Ukrainian in the Latin alphabet
Evropéïća is a Latin orthography for Ukrainian. It is designed as a second script alongside Cyrillic, not as a replacement for it.
Ще не вмерла України ні слава, ні воля
Šče ne vmerła Ukraïny ni słava, ni vola
Щастя не купиш за гроші
Ščasťa ne kupyš za hroši
Чернівці, Житомир, Львів
Černivci, Žytomyr, Lviv
What it is
Ukrainian is written in Cyrillic, and has been for a thousand years. Evropéïća adds a parallel way of writing the same language in Latin letters, using the Czech and Polish diacritic tradition — Č, Š, Ž, Ł, Ń — which Ukrainian already shares with its western neighbours through Belarusian Łacinka.
Writing is a medium, not the language itself. Serbian is written in both alphabets and is no less Serbian for it. Nothing here proposes taking Cyrillic away.
Why it might matter
- European integration. Most of the European Union writes in Latin script. A shared alphabet shortens the distance in ordinary things: documents, signage, place names, academic publishing.
- Legibility to neighbours. Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Croats and Lithuanians read Latin script every day. Ukrainian written this way becomes partly readable to them without a dictionary — and Ukrainian words travel into other languages correctly spelled.
- Technology and schooling. Most software and international standards are built around the Latin alphabet. One keyboard layout instead of two is simpler, and children who write Latin letters early find other European languages easier to learn.
- Control of your own names. Transliteration of Ukrainian names is still inconsistent: the same city is spelled several ways across road signs, passports and foreign media. An agreed orthography lets Ukrainian export its own spelling instead of inheriting someone else's.
How it is built
An orthography proposal is usually a document, and documents drift from their own examples. This one is executable. The rules live in arulebookwhere each has an identifier; a reference engine implements them; a second implementation in another language is cross-checked against the first; and a checker re-transliterates every Ukrainian sentence on this website and fails the build if the published text disagrees with the engine.
The system is layered, so each version adds rules on top of the last:
| Version | Name | What it does | State |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.0 | Transliteracija | Deterministic one-to-one transliteration from modern Cyrillic | stable |
| 2.0 | Ortografija | Etymological spelling of loanwords, restoring the original pronunciation | in progress |
| 2.1 | Nahołos | Stress marks, written only when stress is not on the first root vowel | in progress |
Try it
The converter turns Cyrillic into version 1.0 in real time. The specification gives the full alphabet and every rule with examples, and there is akeyboard layout you can install.
Status
This is an independent proposal, not a standard and not endorsed by any institution. Version 1.0 is stable; versions 2.0 and 2.1 are still moving. Corrections to the rules or the examples are welcome as issues or pull requests onGitHub.