Simple Latin for Russian

I read an article about adequate Latin, and I realized that it was too late.

Why is it necessary to Latinize Russian?

This is not necessary – computers digest Cyrillic perfectly. Well, maybe someone doesn't like how their last name is written in their passport, but this is not a federal matter. Well, sometimes it's cool to insert something readable into the URL. Someone may have to type text on a device that does not support Cyrillic. Minor reasons will be found. Nevertheless, the task is interesting, so let's dive into it purely for fun.

Everyone has their own reasons for writing Russian words in Latin letters. I find the following for myself:

1. It's cool to use Latin fonts – there is not always a high-quality adaptation for Cyrillic;

2. It's cool not to use Cyrillic for purely aesthetic reasons.

   While there are only 26 letters in the Latin alphabet, there are 26 letters in the Cyrillic alphabet that look the same in both lowercase and uppercase, which is deadly boring:

   Yi Ts Kk Nn Gg Shsh Shch Zz Xx Ъъ ыы Вв Пп Oo Ll Dd Zh Ee Yaya Chh Ss Mm Ii Tt b Yuyu

   There are 7 of these in Latin: Ww Oo Ss Zz Xx Cc Vv

   While in English half of the lowercase letters have ascenders (qtyipdfhgjklb), in Russian there are only 9 such letters (<30%) - ёйтущфрдб (and these are not the most popular letters at all).

   In practice, this results in the fact that the gaze simply has nothing to catch on to, it is impossible to read the street name on a house from afar. Some words even look like squares, which is generated by a cheap neural network on the request “human letters”. It's a thrill for the sighted, but for the rest of us without glasses, the following words look more or less the same.

   car camping, burner, nostalgia, significance

What is it written in letters?

Let's first discuss the framework within which we are developing a writing system.

Firstly, you can only use Latin letters: no diacritics or special characters. We need an alphabet that would allow you to type a message to your grandmother from any TV remote control and have it displayed correctly.

Secondly, it is necessary to take into account the experience of generations and use solutions to which people are already accustomed. For example, write [ш] like “x” (iks) – will confuse both children and adults. And sh is a neat little digraph that is absolutely understandable from English and native from our transliteration.

Third, be consistent. If we agree that Y = Ы, then under no circumstances Y ≠ Й and never softens consonants. If we use h for digraphs, then this letter does not have its own sound. No misunderstandings like walk in the store.

Fourth, if possible, preserve the features of the current spelling, even through tears. So what if the prefixes ras- is- bes- were invented 100 years ago and they only complicated the language – we preserve all the features (spoiler: we will still lose a couple of features).

So.

Intuitive letters

We just started, and 64% of the alphabet is in place – 21 letters.

You can argue about J = Й, but we won't. Using this letter for this sound is absolutely legitimate. And Y for Ы is strange, but already familiar, and there aren't many options.

Digraphs

All digraphs are written using the letter h, which has no pronunciation of its own.

Sh and Ch are familiar to us from childhood and are unlikely to cause rejection in a significant part of Russian-speaking people. These letters are written like this in all cases, so there are no difficulties with their use.

Why Ж = Zh? At the very least, because Sh = Ш, and this is its voiced version: s-z, sh-zh, remember? Paired voiced voiceless consonants. Plus again, this version of Ж is familiar to us from transliteration. And it seems that somewhere this is how Russian toponyms are officially written, throw in some proof in the comments.

Sch = Щ? Three letters for one sound? Yes. In Russian, the combination СЧ most often produces the sound Щ: “сключениею эту дело частное”. But sometimes it doesn't, and this doesn't cause any problems. How many times have you misread the word “творить”? And it has exactly 2 readings: “творить, как не не не не не не не редка” and “верить от пишет приключение на срочка россия”. Щ or СЧ – it's clear from the context. The same is true for our version of the Latin alphabet.

Moreover, sometimes such beauty is revealed: iskal, but ischu. Instead of the magical transformation of СК into Щ, we observe a simple alternation of К and Ч — a common thing for the Russian language: вечні vek (eternal age) and прекорный юночні юночні leso (extracurricular lesson).

25 letters are ready.

Special vowels

All iotated vowels have two spelling options, with the letter E standing alone.

Eh… eh, I agree, the solution is a joke, not without cake. But it is important for us to distinguish E from E, and why not use a special letter for this, which has a special status and is not pronounced by itself? So we use it.

So, why do we need two variants of writing the letters Ё Я Ю? Naturally, to correctly and unambiguously convey the pronunciation. If the vowel is actually iotated, we clearly show this with the help of an iota — jota. If we only need to soften the consonant, without iotation, then we use i — ehto menia priot.

Why E and not Je/ie? Because it is the most common letter in Russian speech, and the ubiquitous jeie will drive you crazy: eto mienia nie piorlo i pierietj nie budiet. We respect the readers of the alphabet. Plus, thanks to this feature, the letter E does not form a diphthong with the letter i. And therefore does not require special solutions: priemlimo is always “priemlimo”, and never “premlimo”.

An attentive reader will object, but how can we write the words Перед and Перёд, and the like, unambiguously? I will answer: the letter h will save us. Among other things, it serves to break the diphthong:

Idiot idihot – an idiot is coming.
Perihodami vperiod — periods ahead.

Oh, yeah. Now there's no option to ignore Ё. Writing has become more phonetic-oriented at this point. Vse is everything, vsio is everything.

Letter h

Let's sum up all the cases of using the letter h, there are only 3 of them:

1. Familiar digraphs: sh, ch, zh:

2. Keknutaya E: Eh…

3. Diphthong break: prihunyl — not “priunyl”, but clearly “priunyl”.

In total, there are 8 usage options: sh, ch, zh, sch, eh, ihu, iho, iha.
You won't encounter h again.

By the way, we've already looked at 30 letters. There are 3 left.

Hard and soft signs

It just so happens that the hard sign is not needed in Russian. It is so hard at first glance, but inside it plays the role of a dividing soft sign:

“Explain the ad” – if you look closely, it's unusual, and if you don't look closely, it's not noticeable. Therefore, we will consider only two functions of the soft sign: separation and softening.

When dividing, we clearly have an iota cut through, so we simply bang it before the vowel (it’s already banged there):

Prijom, jo-mojo, objavite objavlenie — J is used at the beginning of a word, after vowels and instead of the soft and hard dividing signs.

To soften consonants before vowels, i is used, as we discussed above, and in other cases, J. It's strange at first, but you get used to it in 15 minutes:

To be or not to be, or will the sore belly burst? – Philosophy.

If anything, tj lj nj are such popular digraphs that they even have special symbols in Unicode. So it's definitely a topic.

I remember the principle about maximum compliance with the current spelling, but I would decide not to write the soft sign after the hissing sounds. In rare cases, this leads to different readings (cry, cry), but otherwise simplifies the visual – j attracts a fair amount of attention. Therefore:

Don't eat too much, honey, listen, even at night.

32 letters.

What the f…?

Yes, this is the most painful decision. But let's first consider the alternative. On any bank card, the last name with an X will be written with Kh, which in itself resembles an uncomfortable cough, and foreigners spit out their larynx when trying to pronounce this combination of letters.

With all that said, let's consider a phrase with the frequency X, written as KH:

Khokhlatye khokhotushki khokhotom khokhotali: “kha-kha-kha-kha-kha”

Using KH for X is a crime against the Russian language. May the gigglers rest in peace, at the end of the proverb they died of suffocation.

The letter h cannot be used here – we have already considered its special status and have seen that it should not have its own sound. Therefore, to display the sound [х] We will use the letter “x”, no matter how sad it may be. We will get used to it.

Or maybe it's a good topic? Write in the comments.

So:

Xoxlatye xoxotushki xoxotom xoxotali: “xa-xa-xa-xa-xa” – may they not die at the end of the proverb.

In my opinion, the variant with X is much more readable than any digraph. Digraphs in general are not bad, we see this on the letters sh and ch, they are easy to read. With the letter X, it's a different matter – there is no usual beautiful digraph for it, only the crocodile Khe-Khe.

This was the last letter.

Let's evaluate what happened

What happened:

1. We stretched the Latin alphabet onto the Russian alphabet;

2. We got by with the symbols of the Latin alphabet itself;

3. This script can be read without preparation. Once the reader encounters a letter or letter combination, he will no longer make a mistake in reading it;

4. Having used all the nuances in writing (about 10 pieces), a person will no longer make mistakes in writing.

Example phrase from the inspiration article:

Problema, stojaschaja pered nami, predeljno prosta: delatj xoroshie bukvy i xorosho ix raspolagatj.

Ehdvard Johnson

Text examples

Buria covers the dark sky,
Vixri snezhnye krutia;
Like a beast, she sings,
To cry like a child,
To the roof of the house
In another solomy zashumit,
To, like a late traveler,
There's a knock at our window.

“If I lived in a world where the fearful creatures were allowed to move only under certain circumstances, they would never move at all.”

“Pustaja karta ne ravna pustoj territorii”

“I'm not a psychopath. I'm just a creative thinker.”

“Garri Potter i metody racionaljnogo myshlenija” Ehliezer Judkovskij