Volapuk encoding

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List of encodings
Translit.	Cyrillic	Volapuk
a	a	a
b	б	6
v	в	B
g	г	r, 2
d	д	D, g
e	е	e
yo	ё	e", e~
zh	ж	}\|{, >\|<, *
z	з	3
i	и	u, N
y	й	u~, u'
k	к	K
l	л	J\|, Jl, /\
m	м	M
n	н	H
o	о	o
p	п	n, II
r	р	p
s	с	c
t	т	T, m
u	у	y
f	ф	(\|), dp
kh	х	x
ts	ц	u_, U_, u, , U,
ch	ч	4
sh	ш	W, w, LLI
shch	щ	W, , LLI, , LLI_
"	ъ	~b, `b
y	ы	bl, b!, b1, 61
'	ь	b
e	э	~), E
yu	ю	I-0, I-O, I0, IO
ya	я	9, 9\|, 91, R, q

Volapuk encoding (Russian: кодировка "волапюк" or "воляпюк", kodirovka volapyuk) is a slang term for rendering the letters of the Cyrillic alphabet with Latin ones.

[edit] Etymology

The name comes from the Volapük constructed language, for two reasons. A Cyrillic text written in this way looks strange and often funny, just as a Volapük text may appear. At the same time, the word "Volapük" itself sounds funny to Russian ears, so the name stuck. It is worth pointing out here that Volapük is based on English vocabulary, but the resulting language is nothing like English.

[edit] History

Volapuk has been in use since the early days of the internet to write e-mail messages and other texts in Russian in cases where the support of Cyrillic fonts was limited: either the sender did not have a keyboard with Cyrillic letters or the receiver was not necessarily expected to have Cyrillic screen fonts. In the early days the situation was aggravated by a number of mutually incompatible computer encodings for the Cyrillic alphabet, so that the sender and receiver were not guaranteed to have the same one. Also, the 7-bit character encoding of the early days was an additional upset.

Some Russian e-mail providers even included this encoding into the list of available options for the e-mails routed abroad, and their menu looked like, e.g.,

MIME/BASE64, MIME/Quoted-Printable, volapuk, uuencode ^[1] had "pseudostandards" different from Russian ones.

Volapuk was not exactly a transliteration. There were no "standardized" rules. For example, some would use the "unused" Latin letters X and Y for Cyrillic Х (Kha) and У (U) that look the same. When written in a hurry, one may easily type, e.g., "P" instead of Р (Er) (R is normally expected). As a result, the text becomes even more funny and difficult to read. This effect is comparable with an opposite trick with latin-based texts called Faux Cyrillic. Also, the encoding depended on the language as well. For example, Ukrainian users ^[2] had their own traditions different from the Russian ones.

By the late 90's, the encoding problem had been almost completely resolved, due to the constantly increasing number of internet users in Russia and subsequent development of support by software manufacturers and internet service providers. ^[1]

The Latin letters that basically match the Cyrillic ones by look and sound are E, T, O, A, K, M, and sometimes C.
The Latin letters that only look the same are Y, P, H, X, B, and sometimes C.

Some tricks include 'b' for 'ь', 'q' for 'я', the digraph 'b!' for 'Ы', and the trigraph '}|{' for 'Ж'.

Volapuk encoding enthusiasts sometimes use digits to convey similar Cyrillic letters, reminiscent of leetspeak. For example, '4' looks similar to Ч (Che), '9' looks similar to Я (Ya), and '3' is almost ideal for З (Ze).

When back-transliterated English words, peculiar effects could be observed. For example, 'Johnson' -> 'Джонсон' -> 'Dvonson' ^[3]

[edit] Example

COBETCKIJ COIO3 ("advanced" volapuk)
СОВЕТСКИЙ СОЮЗ (Cyrillic)
SOVETSKIY SOYUZ (transliteration)
Soviet Union (English)

[edit] See also

Arabic Chat Alphabet The same idea in Arabic
Romanization of Russian
Writing Esperanto with ASCII
Russian Chat Alphabet
Translit

[edit] References

^ ^a ^b A note of cancellation of automatic volapuk encoding (1997) (Russian)
^ Instructions at the Ukrainian chat server Nyshporka (Russian)
^ Help page for Russian MUD Aladon (Russian)

A.V.Frolov, G.V.Frolov, "Electronic Mail. Your Internet Companion" (А.В. Фролов, Г.В. Фролов, "Электронная почта. Ваш спутник в Интернете") Russkaya Redaktsiya Publishers (Русская Редакция) (2000) ISBN 5-7502-0156-2, Chapter 6 online (Russian)