BGN/PCGN romanization

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BGN/PCGN romanization refers to the systems for romanization (transliteration into the Latin alphabet) 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).

Details of these systems are outlined in the U.S. BGN 1994 publication Romanization Systems and Roman-Script Spelling Conventions, which supersedes the older Romanization Guide (1972). Romanization systems and spelling conventions for different languages were gradually introduced over the course of several years. As of today, BGN/PCGN systems and agreements cover the following twenty-nine languages (the date of adoption is given in the parentheses):

BGN/PCGN romanization of Amharic (1967 system)
BGN/PCGN romanization of Arabic (1956 system; BGN 1946, PCGN 1956)
BGN/PCGN romanization of Armenian (1981 system)
BGN/PCGN romanization of Azerbaijani Cyrillic script (1993 agreement)—note that the Government of Azerbaijan abandoned the Cyrillic script in 1991 and adopted the Roman alphabet to replace it
BGN/PCGN romanization of Bulgarian (1952 system; BGN 1949, PCGN 1952)—see Romanization of Bulgarian
BGN/PCGN romanization of Burmese (1970 system)
BGN/PCGN romanization of Belarusian (1979 system)
BGN/PCGN romanization of Chinese (1979 agreement)—Chinese characters are romanized by BGN/PCGN by means of the Pinyin system
BGN/PCGN romanization of Dhivehi (1988 system)
BGN/PCGN romanization of Georgian (1981 system)
BGN/PCGN romanization of Greek (1962 system; PCGN 1941, later adopted by BGN, jointly revised in 1962)
BGN/PCGN romanization of Hebrew (1962 system)
BGN/PCGN romanization of Japanese kana—Japanese is romanized by BGN/PCGN by means of the modified Hepburn system)
BGN/PCGN romanization of Kazakh (1979 system)
BGN/PCGN romanization of Khmer (1972 system)
BGN/PCGN romanization of Kyrgyz (1979 system)
BGN/PCGN romanization of Korean (BGN 1943, with PCGN soon to follow)—Korean is romanized by BGN/PCGN by means of the McCune-Reischauer system
BGN/PCGN romanization of Lao (1966 system)
BGN/PCGN romanization of Macedonian (1981 system)
BGN/PCGN romanization of Mongolian (1964 system; PCGN 1957, BGN 1964)
BGN/PCGN romanization of Nepali (1964 system)
BGN/PCGN romanization of Pashto (1968 system)
BGN/PCGN romanization of Persian (1958 system; BGN 1946, PCGN 1958)
BGN/PCGN romanization of Russian (1947 system; BGN 1944, PCGN 1947)
BGN/PCGN romanization of Serbian (Cyrillic script) — Serbian is not romanized by BGN/PCGN; instead, the Roman script that corresponds to the Cyrillic script is used
BGN/PCGN romanization of Thai (1970 system)
BGN/PCGN romanization of Turkmen (1979 system)
BGN/PCGN romanization of Ukrainian (1965 system)—see Romanization of Ukrainian
BGN/PCGN romanization of Uzbek (1979 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:

BGN/PCGN romanization of Faroese (1968 agreement)
BGN/PCGN romanization of German (1986 agreement)
BGN/PCGN romanization of Icelandic (1968 agreement)
BGN/PCGN romanization of Northern SamiThe original publication refers to the language as Northern Lappish. (1984 agreement)

Source

U.S. Board on Geographic Names Foreign Names Committee Staff, 1994. Romanization Systems and Roman-Script Spelling Conventions.

Notes

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