Cyrillic Transliteration and Its Users Alena L. Aissing A wide diversity exists in the current practice of transliterating Cyrillic scripts for use in bibliographic records in online catalogs. Without knowing which transliteration table was used, it is difficult to retrieve the desired record successfully or efficiently. Retrieving an item (e.g., titles or an author's name) from a library's online catalog (OPAC) where it is given only in transliterated form can be a confusing task, even for users who know the Russian language or at least the Cyrillic alphabet. This study explores the problems besetting three groups of Russian-language students faced with romanized Cyrillic bib­ liographic records. It also tries to investigate students' ability in searching the Russian records romanized according to the Library of Congress (LC) translit­ eration table. Analysis of the test results show the students' success-and-error rate before and after instruction. The findings of this study establish that transliteration is one of the factors limiting access _by Russian language stu­ dents to the Slavic collections. tudents in foreign language eration needs to be distinguished from classes usually experience transcription, in which the sounds of the various difficulties in finding source words are conveyed by letters in library materials in the lan­ the target language. For example, an guages they study.1 One of the most in­ English transcription of former Presi­ tractable problems confronts readers of dent Mikhail Gorbachev's name would Russian, since records they want to ac­ have to be Gorbachoff, to reflect the way cess have been modified (i.e, romanized) it·is pronounced in Russian.2 by transliteration or transcription into There are several different translitera­ the Roman (English) alphabet. Translit­ tion systems for Cyrillic script used eration is a process in which each char­ throughout the world. Most of the cur­ acter of the source language is converted rently used systems are based on graphi­ into a character of the target language; cal and/ or phonologic similarities for example, Russian crryTHHK (compan­ between Cyrillic and the target lan­ ion, satellite) becomes sputnik. Translit- guage. However, not all transliteration Alena Aissing is German and Slavic Studies Selector and Slavic Studies Cataloger at the University ofFlorida George A. Smathers Libraries, Gainesville, Florida 32611. The autlwr wishes to express her appreciation to the Department of Germanic and Slavic l.Jmguages and Literatures at the University of Florida, the Department of Modern lAnguages at Florida State University, the Department of Slavic lAnguages and Literatures at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for their cooperation; Olga Campara and Graig N. Packard from the Center of Applied Linguistics in Washington, D.C., for valuable information in the field of Slavic linguistics; Joan Aliprand from the Research Libraries Group for inspiration, editing and updates on computer software developments; Frank DiTrolio, Dolores Jenkins, and John Van Hook from the Collection Management Department at University of Florida Libraries for editing this manuscript; Bill Covey from the Systems Department at the University ofFlorida Libraries for editing the statistical analysis and my husband, Gerrard Aissing, for encouragement and input on this research design. This research was funded in part by a grant, from the University of Florida, Division of Sponsored Research. 207 208 College & Research Libraries May1995 or transcription is systematic. Both difficult for someone who knows the transliteration and transcription depend Russian language or at least the Cyrillic on the source and target language, and alphabet. The data for this research were differ from case to case (see table 1). A gathered using three-part tests. These searcher has to be aware of the array of tests were distributed among Russian­ variations in transliteration schemes, language students at the University of particularly if the search is being done in Florida, Florida State University, and the more than one database.3 A translitera­ University of Illinois at Urbana-Cham­ tion scheme that is systematic does not paign during the period 1990-1993. necessarily have a broad application. For example, the transliteration scheme BACKGROUND AND used by Physical Review is intended for LITERATURE REVIEW scholarly application. The Library of Several Cyrillic transliteration schemes Congress transliteration is intended for have been proposed on the local, na­ the general user and is standard for most tional, and international levels at vari­ academic libraries in the United States. ous times. Some were attempts at cor­ Recently, the LC transliteration system recting and improving existing schemes. in its simplified form (without the dia­ Others came up with new proposals, critics) has been appropriated by vari­ such as Dekleva's Uniform Slavic Trans­ ous scholarly publishing organizations.4 literation Alphabet (USTA) that con­ Since these problem areas could affect sisted of ninety-seven graphemes com­ the student's academic performance, it bining Roman letters and diacritical is important to question the effective­ marks.to,u It was never adopted, how­ ness of transliteration as a method for ever, probably because its features were bibliographic control and its usefulness unfamiliar to both English- and Slavic­ for the user. This phenomenon has been speaking readers. analyzed during the past years by sev­ Because the number of Roman letters eral authors, although no research has in the English alphabet is less than the 5 9 been done involving actual users. - This number of Cyrillic letters in the Russian study tries to fill this gap by investigat­ alphabet, most of the transliteration sys­ ing whether bibliographic searches for tems have to resort to the use of diacritics transliterated Russian titles or names are or letter combinations to achieve a com- TABLE 1 EXAMPLE OFTRANSLITERATION OF THE WORDS 'll:IL.4.;7JJ.Hfi AND .Y.llElilUill4 AND .f().lll.KiilJHl.l IN V ARlO US TRANSUTERATI ON SYSTEMS System "4HTaJibH51 System XJie6HHQa System I0mKeBH"4 LC chital'nfl LC khlebnitsa BM Yushkevich ISO (:ital'nja ISO hlebnica NUC (LC) fDshkevich BSI chital'nya NYPL khlebnitza GNC Ju~kevi(: MR. (:ital'nya SR khlebnica OFC Iouskevich Abbreviations used in this table LC Library of Congress SR Slavic Review ISO International Organization for BM British Museum Standardization BSI British Standards Institution NUC National Union Catalog NYPL New York Public Library GNC German National Catalog MR Mathematical Review OFC Old French Catalog Cyrillic Transliteration 209 plete transliteration.12 This can present IME24 have contracts to develop systems several problems for the users of the for Russian libraries; Cyrillic script capa­ catalog who have to deduce how these bility is a fundamental requirement. diacritics or letter combinations trans­ Few American libraries have taken ad­ late back to the original Cyrillic charac­ vantage of these developments because ters.13 The differences among the various of the pervasive belief that romanization schemes are considerable, especially for is adequate for those languages written those Cyrillic letters for which no Ro­ in Cyrillic script. (The results of this man equivalent exists: e, JK, x, Q,q, lll, I.Q, study undermine this belief.) Because of ~q and 11. 14 In addition, Russian has no h this conviction, most libraries do not and represents this sound mostly as r, own systems that can utilize other therefore, transliterating Hamlet from scripts, nor do they have enough fund­ Cyrillic back to Roman script results in ing and concern for the multilingual Gamlet. 15 A Russian name beginning needs of their community.25 Users cannot with 11 might be transliterated into ia, ja, search and display a bibliographic record or ya with major retrieval problems un­ in the script of the original document.26 less the conversion system is known. A Most local OPACs are limited to Roman further problem is that certain phonemes character sets and do not provide the characteristic of Slavic languages cannot proper typographical facilities necessary be written unambiguously as a single for the display of non-Roman languages. Roman letter (assuming English pro­ Therefore, romanization of non-Roman nunciation).16 scripts is necessary if the automated. The Library of Congress offers a sepa­ catalog is to be a comprehensive repre­ rate transliteration table for every Slavic sentation of the library's holdingsP language written in Cyrillic scriptsY This can lead to more inconsistencies. For example, Q is used when transcrib­ Most local OPACs are limited to ing Ukrainian e and old Russian-B. That Roman character sets and do not is, the same combination of Roman let­ provide the proper typographical ters is used for two completely different facilities necessary for the display of Cyrillic letters! The user has to know or non-Roman languages. · .' recognize the original language in or­ der to find the corresponding translit­ eration when searching the library's Yet there are some hopeful signs that online catalog. this situation is changing. Several Readers of non-Roman documents authors have discussed the problems for usually want to see the original script, users caused by romanization, and the because it is more familiar to them than attitude of librarians toward minority the romanized version.18 Cyrillic script users is changing.28 Allen and Plumer has been implemented on a number of cite many