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 → and → the digraph , Cyrillic → , Armenian → or L ...

of text in Macedonian from the Macedonian Cyrillic alphabet into the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from � ...

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

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''; ''Walmart'') as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (''continent, pl ...

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, officially the Republic of North Macedonia, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe. It shares land borders with Greece to the south, Albania to the west, Bulgaria to the east, Kosovo to the northwest and Serbia to the n ...

'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. Although used for transliteration, Macedonian Latin script is neither widespread nor used in any formal or semi-formal communication in Macedonia. The language law of Macedonia emphasizes Cyrillic as the only alphabet of Macedonian language.

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 ''diacrit ...

, 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 ...

s and

affricate An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pai ...

s 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 ''ch, sh, zh, dz, dj, gj, kj, lj, nj'' 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 ( sr-Cyrl, абецеда, ) or ( sr-Cyrl, гајица, link=no, ), is the form of the Latin script used for writing all ...

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 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 (BGN) and the British PCGN in 1981, (before 2013) as well as by the United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographic Names (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