Volapuk encoding (Russian: кодировка "волапюк", kodirovka "volapyuk") or Pseudotranslit is a slang term for rendering the letters of the Cyrillic alphabet with Latin ones. Unlike Translit (there characters are replaced to sound the same), here characters are replaced to look the same. It is often used for nicknames, and quite rarely for normal text. Volapuk is also distinguished from Faux Cyrillic. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Volapuk encoding. ... The Cyrillic alphabet (or azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters) is an alphabet used for several East and South Slavic languages; (Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Rusyn, Serbian, and Ukrainian) and many other languages of the former Soviet Union, Asia and Eastern Europe. ... The Cyrillic alphabet (pronounced , also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters) is an alphabet used for several East and South Slavic languages—Belarusian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Rusyn, Serbian, and Ukrainian—and many other languages of the former Soviet Union, Asia and Eastern Europe. ... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Volapuk encoding. ... A nickname is a short, clever, cute, derogatory, or otherwise substitute name for a person or things real name (for example, Nick is short for Nicholas). ... Graphic designers sometimes employ faux Cyrillic typography to give a Slavic feel to English text, by replacing Latin letters with Cyrillic letters resembling them. ...

Etymology

The name Volapuk encoding comes from the Volapük constructed language, for two reasons. Cyrillic text written in this way looks strange and often funny, just as a Volapük-language 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. Volapük is a constructed language, created in 1879–1880 by Johann Martin Schleyer, a Roman Catholic priest in Baden, Germany. ... A constructed or artificial language — known colloquially as a conlang — is a language whose phonology, grammar, and/or vocabulary have been devised by an individual or small group, instead of having naturally evolved as part of a culture. ... The belief that certain words are inherently funny, for reasons ranging from onomatopoeia to sexual innuendo, is widespread among people who work in humor. ...

The name pseudotranslit distinguishes the process from the similar transliteration - both render Cyrillic letters into Latin. However, one aims to achieve similarity in pronunciation, and the other strive for similarity in appearance. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Volapuk encoding. ...

History

Volapuk and Translit have been in use since the early days of the Internet to write e-mail messages and other texts in Russian where the support of Cyrillic fonts was limited: either the sender did not have a keyboard with Cyrillic letters or the receiver did not necessarily 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. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Volapuk encoding. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... The word encoding has a number of meanings. ...

Some Russian e-mail providers even included Volapuk encoding in the list of available options for the e-mails routed abroad, e.g., "MIME/BASE64, MIME/Quoted-Printable, volapuk, uuencode^[1] had "pseudostandards" different from 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 increasing support from software manufacturers and Internet service providers.^[1]

Rules

Volapuk replaces Cyrillic letters with Latin ones in order to look the same as typed or handwritten Cyrillic letters. Penmanship is the art of writing clearly and quickly. ...

1. Replace "the same" letters: a, e, K, M, T, o, y. Capitalize when necessary for closer resemblance (к: К better than k, м: M better than m (which looks exactly like 't' in handwritten Cyrillic), т: T better than t).

2. Replace similar-looking letters: в - B, г - 2 (handwritten resemblance), з - 3, л - J| or / (the last is again handwritten resemblance), н - Н, п - n (handwritten resemblance), р - p, с - c, х - x, ч - 4. This may vary.

3. Replace all other non-obvious hard-to-represent characters; there are many options for each letter. (For example, letter 'щ' can be encoded in more than 15 different ways). Examples: ж - *, я - 91, щ - LLI_, э - ~) and so on. The choice for each letter depends on the preferences of the individual user.

As some numeric digits are used to represent Cyrillic letters, the result may resemble leetspeak. This article does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...

Encoding depends on the language as well. For example, Ukrainian users ^[2] have their own traditions, distinct from the Russian ones.

Examples

• (English: Hello, how are you? I haven't given birth yet.)
• Cyrillic: привет, как дела? пока не родила. (Cyrillic letters)
• Volapuk: nPuBeT, KaK geJIa? noKa He poguJ|a. (only Latin letters, but looks similar)
• Translit: privet, kak dela? poka ne rodila. (only Latin letters, sounds similar)

Volapuked fragment from Eugene_Onegin: Eugene Onegin (Russian: Евгений Онегин, BGN/PCGN: Yevgeniy Onegin) is a novel in verse written by Aleksandr Pushkin. ...

"МOu~ g9Ig9I caMblx 4еcTHblx npaBuJI, КO2ga Hе B LLIyTKy 3aHеMO2, ОH yBa>|<aTb cе69I 3acTaBuJI И JIy4LLIе BblgyMaTb Hе MO2. Е2O npuMеp gpy2uM HayKa; НO, 6O>|<е MOu~, KaKa9I cKyKa С 6OJIbHblM cugеTb u gеHb u HO4b, Не OTxOg9I Hu LLIa2y npO4b! КaKOе Hu3KOе KOBapcTBO ПOJIy->|<uBO2O 3a6aBJI9ITb, ЕMy nOgyLLIKu nOnpaBJI9ITb, Пе4aJIbHO nOgHOcuTb JIеKapcTBO, В3gblxaTb u gyMaTb npO cе69I: КO2ga >|<е 4OpT BO3bMеT Tе69I!"

And the same represented with Cyrillic letters:

"Мой дядя самых честных правил, Когда не в шутку занемог, Он уважать себя заставил И лучше выдумать не мог. Его пример другим наука; Но, боже мой, какая скука С больным сидеть и день и ночь, Не отходя ни шагу прочь! Какое низкое коварство Полу-живого забавлять, Ему подушки поправлять, Печально подносить лекарство, Вздыхать и думать про себя: Когда же чорт возьмет тебя!"

Usage

The encoding itself is used very rarely in the Internet due to the fact that the typing of text in such encoding is usually very slow. But still, Volapuk can often be seen in nicknames used by Russian-speaking computer game players, because you have to type in your nickname only once and it is quite short. Such players are proud to have such "True Russian" nicknames, not to mention that such nicks usually sound very funny or are completely unpronouncable in English, for example: cМePTb, ncuxo3, cTygeHb, etc. A computer game is a game composed of a computer-controlled virtual universe that players interact with in order to achieve a defined goal or set of goals. ...

Conversion script

A simple script to convert text from Cyrillic to Volapuk using PHP CLI: PHP (PHP:Hypertext Preprocessor) is a reflective programming language originally designed for producing dynamic web pages. ... CLI is an acronym (or, strictly speaking, an initialism) for Command line interface Call Level Interface Common language interface (Commonly believed, but not official for Common Language Infrastructure) Common Language Infrastructure CLear Interrupts Composite Leading Indicator Caller Line Identification (telephony) Celebrity Love Island Critical Language Institute This page concerning a...

 #!/usr/bin/php <? $Map = array ( "а" => "a", "б" => "6", "в" => "B", "г" => "2", "д" => "g", "e" => "e", "ё" => "e~", "ж" => ">|<", "з" => "3", "и" => "u", "й" => "u~", "к" => "K", "л" => "JI", "м" => "M", "н" => "H", "о" => "O", "п" => "n", "р" => "p", "с" => "c", "т" => "T", "у" => "y", "ф" => "(|)", "х" => "x", "ц" => "u_", "ч" => "4", "ш" => "LLI", "щ" => "LLI_", "ъ" => "~b", "ы" => "bl","ь" => "b", "э" => "~)", "ю" => "I-O", "я" => "9I" ) ; while ( !feof(STDIN) ) { $Char = fread ( STDIN, 1 ) ; printf ( "%s", isset($Map[$Char])? $Map[$Char]: $Char ) ; } ?> 

See also

• Translit
• Russian Chat Alphabet
• Romanization of Russian
• Faux Cyrillic
• Arabic Chat Alphabet - the same idea in Arabic

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Volapuk encoding. ... Please wikify (format) this article as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ... There exist many possible systems for transliterating the Cyrillic alphabet of the Russian language to English or the Latin alphabet. ... Graphic designers sometimes employ faux Cyrillic typography to give a Slavic feel to English text, by replacing Latin letters with Cyrillic letters resembling them. ... The Arabic Chat Alphabet is used to communicate in the Arabic language over the Internet or for sending messages via cellular phones when the actual Arabic alphabet is unavailable for technical reasons. ...

References

1. ^ ^{a b} A note of cancellation of automatic volapuk encoding (1997) (Russian)
2. ^ Instructions at the Ukrainian chat server Nyshporka (Russian)

• Frolov, A.V. and Frolov, G.V. 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)