it's better to have no rule at all, than to have a poorly justified one. We should be trying to Wikipedia:Avoid instruction creep. Mlm42 (talk) 20:53, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
    • Comment: No rule in the table of WP:ROMRUS would mean to invoke BGN/PCGN, i.e. using Latin Ë (ë) and Yë (yë). Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 22:05, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
      • Not really.. no rule means no rule. The accepted policies and guidelines would still apply.. in particular Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) would probably dominate for most cases, which doesn't give explicit preference to BGN/PCGN. Mlm42 (talk) 22:15, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
Neutral to Yo rule re-introduction for substantive reasons

WP:ROMRUS Ё rule 2011-June re-introduction

I re-inserted the rule. Ezhiki and Pmanderson, two opposing parties (on Ё treatment, this is not a statement about the procedural matters) did edit in WP in the last 24 h, but didn't come here two vote. I just want to accelerate the process to get this page back to policy status. The current Ё rule documents current usage in en WP. If policy change is wanted, please try to get a majority via the talk page. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 16:52, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

-его -ого

Shouldn't there be a note to require these to be -vo rather than -go? In letter-for-letter bibliographic transcription -go might be acceptable, but for general rendering of Russian it should be -vo per the pronunciation. Sussexonian (talk) 20:02, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

That would be a transcription element, not transliteration. No existing transliteration system uses this convention, and we shouldn't either. For other proposed exceptions above one can easily find an abundance of real-life examples; as for this one, while I've seen this convention used occasionally in the English-language sources, I can't say it's very common. Do you perhaps have a specific example we can discuss?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 23, 2011; 20:17 (UTC)
This page is headed "Romanization". Can you write an accessible description of the distinction you are making between transliteration and transcription that would make sense to include in this guideline? In the Gorbachev example, which word describes the text in italics after the Cyrillic? Is that text intended to convey the pronunciation or the scholarly transliteration(?) that might be found in library catalogues? Sussexonian (talk) 12:09, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
I expounded the difference at some length in the threads above. If you do an inline search for the terms, you should be able to find my explanations easily. You can also refer to our transliteration, transcription (linguistics), and romanization articles, which are good enough to understand the basic differences. Additionally, our romanization also has a standardization aspect, as defined here (the purpose of romanization is establishing standardized Roman-script spellings of those foreign geographical names that are written in non-Roman scripts or in Roman alphabets that contain special letters).
With Gorbachev, the text in italics is a WP:RUS romanization, which, in turn, is a slightly simplified version of the BGN/PCGN romanization of Russian system, which, in turn, is a system of transliteration with a limited use of transcription elements. It's not the only transliteration possible, but it would be the variant most likely to be encountered if "Gorbachev" hadn't already been established as a common name (with "common name" being defined per the "People" section criteria in the pre-RfC WP:RUS).
As a side note, it's impractical to include all possible transliterations of a name in an article's lead simply because so many systems exist, which is why only one is selected. WP:RUS/BGN-PCGN spelling is not what you'll find in library catalogs (which use ALA-LC) or in the scholarly works of linguistics (which use scholarly transliteration), but it is what you are more likely to see in the works of general reference, books, or media, and those are what matter the most to us.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 24, 2011; 14:11 (UTC)
Then we should abide by it, insofar as we are likely to find it. We should alter it only in ways that make it more likely to be found: Veliky, not Velikiy. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:03, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Adjective?

-ий endings in adjectives of Russian origin become -y.

Why restrict this? It's one of the most common male endings in surnames, and as such is almost always transliterated -y. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:17, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Last names ending in "-ий" follow the same rules as the adjectives, which is why they tend to be treated the same way as the adjectives for the purposes of transliteration/romanization. So the current wording does not necessarily exclude the last names. But perhaps changing "adjectives" to "adjectives and human names" (with the latter also covering first names such as Dmitry, Vasily, etc.) would be more helpful. Such wording would be more representative of general usage, yet still allow treating nouns ending in "-ий" (such as "sanatoriy") differently.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 24, 2011; 15:43 (UTC)
It would be more helpful; English (and therefore many of those who will be reading this table) doesn't group that way.
But is this a common ending for nouns, or is restricted to Latin loan-words? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:03, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
A good number of such nouns are indeed Latin loanwords, but there are also some Russian words (such as "lesnichiy"). The ending is also very common in plural genitive. I do not, of course, expect us to use romanized nouns in plural genitive as article titles, but such nouns do occur in compound toponyms.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 24, 2011; 17:28 (UTC)

Where we are

OK, now that Mlm42 has closed his RfC, can we do something about the mess the rest of the discussion has become? I've been involved with this from day one, and now even I can't make out what's going on and where. I previously attempted to keep track of all the proposals voiced so far, and more suggestions came in since I had last updated that list. The list is obviously too long and contains some of the proposals people to whom they are attributed to probably no longer wish to pursue, but there is no indication on this page that they have been retracted. Can we perhaps do a shorter version of it and tally the supports/opposes to each item? It would be pretty similar to the last several threads on this page, except it should also account for the proposals and opposition voiced before those threads started to materialize. I just can't think of any other ways to organize the discussion without dismissing all points of view, although I am, of course, open to alternative suggestions. Change-as-we go approach exercised so far is obviously not working—can you imagine someone who's just joined being able to figure out what's going on here?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 24, 2011; 16:54 (UTC)

This is one advantage of a divide: there's only one pressing question on this page: the default Romanization of ё. All the rest are tweaks. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:06, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
Not exactly. The fate of the conventionality cause hasn't been decided yet either. You, I take, are for removing it altogether, while me and some other participants are for amending it, although each has his/her own opinion as to how exactly the final version should look like. There's no consensus on this by a long shot.
With the rest, even though they are mostly tweaks, it's still helpful to have them documented in one place rather than to hunt them down all over this page.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 24, 2011; 17:13 (UTC)
What do you mesn by conventionality case? If you mean
•In absence of documentation supporting one of the criteria of conventionality, articles can be moved to the spelling produced using the WP romanization of Russian.
I'm for banning any editor who acts on it; but it's at WP:NCRUS in all its bossy and unidiomatic splendor; not here. How strongly any default spelling should be enforced is separate from what the default should be. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:19, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
WP:NCRUS is itself only one proposal as to how to go about that clause. Whether the split is even necessary is debatable.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 24, 2011; 17:38 (UTC)
We have 1) Wikipedia's "default" romanization of Russian, and 2) Wikipedia's naming conventions for Russian articles. Before, they were split as two sections of the same page, and now they are split into two different pages. I think having two different pages makes more sense because it more clearly separates the talk page discussions. Although the two are obviously related, I think it's helpful to keep the discussions (and arguments) separate whenever possible. Mlm42 (talk) 00:38, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
Not to forget that some WP:RUSSIA related naming conventions were only contained in WP:NCGN#Russia, so in fact there were two pages before. The WP:NCGN content is now copied to WP:NCRUS. WP:ROMRUS falls into Category:Wikipedia romanization systems and WP:NCRUS falls into Category:Wikipedia naming conventions (regional). Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 07:25, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
Mlm says ... it more clearly separates the talk page discussions. The bulk of this talk page concerns matters that are in NCRUS, and currently there is very little talk over there, although there are more live issues to be sorted there than here.
The discussion about gazeteers and dictionaries overlaps with the one about 'iy' and 'y' and other rules. If any English source such as an atlas can be used to claim the existence of a "common" English spelling, then we will rarely use ROMRUS at all for place names. And someone would have to change thousands of article names to insert an apostrophe for every soft sign etc. We would be better making ROMRUS simply mirror BGN/PCGN for consistency.
We need to know, is ROMRUS only going to be used for "obscure" people and places, which have no coverage in English outside reference books, or will it be used frequently, with only the most common cases like Tchaikovsky etc standing as exceptions? In the first case we should go for a scholarly ROMRUS and in the latter case we should go for something user-friendly for the casual Wikipedia reader.
Or we could just assume that the vast majority of articles are properly titled already and put the pages back how they were. Sussexonian (talk) 14:40, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Where we are? Except for Ё treatment the page is ready to be tagged as guideline or policy again. Or is there any other issue with the WP romanization? Maybe the easiest is to document current use in the guideline, then no pages need to be moved. After that, the people that want to change Ё treatment can gather support and try to change the longstanding Ё rule. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 18:45, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Romanization table

I am in favour of restoring the whole table in some form, rather than only include the "List of differences from BGN/PCGN". This could simply be in the form "In all cases except as listed below Аа -> a; Бб -> b ..." with no need for examples, but it will increase the likelihood of this guideline being used by non experts as well as Russian experts, and non-regulars will already have been passed from one page to another before arriving here (or at NCRUS if that split is kept). I don't see the point in sending the user to BGN/PCGN romanization of Russian when we can provide all the information here. Sussexonian (talk) 18:02, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Hear, hear.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 24, 2011; 18:06 (UTC)
That would be reasonable, if it is kept short, so that people don't have to search the table. For example, I commend "Ее -> e or ye" rather than specifying at length which is which; those who aren't sure can follow the link. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:38, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
There were inconsistencies regarding the WP:ROMRUS deviations from BGN/PCGN mentioned in the text and those mentioned in the table. A good way to avoid inconsistencies is to always have only one statement about a particular difference between BGN/PCGN and WP:ROMRUS. In that case one would have to choose between text and table. Having it only in text, would lead to no table or to a pure BGN/PCGN table. Having it in a full alphabet table would lead to the deviations being dispersed. Maybe a full table can be restored having a column that allows sorting on the deviation, so anyone who wants to see the deviations can have them in one place. Another and maybe more elegant solution is to have a complete list of vowels and the hard and soft sign. No need for sorting and it still will be quite compact. But with E and Ё removed [8] the number of letter having differences in treatment is now lower. Under the logic that led to the removal of E and Ё, one could also remove Ы, leaving only hard and soft sign and vowel combinations. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 13:43, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Please do remove Ы. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:14, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
It would depend on the logic of the table. It could list all letters that under some situations are treated differently. If done that way, the corresponding rows could be inserted into the BGN/PCGN table as replacement. Since there are some situations where Ы is treated different from BGN/PCGN the row could be kept. But since и and й have been removed it is inconsistent to keep ы. What is nice, is that with these removals the table is easier to read. When ы is removed only hard and soft sign and vowel digraphs are contained. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 07:18, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
It may be easier to read but it is harder to implement. I have no idea why sections of the table have been removed as there has not been debate about changing WP practice, (other than some debate, but certainly not agreement, about Ё). If anyone is going to suggest changes they need to state whether the changes are to bring the table into line with WP practice or proposing to change WP practice, if so why and how many articles they think would be disrupted. Sussexonian (talk) 09:28, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
I added examples for Ы in BGN/PCGN. Now it is visible that the romanizations differ, i.e. the row has to stay anyway. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 11:29, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Abbreviations

"Abbreviations are usually romanized with capitalization as indicated" - what does "usually" mean? When not? This is one more unclear rule. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 13:08, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I presume it means "unless there is a common English rendering". But if a Russian entity is not normally abbreviated in English, I'm not sure why we would want to do so in an article.
Another related case is academic citations such as "Yu. A. Ivanova", but they too vary in English usage and we would want to keep the style found in the source. I guess the main reason for the sentence is to clarify that the style shown is acceptable in Wikipedia. Sussexonian (talk) 09:49, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
I will change to "unless there is a common English rendering". But maybe for consistency it could be removed completely, since if something is established it will be mentioned anyway. This part would belong to WP:NCRUS. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 11:04, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Й (й)

I re-inserted [9] Й (й) since BGN/PCGN differs, I added an example for the difference to make this fact more obvious. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 18:23, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Bringing WP:ROMRUS to guideline or policy level

If the Ё rules are added back, then WP:ROMRUS could be taken to guideline level? It can then be discussed how and if the Ё rules need to be changed. I think this is the only pending dispute on the enWP romanization rules? After that, we can look how to organize WP:NCRUS. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 18:27, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Now the Ё rule is back. I would like to tag WP:ROMRUS as policy now. Any opposition? Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 16:55, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

For the record, I'm generally content with the current wording, although I'd say to wait until July 9 to mark the page as a standing guideline (July 9 will be one full month since the original RfC). Of course, if there's additional input in the meanwhile, that can always be extended as necessary.
Also, from what I gather, there is no opposition to reinstating the full romanization table for ease of reference (do correct me if I've missed something).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 28, 2011; 17:27 (UTC)
I object to reinstate the full table. It makes the differences to BGN/PCGN harder to find. All consonants are equal, most vowels too. Mostly only certain two letter combinations are treated differently. "ease of reference" could also be claimed by those that want only a diff table. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 01:08, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Sensible. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:40, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
I don't understand how having a full table would make locating the differences from BGN/PCGN any more difficult. The differences are documented in a separate column, and on the lines where there is nothing to document (which is most of the lines) that column's cells will be empty. I'd argue that such a setup makes the differences easier to find (they really stand out among all those empty cells), not harder. Besides, it's not the differences this table is going to be consulted for most often; it's to find out how to romanized something properly according to our guidelines. As Sussexonian previously mentioned, that'd require jumping between several pages, making the guideline less usable.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 29, 2011; 14:49 (UTC)
Currently I can see all rules on one screen. Otherwise I have to scroll. Adding more than 20 lines of non differences in between the differences of course makes locating the differences harder. That's simple logic. If the table only has the differences, one knows that each line documents a difference. Only in your setup one would need to look for specific lines.
Maybe you remember that the old version of ROMRUS had a listing outside the table to summarize the differences. Exactly because they were not easy to find. And these two places of documenting differences were not in sync.
"require jumping between several pages" You are again diving into drama, it's only two pages, BGN/PCGN linked in the intro sentence, very easy to go to. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 11:03, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
Well, the intent of the guidelines is to guide. The page will be used most often not by you or me (or by people curious how exactly our guideline is different from the BGN/PCGN's), but by those who don't remember the romanization rules by heart and need help. Those folks are better served by seeing the whole conversion table. It's not exactly an easy task to reconcile what BGN/PCGN romanization of Russian says with what this page says, when all you have to work with is the differences. If ease of locating the differences is your only concern, then I suggest we use two tables—one as a letter-to-letter romanization guide (for people like Sussexonian), and the other one to document the differences (for you and other curious folk).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 30, 2011; 18:37 (UTC)
Two tables - fine with me. But please list the diffs first and make the diff list the normative one, while the full one is only descriptive, or how ever one would call that. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 20:50, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

-ev, -yov

I object to the rule which makes normative a transliteration of Ё as yo. When this page was discussed together with WP:NCRUS others did also. It seems obvious that its treatment should be context dependent (spell Fyodor as Fyodor, as default, unless there is some reason not to; but spell -ёв endings as -ev (as most of them are). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:30, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Who beside you? Maybe the user can be added to Wikipedia_talk:Romanization_of_Russian#.D0.81_summary_2011-June and maybe you can vote at Wikipedia talk:Romanization of Russian#Voting on Yo rule re-introduction. I personally have no opinion, but for procedural reasons favor reinsertion. Maybe a rule "-ev" for names would be ok for all? I would be fine with that. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 01:13, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
That would be a great improvement; add a sentence that other exceptions may exist, and I would join the consensus. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:30, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
I suppose one could athe question the other way: Is there something (a person, place, etc) which has a -ёв ending, and has a widely accepted English-language name ending in -yov? Because if not, then we should seriously be questioning it's use as the default.. because there are quite a few -ev endings that are widely accepted. Mlm42 (talk) 01:39, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
At least Britannica is using http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/433662/Oryol UPDATE: sorry this is not answering the question by Mlm24, since it does not end in -yov. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 09:13, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Not just Britannica. I should have mentioned this before, but it completely slipped my mind: transliterating "ё" as "yo" is also the recommendation of the Oxford Style Manual (section 11.41.2 "Transliteration"), although at the same time they recommend to transliterate it as "o" after "ж", "ч", "ш", and "щ", which isn't something often seen in use in real life. In practice, this prescribes to transliterate the "-ёв" ending as "-yov" except in "-чёв" and "-щёв", which would become "-chov" and "-shchov" ("-жёв" and "-шёв" endings are invalid or very rarely encountered in last names). I suspect Britannica follows that style guide—while their Gorbachev entry is under "Gorbachev" (presumably because that's the most common one), their entry on Pugachyov is under "Pugachov" and they routinely use "Chorny" when they mean "Chyorny".
Incidentally, the "-ий" and "-ый" endings are also covered (the recommendation is to use "-y" in proper nouns or titles).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 29, 2011; 14:42 (UTC)
That's perfectly sensible - as transliteration. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:45, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Hmm.. but Oryol doesn't end in -yov. My question was to find a widely accepted English language name whose ending is "-yov", as romanized from "-ёв".. are there any? The Oxford Style Manual is a single source, and isn't itself enough to determine what is widely accepted.. Mlm42 (talk) 17:06, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
I am sorry, for my mistake that is does not end in -yov. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 10:46, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
But why is this important? We are supposed to research the spelling of each individual person's name anyway (either per WP:COMMONNAME or per the conventionality criteria for people in the pre-RfC WP:RUS) and use that. The default "-yov" is only going to be used for people who meet the notability criteria, but have no coverage in English sources. Including a note about the last names ending in "-ёв" seems completely redundant to me.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 29, 2011; 17:19 (UTC)
Even if such people do have notability, why should they be spelled differently than 99 out of 100 people with the same ending who are mentioned once in English sources? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:32, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
I'm merely questioning the wisdom of setting something as the "default", when there appears to be no individual case where the "-yov" ending is widely used.. if it's not actually used, then in my opinion, it shouldn't be the default.
And the default shouldn't only be when we have no English coverage, but also when a significant proportion of English sources disagree. Mlm42 (talk) 22:12, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Using "-ev" for personal names would make the naming of people more consistent within WP. But I would like to know, how many articles are affected. Is it 10 000 articles VS 10 like Gorbachev, Khrushchev ....? Maybe in sum "-yov" is widely accepted?
Also I think Ezhiki is wrong by saying The default "-yov" is only going to be used for people who meet the notability criteria, but have no coverage in English sources. - because notability is not needed for being mentioned in articles. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 11:13, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
@Mlm if sources disagree should we ever use a method that isn't supported by any (or a minority) of sources. Perhaps we need a clause that says in the event of disagreement consider in order;
  1. Method WP
  2. Method BGN
  3. Method X
  4. Method Y
  5. Method Z
And use the first method that is used by the conflicting sources? Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 12:44, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
This belongs to WP:NCRUS or WP:COMMONNAME. The talk here is about "Method WP" (WP:ROMRUS). Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 15:33, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
Yes, but the only reason "-yov" is being used on so many Wikipedia articles is because the old WP:RUS has been enforced for several years, with some editors following it very strictly.. so we can't really use that as evidence that it's "widely accepted". And of course, we're at a stage now that reliable sources may be inclined to use Wikipedia's spelling, so it becomes a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. Mlm42 (talk) 16:38, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
The "-yov" ending is used in so many Wikipedia articles also because it is far from being so uncommon as the editors in this thread seem to imply. Also, a part of the reason of why the "-ev" spelling is more prevalent is because there exist quite a few last names for which (in Russian) only the ending is different (and, consequently, the stress). "Лещёв" is a common last name, but "Ле́щев" is also valid. Spelling the latter via "-yov" would, of course, be absolutely incorrect, so the bias is very much one-sided. In all, I'm pretty confident that for any Russian last name ending in "-ёв", one could find English sources which uses "-yov", and the number of the said sources will not be negligible.
As I stated above, I'm against a separate provision for the "-ёв" endings simply because no manual of style I am familiar with has such a provision. Spelling of the last names via "-ev" is predominantly caused by the optional nature of the letter "ё" in Russian, not per any style guide or as a conscious effort. If we fancy ourselves being accurate, we should make an effort to ensure that the transliterations we use are accurate as well, not go with the flow and codify a common mistake just because it happens to be so common. Every other exception to BGN/PCGN we have so far documented on this page can be traced back to at least one formal recommendation; the "-ev" thing is the only one we are homebrewing on our own (whereas "-yov" flows from the general rule of transliterating "ё" as "yo"). I tend to side with Stuart on this—identifying a list of methods to apply in questionable situations would a better approach than trying to re-invent the wheel.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 30, 2011; 18:19 (UTC)

I think the burden of proof lies with editors who claim that one or the other variant is more common. I'm no expert, so I don't know, but given the evidence that has been provided so far on this page, it seems to me that "-ev" is the more common and widely accepted ending in English than "-yov". I think this discussion can only proceed effectively if editors bring forward more evidence to support their claims. This applies not only to this one ending, but the letter "ё" in general (or any other disputed romanization, for that matter).

Also, Stuart's comment acknowledges that we should probably still have a "Wikipedia default" set of rules, which I think is the point of all this discussion. Mlm42 (talk) 21:24, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm not disagreeing with you about the burden of proof at all; in fact, as far as people names go, the pre-RfC WP:RUS heavily emphasized just that. The problem only exists when no English sources are available for an otherwise notable person, in which case our default is as good of a choice as any. My argument is to stick with "-yov" as a default because that's a more accurate approach. The "-ev" ending can be observed so often because when people transliterate Russian last names, they rarely bother checking whether the letter "е" is indeed a "е" or if it's in fact a "ё". If we strive to be a reliable encyclopedia, we should do better than that. There will, of course, be cases where making 100% sure whether a letter is a "е" or a "ё" is difficult to accomplish, in which case using "e" is perfectly fine (at least until more information is available), but to consciously transliterate "ё" as "e" when we know for sure it's a "ё" is just sloppy. That "everyone else is doing it" is not a good excuse, in my opinion. A commonly made mistake is still a mistake.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 1, 2011; 15:09 (UTC)
I agree with all this; although making an exception in favour of "-ev" looks reasonable, it could lead to a whole list of other exceptions: every Мария to be Maria not Mariya, for example, and the list of exceptions would be continually up for debate. There will always be cases where the Wikipedia default will produce a different spelling from the commonly accepted English version, and that can't be avoided. Sussexonian (talk) 20:38, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
Thank you. Those aiming to codify every little exception often forget about this.
It's important to remember that if we have to resort to any kind of default to resolve the situations which consulting the sources can't resolve, it matters very little what that default is, as long as it follows some reputable and reasonable guidelines. Thus it makes sense that the defaults should have a broad scope, or we'll keep spending most of our time trying to pin down more and more possible exceptions instead of doing actual productive work.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 1, 2011; 20:52 (UTC)

I will do a draft of the sort of thing I would prefer: when there is no English writing on a subject, and no other strong reason for a particular transliteration, consider how other similar terms are transliterated; then use the default. This is, I hope, where this list comes from in the first place: noticing that ь is normally omitted in Romanization, and so on. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:55, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Added a short paragraph on method. Feel free to amend, but with this addition I would have no trouble joining the consensus, no matter what was done with Ё in the table. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:08, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
I took out the portion on "the usage of the subject in other Western European languages" from the "some other clear reason to use a particular spelling" line. To me, the whole line duplicates the intent of the line above (if there is some clear reason to use a particular spelling, then English already uses it), but the example itself I just don't understand. We are romanizing a Russian name to use the result in a text in English, so what do we care what other Western European (or, for that matter, any other) languages use? If a place is not covered in any English sources but happens to be covered a lot in, say, Swedish (perhaps because some Swedish researcher's dissertation is about villages in Central Russia), why would we use the Swedish name instead of romanizing the Russian one? Such approach may sometimes be appropriate for historical references (which are mostly outside the scope of this guideline), but why use this as a title of an article about a modern place?
I also find the third bullet point about analogies too vague to be useful. If a famous person happens to have his/her last name spelled a certain way, why should it matter when choosing a spelling for the articles about completely unrelated people? Would we move someone like Ihor Chaykovskyi to "Tchaikovsky" because the last name is the same? I realize Ihor is Ukrainian, but am using him just for the sake of illustration—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 5, 2011; 17:29 (UTC)
I think that is right regarding "Western European" spellings, although there may be occasions, for example, where a Russian footballer signs for a German club and his name is published according to German romanization, which probably we should accept until the name becomes used in English media. But more importantly, these "method" rules should be in NCRUS for as long as the split is accepted, with this page documenting the WP romanization system and the other page defining the circumstances when it is to be used. Sussexonian (talk) 23:22, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
I still don't understand. I can see how we could occasionally have situations where such a player is not covered by any English sources but is covered by many more sources in German than in Russian, in which case using the German spelling makes sense, but if there are more reliable sources in Russian than in German (perhaps if the player only signed up for one season and didn't do much beyond the ordinary playing), why would we still stick to German? Alternatively, why is the spelling in Western European languages more important than the spelling in, say, Eastern European languages (many of which also use the Latin alphabet)? What if the said player signs up for a Romanian or Polish club?
I do agree on the split, though.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 8, 2011; 13:43 (UTC)
There is no "we". I have no interest in the footballer question, but if an editor specializing in footballers creates such an entry I don't think "we" should spend time changing the spelling of that person when there is no good reason to do so. But I don't suggest placing such a rule on the page. In general if a Russian person has no coverage in English language, any article would probably be created from Russian sources so WPROM would be used, no question. Sussexonian (talk) 09:01, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
I don't have any interest in soccer players either, and what worries me isn't an occasional article that an editor specializing in soccer might put up under a (say) German spelling for no obvious reason. However, I'd be concerned if such an approach became systematic with this guideline serving as substantiation ("...but romrus says we are supposed to use the spelling in 'Western European languages'"; that kind of stuff). It'd be good to have an explanation of the reasoning behind the "Western European languages" choice, but I can see it's not forthcoming.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 11, 2011; 14:02 (UTC)
I agree with Ezhiki. I would go even further and say that an article not named according to the NC can be renamed. A systematic approach helps to reduce errors, like duplicated articles, red links etc. E.g. if an article is at the German spelling then there is the possibility that there are red links due to missing redirects. There is also a higher chance of false links, because it gets undetected that there are two articles with persons having the same name in Russian, but residing around under different Romanized names. I would favor having a dab in these cases under the ROMRUS romanized name, not sure this is already mentioned in WP:NCRUS. Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 13:58, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Join WT:NCRUS - Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Russia)

Invitation to join the talks at

They result from Russia related text imported to WP:NCRUS from WP:NCGN Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 09:25, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

I've posted a courtesy notice at WT:RUSSIA to inform about the continuing discussion both here and on the NCRUS talk page.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 1, 2011; 15:16 (UTC)

Motion to close

Apart from Bogdan's remarks on July 28, it has now been three weeks since the last substantial comment. I motion to close this discussion.

Having reviewed the comments so far, I would say that the new wording is mostly supported by all participants. The only point where some disagreement can still be seen is regarding the way we should treat the letter "ё". To that effect we have PMA's opinion that it should be romanized as "e" in most, if not all, cases, Sussexonian's opinion that it should be romanized as "yo" in all cases with the exception of the endings of the last names, Bogdan's and my procedural opinions that it should be always (where "always"="when this guideline is being applied directly", not "regardless of usage") be romanized as "yo" (as per the 2005/2006 rules), Greyhood's support for the 2005/2006 rule, and Mlm42's neutral !vote. I would say this is leaning to re-instating the 2005/2006 rule without any special provisions such as the endings of the last names. If anyone disagrees with this assessment, we can invite an uninvolved admin to re-evaluate the status of this particular item; otherwise I motion to remove the "-ёв" ending provision, remove the "under discussion" tag from the "ё" provision, move the Usage section to WP:NCRUS where it belongs and can be discussed in more detail, and change the status of this page to "active guideline". Note also that anyone feeling strongly about the "yo" clause is welcome to initiate a new discussion regarding just that clause—there's little point in holding up the whole guideline because of one item. Comments, clarifications, seconds?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 2, 2011; 14:14 (UTC)

Just to be clear, it is not my opinion that names in "-ёв" should be "-ev", that was a suggestion of possible compromise. I support "-yo" in all cases covered by this guideline (so not of course extending to names coomonly found in English with a non-"yo" spelling). [I was 'summoned' here by User Cunard to respond to the poll below which I find difficult as it written in code] Sussexonian (talk) 15:37, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Closing straw poll

I took a look to close, but the consensus is not clear as there has been a lot of conversation, and there are still {{under discussion}} tags on the page. So before closing I'd like a show of hands. I'll keep the poll open for seven days at least - if there is insufficient response I'll close this no consensus, though if there is active discussion/polling I'll keep the poll open. SilkTork ✔Tea time 16:21, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

  • Simply number and sign under the appropriate statement(s):-
I support applying {{WikiProject style advice}} to this page
  1. —Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); September 9, 2011; 13:38 (UTC)
I support asking the community to discuss making this a WP:GUIDELINE via a notice on WP:CENT
  1. —Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); September 9, 2011; 13:38 (UTC)
I support working further on the page to iron out the remaining issues

Additional comments on the closing straw poll

To keep matters simple, use this section for any additional comments. SilkTork ✔Tea time 16:21, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

  • I don't see an acceptable option among those listed above. In case this got lost in the chaotic debate above, I would like to remind that this guideline was discussed and accepted following due process in 2006. In June 2011, an RfC was submitted to determine whether the consensus still holds, the outcome of which was establishing that changes are likely to be necessary. The intent of the consequent discussion (which I put under the umbrella "convenience header") was to establish what specific changes are necessary. The page as it now stands incorporates all of the points on which the participants universally agreed; as for the remaining points, I summarized them in my motion to close above, and they are inconclusive. When a discussion of changes to a guideline yields an inconclusive result, it is customary to retain the guidelines in the original form, so I don't understand why this cannot be closed now—the discussion is pretty much dead, and the interest in this guideline was limited to begin with. I should also note that if someone is unhappy about the remaining issues, there is nothing preventing them from pursuing them later via a separate amendment request (and hopefully the unreadable state of this discussion would teach them a good lesson on the importance of following due process).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); September 6, 2011; 15:51 (UTC)
I must support Ezhiki's position here. If there is no conclusive agreement on changing the guideline, better leave it as it is. GreyHood Talk 15:31, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
  • User:Gurch put {{style-guide}} on the page in June 2007 with this comment "this appears to be an accepted style guideline". There is no evidence of a discussion. The discussion linked above (from December 2007) was not to gain consensus to promote the page to a guideline, but appears to be a discussion on editing the page. User:Dank changed the template to {{subcat guideline}} in May 2008 with the comment "This is a naming convention, which is policy (or close to it) rather than a style guideline; feel free to revert". The status of the page as a guideline is challenged in June 2011 by User:Mlm42 who opens the above RfC regarding if there is a consensus for it being a guideline. The RfC closes with no clear consensus. The ongoing discussion has no clear consensus. So, as it stands, this page has never had "strong community support" to be listed as a guideline per WP:PGLIFE.
  • The strawpoll is to discover if there is sufficient interest and support for making a proposal to list this a guideline, or working further on the page to clear up outstanding issues, or to list it as a {{WikiProject style advice}}. I don't see as appropriate an option to default to a guideline as there is no clear consensus that this is a guideline, and its status as a guideline has been appropriately challenged.
  • Even though I have been contacted away from this page with various comments, I wish to make it clear that this is the page for the strawpoll, and I will close based on what appears on this page. Also, even if this discussion is closed as no consensus, that will not prevent anyone from starting a RfC and advertising it via {{CENT}} to make this a guideline. Any individual can do that. What would be inappropriate is for someone to list this as a Wikipedia guideline without first gaining strong community support from the wider Wikipedia community. Also, someone may be bold and list this as a WikiProject style advice page without the need to gain wider Wikipedia community support; though without the support and consensus of the relevant Wikiproject, someone else may reverse that action; so I would advise getting consensus for even that action. SilkTork ✔Tea time 11:42, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
I agree with some of this, but should point out that PGLIFE did not exist in 2007, when this page was marked as a guideline by Gurch. The process at the time was simpler than it is now, and although this, of course, does not mean we should do away with the current processes, I disagree that this pages "was never a guideline" (or we would have to demote a good chunk of MOS for the same reason, as many parts of it never had been meaningfully discussed either, which doesn't prevent us from usefully employing them anyway). As per the criteria we had at the time, it was, and it was adhered to during 2007-2011, which makes it at least a de facto guideline, if not, strictly speaking, de jure. Descriptive guidelines (those observing how things are currently being done in a certain area and recommending to continue doing things the same way for new content) are just as common in Wikipedia as the guidelines developed from scratch, and this page certainly qualifies as descriptive.
Furthermore, the purpose of the June RfC was not, as you state, to determine "a consensus for [this page] being a guideline"; it was to determine whether the guideline reflected consensus. The guideline status itself had not been challenged; the person who submitted the RfC closed it with a note that there appears to be consensus that the romanization guidelines need to be reworded/changed, which is the only question this RfC was intended to answer (emphasis mine). The overall outcome was that the guideline was generally good, but some of its parts were controversial, so those were split into a separate page (WP:NCRUS), where they still await further discussion. What remained here (and what I am asking to close) was mostly supported by all participants, with the exception of a few minor points on which there is still some disagreement. Since on those points everyone pretty much has a different opinion, reconciling them is not possible, which brings us back to the descriptive status of this guideline—what the page says now is what 95% of the articles affected by this guideline already follow. And when there is no consensus regarding how to change the existing state of the matters, that state is not usually changed. Sure, we can list this on CENT to solicit further input (and to mark it as WikiProject style advice in the meanwhile), but if the RfC and the discussion that followed it are of any indication, this is not a topic many editors are sufficiently knowledgeable about to be comfortable with commenting on. Yet, it is one guideline that is of utmost importance, if we are to keep the structure of Russia-related articles coherent, navigable, and not too confusing for our readers. In other words, it is a solution to a common problem, even though that problem is specific to a relatively obscure area of editing.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); September 8, 2011; 14:49 (UTC)
There seems to be a bit of a muddle going on. As there is a proposed guideline tag on the page, and I was asked to look into closing a guideline proposal, I assumed I was looking at a guideline proposal. I looked at the start of the RfC, which appears to be a challenge to this being a consensual guideline, and the response to which appears to indicate there isn't clear consensus. There has been some extended discussion, from which it is difficult to ascertain if there is any consensus, other than that there is a loose agreement that there are issues still to be resolved.
While I take the point that a number of our older guidelines came into existence without an advertised discussion, I think that there is enough uncertainty about this page to make it appropriate to ask for clarity. I am not comfortable closing this as a default to a guideline given the uncertainty about both the wording and the status of the page. The challenge both on the talkpage and in the scuffles on the main page regarding the proposed/guideline tags, are enough to bring this under WP:HISTORICAL.
To make it clear - I don't see enough consensus to mark this page as either historical or a guideline. I'd like to have a show of hands as to the best way to proceed - mark it as a Wikiproject style guide, continue working on it, or propose it formally as a guideline. I hope the discussion does not end vaguely, with the matter left unresolved. My suggestion is to work to clear up unresolved issues/or firmly declare they are resolved, and to then formally propose it as a guideline, explaining that it has been listed as a guideline for some years, and that recent concerns have now been resolved. A show of hands saying that people have enough confidence in this page to propose it as a guideline would be a good outcome of this strawpoll. SilkTork ✔Tea time 17:50, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
OK, here's the reader's digest version then; perhaps it would help you make a decision. The page was marked as a guideline in 2007-2008 because it was used as a guideline and because it described the existing state of the matters very accurately; marking it that way was not contrary to any process we had in place at the time. This action went uncontested for several years, during which the guideline was heavily used. The intent of an RfC submitted in June was to establish whether the guideline still reflects consensus, but it never challenged the guideline's status. During further discussion, the guideline tag was unilaterally removed by one editor who heavily disagreed with the portion which is now at WP:NCRUS and is no longer a part of this page. The remaining part was for the most part accepted by all parties (including the person who filed the RfC); the few remaining points of contention were new and without a pattern to act on. In such cases, it is customary to retain the old wording, with no prejudice to re-open the discussion later should someone be inclined to do so.
With all this in mind, I just don't see any good reason why this can't be closed now. If you are not comfortable with marking the page as a guideline yourself based on this, by all means just list it on CENT—I don't understand why you need a straw poll to do that. Even now, we have two participants in favor of marking this as a guideline right away, one who has difficulty with utilizing the poll (but who made his view on the item marked as "under discussion" very clear), one banned from making any MOS-related comments for a year, another one banned for good, and one who is yet to be heard from. Three out of possible four is a good show of hands already, is it not?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); September 8, 2011; 18:31 (UTC)

What I am concerned to do is ensure that this page has consensus as a Wikipedia guideline. I don't feel that the RfC and discussion above are enough to establish consensus, and having looked into the history of the page, I feel that the manner in which it became listed as a guideline is not convincing enough to overrule the current uncertainty, especially as the page has changed considerably recently, and is now two different pages. I would suggest that people make it known on the strawpoll if they have confidence enough in the page to propose/confirm it as a guideline, or if they feel that further work is needed. If there are no or not enough responses then I will close as no consensus. As there is no consensus to mark as failed or historical or as a Wikiproject guide or as a guideline, then I would be inclined to mark it as a {{Guidance essay}}. I would suggest that if asking the community to confirm this as a guideline, that Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Russia) is included in the proposal, as the two pages are related. It may even make sense if the two pages are merged so that readers can get all the information on the one page. I would suggest if they are merged, that Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Russia) is the more helpful title. SilkTork ✔Tea time 11:22, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

The naming convention page is an even bigger mess than this one, and splitting it out was one thing on which all participants here more or less agreed. Plus, the instructions on when to use romanization are only marginally related to which romanization system to use when one needs to be used, and the latter is what this page is supposed to address. I am planning to completely re-write NCRUS later anyway (taking into account all of the suggestions and concerns voiced so far) once this page is taken care of, and then send it on for further discussion.
As for this page, if you are not comfortable closing it (and I understand that you are not convinced, although I still don't understand why), then please consider this comment of mine as a !vote to send it to CENT. I also suggest you address Sussexonian's concern above, as his comment indicates that he finds the straw poll format confusing. For all we know, he may not be the only one. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); September 9, 2011; 13:38 (UTC)
P.S. I've posted a notice at WP:RUSSIA regarding this poll.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); September 9, 2011; 13:49 (UTC)
  • I am closing this as no consensus. There is a lack of clarity about the discussion, and about the straw poll which was intended to find that clarity. There also appears to be a lack of interest in moving this forward. I'd be willing to help sort something out, rather than just leave matters as they are now. I don't think, however, that it would be helpful to put this page forward as it stands to promote to guideline status. I feel that there would not be enough positive response. If you'd like my help, please say so. Be aware, that I am not familiar with the issues, so such things as why the Wikipedia Romanization of Russian needs to differ from the BGN/PCGN romanization of Russian would need to be explained. You may feel that going through such matters may not be worthwhile; on the other hand you may consider that having an impartial person question the basics may be helpful. I don't know. But the offer of help is there. SilkTork ✔Tea time 16:40, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Better than Wiktionary

Take a look at Wiktionary's translit page and you'll see what gobbledygook that is! ... It notes non-English translit for what is supposed to be the English dictionary. Looking at some of the Russian words that they have transliterated and it's laughable. No English speaking without special knowledge of those letters would understand it!

I saw above that some would like to note e for ё. This doesn't work for the simple reason that ё does not equal e any more than с = c or р = p. Ещё in translit is yeshchyo. To "englishen" it, it might be yeshyo or yesho (if you miss that last y-glide), but it most definitely is NOT eshe! --AnWulf ... Wes þu hal! (talk) 05:45, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Romanizations for rendering Russian names in English text, and for representing Russian words in a linguistic work should be different. The former has to be quickly understandable by an Englishman without prior knowledge, the latter has to thoroughly keep the structure of Russian words. The Wiktionary Romanization is quite good -- for its own purposes. Hellerick (talk) 14:10, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
Yeshcho, if so. Ignatus (talk) 13:02, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Kazakhstan

Hello.

What goes for Kazakh names? I couldn't find a project page for Kazakhstan, so I ask here. The reason I ask is because ChelseaFunNumberOne (talk · contribs) has been moving pages from Vitaly to Vitali, Sergey to Sergei, Nikolay to Nikolai, Andrey to Andrei, Yevgeny to Evgeni, Aleksandr to Alexander, etc. This is contrary to WP:RUS, as I read it.

HandsomeFella (talk) 07:45, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

First of all, Kazakh and Russian languages are different.:) Secondly, Kazakhstani Russian language has not any difference from original. Thirdly, i have moved pages of kazakhstani ice hockey players (most of them russians), to official names registered in IIHF. Ok?--ChelseaFunNumberOne (talk) 08:01, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
I know that the languages are different. But if, as you say, Kazakhstani Russian language have not any difference from original, don't you think WP:RUS would apply? HandsomeFella (talk) 08:03, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, but not here.--ChelseaFunNumberOne (talk) 08:10, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
What do you mean with "here"? Shouldn't WP:RUS apply "here" - on Wikipedia, or what do you mean? HandsomeFella (talk) 08:48, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
I mean, this example. All of your examples on the top are right in both cases. That is not catastrophe. --ChelseaFunNumberOne (talk) 10:03, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
You're not being very clear. What is it that is right in both cases? HandsomeFella (talk) 11:06, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Here are my two rubles worth. First off, if English-language reliable sources consistently use a certain spelling, that's the spelling our articles should be using as well; regardless of whether the name is of Russian/Kazakh/any other origin. When English-language sources are mixed, few, or lacking altogether, then the most practical solution is to apply the rules of romanization for the Kazakh language (the BGN/PCGN system is a decent choice, considering the lack of a formal Wikipedia guideline). Ideally, of course, it would be great if someone created a descriptive guideline for romanization of Kazakh, based on most commonly used practices. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); September 10, 2013; 23:35 (UTC)

Ukraine

Talk:Sloviansk#Requested_move ArmijaDonetsk (talk) 22:59, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Cases of е after й

Should be none, except for Майя — Mayya, because of long [jː] and to differentiate from мая = maya ['majə]. Likewise, Йемен should be Yyemen, but it doesn't form minimal pair here. Non-Russian names like Mayer can be spelled originally, despite [jː] in Russian-pronounced Мэйер. Tacit Murky (talk) 14:38, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Hey, @Ezhiki:, I mean this section of this talk page! Tacit Murky (talk) 16:30, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Duh me :) Anyway, now that we are (literally) on the same page, you are right that the "йе" combination is indeed only encountered in Russian words which are themselves, in one form or another, transliterations from other languages. That, however, might include some geographic locations in Russia, and an example of one is what I was hoping to find when making a note in the table. No luck so far, though. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); September 27, 2016; 13:43 (UTC)
Here you go. Also: Фойе. If mimicking phonetic spelling, this should be «Foyye». However, фейерверк then should become «feerverk». OTOH, translating only orthography, «eye» after consonants can mean both «ейе» and «ее». Depends on your goal. We need to distinguish between homonyms and close pairs like «мая» and «Майя». Tacit Murky (talk) 04:28, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
Thanks. "Фойе" is a great example! Phonetics, on the other hand, does not matter, since we are dealing with transliteration, not transcription. Of course, all these are very much outliers, unlikely to be bumped into often in the wild. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); October 6, 2016; 13:48 (UTC)

-й endings

Why is й set to always transliterate as y? Words beginning with Й, in which Y makes sense, are the exception. The Modified LOC and academic standard all have it as i, and most charts explain exceptions and endings that render Y as the correct usage (the exceptions). The point of transliteration is to assist with proper pronunciation. I moved Gay, Orenburg Oblast to Gai, Orenburg Oblast per common sense (even the city transliterates it as Gai) and it was moved back citing this guideline. It rhymes with guy like chai ("чай"), not hay.

As this guideline only addresses two endings with -й (-ий and -ый). I propose we add these three, per this UN chart (see page 52):

  • Final -ай = -ai
  • Final -ей = -ei
  • Final -ой = -oy

Again, the point is to properly assist in pronunciation. English speakers never pronounce words ending with -ay (gray, bay, hay, yay, lay, etc etc) as Russians pronounce -ай so why would anyone transliterate it that way? —МандичкаYO 😜 23:44, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

That may introduce some unwanted minimal pairs, like «Гай — ГАИ». Also, since most Slavic languages does not have diphthongs, there are loaned words like «радио» that would be incorrectly pronounced with [j] consonant, when transliterated naively. Many European languages use Latin «y» for [j] at least at the word onset, as in English «yes». Tacit Murky (talk) 02:34, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
The short answer is that Wikipedia's Russian romanization guideline is based on the BGN/PCGN romanization of Russian, not on the other romanization systems. The choice of base romanization is occasionally questioned, but time and time again the consensus keeps leaning to BGN/PCGN as it's the only general-purpose system developed with the Anglophones in mind (other system are primarily either international, or for internal Russian use, or developed for other, more technical purposes—such as linguistics or cataloging books—and thus are not very suitable for use in a general purpose encyclopedia).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); January 9, 2018; 14:28 (UTC)

-ие

The article needs some clarification on -ие ending to resolve naming issues, particularly Verkhniye Likhobory. Past talks and table of examples makes it clear that double i/y gets omitted. -ые is even mentioned as -ye. So what would be for -ие — -iye, or -ie? Elk Salmon (talk) 14:14, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Romanization of ь

I fixed something wrong which contradicted several examples in several places here. Please double-check Staszek Lem (talk) 17:03, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

AFAIU, the previous version was written by a person ignorant in Russian phonetics. The "soft sign" is (sometimes) inserted not before the iotated vowel (е, ё, ю, я), but before the wovel that induces palatalization of the previous consonant (и, е, ё, ю, я). I leave it to experts to explain the difference between "Усолье" and "Усоле", or, better, between "Kолье" and "Kоле" (I do not know myself what is the name of linguistic phenomenon occurring in this case; I notice only the difference in syllabilizing: "Kоль-е" and "Kо-ле"). (@Ezhiki:) Does anyone know the term? Staszek Lem (talk) 17:34, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

The trick here is in the terms. The soft sign is meant to: 1) palatalize preceding consonant (except for 3 always hard and 3 always soft ones); 2) iotate following soft vowel (plus an exceptional cases of «ьо» in French loans like «каньон», that is spelled like «ьё»); and 3) denote an array of grammatical (non-phonetic) meanings (some feminine nouns, some verb states, etc.). This presents a challenge for romanization attempts, since there are no direct methods of palatalizing the letter, except for «ʲ» which is only used for IPA. Hence the differences in romanization schemes. Tacit Murky (talk) 09:32, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Great rules. No rework is required.

But what about remembering the Serbian, Polish and other experience of presenting a slavonic language's orthography in latin script? As far as i understand, the utility of letter "J" is a german myth? From which date it began to be OKAY to make the VOWEL and the SEMIVOWEL to share the same letter? And as I understand, it's completely not essential to make "transliteration"(which on practice looks like a lame transcription job) being readable by "native" speakers of the transliterated script, see simplifications of endings and "ы=y", "й=y" ==> thus "ы=й"? 46.242.2.80 (talk) 18:30, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

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