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BGN/PCGN romanization
Systems for transliteration of non-Latin text into the Latin script

BGN/PCGN romanization are the systems for romanization and Roman-script spelling conventions adopted by the United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) and the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use (PCGN).

The systems have been approved by the BGN and the PCGN for application to geographic names, but they have also been used for personal names and text in the US and the UK.

Details of all the jointly approved systems are outlined in the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency publication Romanization Systems and Policies (2012), which superseded the BGN 1994 publication Romanization Systems and Roman-Script Spelling Conventions. Romanization systems and spelling conventions for different languages have been gradually introduced over the course of several years. The currently used set is available on the UK government site. A complete list of BGN/PCGN systems and agreements covering the following languages is given below (the date of adoption is given in the parentheses). The status "agreement" refers to systems which were created by authorities of the corresponding nations and then adopted by BGN and PCGN.

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Systems

File linkLanguageSystemNotes
BGN/PCGN romanizationAdyghe2012 system
BGN/PCGN national romanization system for AfghanistanPashto and Dari2007 system
BGN/PCGN romanizationAmharic1967 system
BGN/PCGN romanizationArabic1956 system; BGN 1946, PCGN 1956
BGN/PCGN romanizationArmenian1981 system
BGN/PCGN romanizationAvar2011 system
BGN/PCGN romanizationAzerbaijani (Cyrillic script)2002 table of correspondencesNote that the Government of Azerbaijan abandoned the Cyrillic script in 1991 and adopted the Latin alphabet to replace it.
BGN/PCGN romanizationBaluchi2008 system
BGN/PCGN romanizationBashkir2007 agreement
BGN/PCGN romanizationBelarusian1979 System
BGN/PCGN romanizationBulgarian2013 agreementThe agreement reflects the official Bulgarian system.4
BGN/PCGN romanizationBurmese1970 agreement
BGN/PCGN romanizationChechen2008 table of correspondences
BGN/PCGN romanizationChinese1979 agreementChinese characters are romanized by BGN/PCGN by means of the Pinyin system.
BGN/PCGN romanizationChuvash2011 system
BGN/PCGN romanizationDzongkha2010 agreement
BGN/PCGN romanizationGeorgian2009 agreement
BGN/PCGN romanizationGreek1996 agreementGreek is romanized by BGN/PCGN by means of the ELOT 743 system.
BGN/PCGN romanizationHebrew(2018 agreement)
BGN/PCGN romanizationInuktitut2013 agreement
BGN/PCGN romanizationJapanese (Kana)2017 agreementJapanese is romanized by BGN/PCGN by means of the modified Hepburn system.
BGN/PCGN romanizationKabardian2011 system
BGN/PCGN romanizationKarachay-Balkar2008 table of correspondences
BGN/PCGN romanizationKazakh1979 system
BGN/PCGN romanizationKhmer1972 agreement
BGN/PCGN romanizationKorean(North Korea)BGN/PCGN 1945 agreementKorean is romanized by BGN/PCGN by means of the McCune–Reischauer system.
BGN/PCGN romanizationKorean(South Korea)2011 agreementKorean is romanized by BGN/PCGN by means of the Revised Romanization of Korean.
BGN/PCGN romanizationKurdish2007 system
BGN/PCGN romanizationKyrgyz1979 system
BGN/PCGN romanizationLao1966 agreement
BGN/PCGN romanizationMacedonian2013 agreement
BGN/PCGN romanizationMaldivian1988 agreement, with modifications 2009
BGN/PCGN romanizationMoldovan2002 table of correspondences
BGN/PCGN romanizationMongolian (Cyrillic)1964 system; PCGN 1957, BGN 1964
BGN/PCGN romanizationNepali2011 agreement
BGN/PCGN romanizationOssetian2009 system
BGN/PCGN romanizationPashto1968 system, 2017 revision
BGN/PCGN romanizationPersian1958 system; updated 2019
BGN/PCGN romanizationRussian1947 system; BGN 1944, PCGN 1947
BGN/PCGN romanizationRusyn2016 system
BGN/PCGN romanizationSerbian (Cyrillic script)2005 table of correspondencesSerbian is not romanized by BGN/PCGN; instead, the Latin script that corresponds to the Cyrillic script is used.
BGN/PCGN romanizationShan2011 system
BGN/PCGN romanizationModern Syriac2011 system
BGN/PCGN romanizationTajik1994 system
BGN/PCGN romanizationTatar2005 table of correspondences
BGN/PCGN romanizationThai2002 agreement
BGN/PCGN romanizationTigrinya2007 system
BGN/PCGN romanizationTurkmen2000 table of correspondences
BGN/PCGN romanizationUdmurt2011 system
BGN/PCGN romanizationUkrainian2019 agreementMain article: Romanization of Ukrainian
BGN/PCGN romanizationUrdu2007 system
BGN/PCGN romanizationUyghur2023 agreementUyghur is romanized by BGN/PCGN by means of the Uyghur Latin alphabet.5
BGN/PCGN romanizationUzbek2000 table of correspondences
BGN/PCGN romanizationYakut2012 system

In addition to the systems above, BGN/PCGN adopted Roman Script Spelling Conventions for languages that use the Roman alphabet but use letters not present in the English alphabet. These conventions exist for the following four languages:

Notes

References

  1. "Romanization Systems and Policies". National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. 30 May 2024. Retrieved 25 November 2024. https://geonames.nga.mil/geonames/GNSHome/reference.html#bgnroman ↩

  2. US Board on Geographic Names (1994). Romanization Systems and Roman-Script Spelling Conventions (PDF). Defense Mapping Agency. OCLC 31881487. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 October 2013. Retrieved 8 January 2013. /wiki/US_Board_on_Geographic_Names ↩

  3. Romanization systems - GOV.UK Guidance on the US Board on Geographic Names (BGN)/Permanent Committee on Geographical Names (PCGN) romanization systems. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/romanization-systems ↩

  4. Romanization system for Bulgarian: BGN/PCGN 2013 System. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, September 2014. http://geonames.nga.mil/gns/html/Romanization/Romanization_Bulgarian.pdf ↩

  5. ROMANIZATION OF UYGHUR (Uighur): BGN/PCGN 2023 Romanization Agreement National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, October 2024. http://geonames.nga.mil/geonames/GNSSearch/GNSDocs/romanization/ROMANIZATION_OF_UYGHUR.pdf ↩

  6. The original publication refers to the language as Northern Lappish. ↩