Latin transliteration of the Russian language

Is there any accepted standard of how Russian words should be transliterated into Latin script? So far it seem utter chaos to me - everyone transcribes as they wish, take for example the Russian word for "I want" - is it "hociu", "Chochu", "khotshiu", "Khochu" or whataver?

Shouls the Russian O - A changes be reflected in the Latin transliteration, e.g. should we write "khorosho" or "kharasho"?

Russian is best written in the Cyrillic script. Books geared to the tourist will use all kinds of Latin transliterations but I've noticed in the linguistic publications there does seem to be general agreement among linguists on spelling like always jazyk for "language", ljagushka for "frog", plasch for "raincoat", zhenschchina for "woman", Imja mojevo brat' for "My brother's name", put' for "path", sem'ja for "family" and bednyji for "poor".

I think that Russian (or any Cyrillic-written language) is traditionally transliterated in various European languages according to their orthographic systems.

Fr <babouchka>, Ge <Babuschka> etc.

Traditionally, transliteration for English speakers hasn't taken Russian pronunciation rules into account, so, for example, we have "khorosho" rather than "kharasho". Another problem has been not recognizing the difference between “E” and “yo” (E with two dots above it), so some name endings which should have been spelled “yov” or “iov” have been spelled “yev” or “iev”. (Of course, considering another Russian pronunciation rule, the “v” in those endings should really be “f”.)

I’ve seen a lot of transliterated names of Russian ballet dancers over the decades, and am pleased to see that Yuri Soloviev is finally being spelled Yuri Solovyov, at least. I believe it’s only English transliterations that missed the difference between “ye” and “yo”.

As greg said, languages that use the Cyrillic alphabet are traditionally transliterated in various European languages according to their orthographic systems. With a language such as English, however, it presents a problem since we can interpret the spellings in different ways.

Good point, Greg. Magazines like "Le Monde" and "Die Sterne" would certainly use respective French & German orthographies, thus Leonid Brejnev and jusqu'à Moscou (French) and Leonid Brezhnew and nach Moskau (German) for "Leonid Brezhnev" and "to Moscow".

Plasch "raincoat" > I meant to write plashch; zhenshchina would be "woman" in standard academic Latin transliteration.

Here's a link to a page about different transliteration systems.
http://www.answers.com/topic/transliteration-of-russian-into-english

The system shown on that page doesn't take pronunciation rules into account. It also shows "Gorbachev" rather than "Gorbachov".

In language textbooks, of course, the transliterations do a better job of representing the actual sounds. One common convention is to use an apostrophe to represent palatization.

Speaking of "zhenshchina", Russian textbooks commonly state that the letter represented by "shch" should be pronounced as in "freSH CHeese". But I've never heard any Russian pronounce it that way. I'd say it's more like "freSH SHoes".

Brennus : there's even the French 'old school' (that I favour as it is conservative) that'd write <Léonide Brejnev>. All <ev> and <ov> suffixes used in proper names of people born prior to Revolution 'should' be written <eff> and <off>.

Hence <Nikolaï Dimitriévitch Kondratieff> (born in 1892).

<< The system shown on that page doesn't take pronunciation rules into account. It also shows "Gorbachev" rather than "Gorbachov". >>

I was only referring to the "ye" "yo" problem when I suggested "Gorbachov" as a better transliterestion. Of course, it should be "Garbachof".

Deborah : same inconsistency in French as in English. We Francise <tch> while forgetting the initial <o> is [a], not [o] : <Gorbatchev>.

To try to answer Vytenis's question, it seems to me that, within each language's orthography, the standard is that vowel change rules are not reflected in transliterations.

Nor is the unvoicing of final consolants.

I just notice that in Brennus's post,

<< Imja mojevo brat' for "My brother's name", put' for "path", sem'ja for "family" >>

the transliteration uses an apostrophe to represent the soft sign. But in some textbooks I've seen, it's also used to represent all palatization.

Interesting topic indeed:) actually it s very difficult for me to read russian in latin letters because i dont understand very often what people want to say even russians. everybody invents its own rules, for example word "mojet" - it can be "he/she/it can" or "he/che/it washes" depending on rules of transliteration....

things are getting worse at international conferentions, especially if several languages are used as major ones. Sirname Taracheva - how to pronounce CH if languages of conferention are German, French and English for example? this is a real sirname and such situation happened in reality. Poor woman, someone called her even Taratsina....

I read the funny article about sirname of our president Putin, in order to show the REAL pronousiation in english, it must be written "pootseen" (soft T must be shown somehow), "Putin" can't be written in french as this word means "whore", but "Poutine" is not a good variante also, as this is a meal in Quebec LOL