cyrillic-latin-transliteration

Transliterate between Cyrillic and Latin scripts with locale-aware rules.
Supports 9 languages. Zero dependencies. TypeScript-first.

Features

• Transliterates all Cyrillic characters from all supported languages — no unknown characters are silently dropped
• Locale-aware rules: Ukrainian Г → H, Russian Г → G; Bulgarian Щ → Sht, Russian Щ → Sch, etc.
• 9 supported languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Macedonian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Mongolian
• Case-preserving — uppercase Cyrillic maps to uppercase Latin and back
• Non-Cyrillic / non-Latin characters are passed through unchanged
• Written in TypeScript — ships with full type declarations
• Zero runtime dependencies
• Works in Node.js, Deno, Bun, and modern browsers
• ESM + CommonJS dual build

Install

npm install cyrillic-latin-transliteration
# or
pnpm add cyrillic-latin-transliteration
# or
yarn add cyrillic-latin-transliteration

Usage

import { toLatin, toCyrillic } from 'cyrillic-latin-transliteration'

// Russian (default)
toLatin('Привет мир')               // 'Privet mir'
toCyrillic('Privet mir')            // 'Привет мир'

// Ukrainian
toLatin('Добрий день', { locale: 'uk' })     // 'Dobryj den'
toLatin('Харків', { locale: 'uk' })          // 'Kharkiv'
toCyrillic('Kharkiv', { locale: 'uk' })      // 'Харків'

// Bulgarian
toLatin('България', { locale: 'bg' })        // 'Balgariya'

// Serbian
toLatin('Добар дан', { locale: 'sr' })       // 'Dobar dan'
toLatin('Љубав', { locale: 'sr' })           // 'Ljubav'

// Kazakh
toLatin('Қазақстан', { locale: 'kk' })       // 'Qazaqstan'

// Non-Cyrillic characters pass through unchanged
toLatin('Привет, world!', { locale: 'uk' })  // 'Pryvit, world!'

CommonJS (require) is also supported:

const { toLatin, toCyrillic } = require('cyrillic-latin-transliteration')

API

toLatin(text: string, options?: TranslitOptions): string

Converts a Cyrillic string to its Latin transliteration.

| Detail | Behaviour | |---|---| | Case | Uppercase Cyrillic maps to uppercase Latin, lowercase to lowercase | | Unknown chars | Non-Cyrillic characters are passed through unchanged | | Soft / hard signs | ь / ъ map to '' (dropped) in Russian; Bulgarian ъ maps to a | | Empty / non-string | Returns '' |

toCyrillic(text: string, options?: TranslitOptions): string

Converts a Latin transliteration back to Cyrillic.

| Detail | Behaviour | |---|---| | Greedy matching | Always tries the longest matching sequence first (5→4→3→2→1 chars) | | Unknown chars | Non-Latin characters are passed through unchanged | | Empty / non-string | Returns '' |

TranslitOptions

interface TranslitOptions {
  locale?: TranslitLocale
}

type TranslitLocale =
  | 'ru'  // Russian (default)
  | 'uk'  // Ukrainian
  | 'be'  // Belarusian
  | 'bg'  // Bulgarian
  | 'sr'  // Serbian
  | 'mk'  // Macedonian
  | 'kk'  // Kazakh
  | 'ky'  // Kyrgyz
  | 'mn'  // Mongolian

detectScript(text: string): 'cyrillic' | 'latin' | 'mixed' | 'unknown'

Heuristically detects the dominant script in a string.

detectScript('Привет')        // 'cyrillic'
detectScript('Privet')        // 'latin'
detectScript('Привет, world') // 'mixed'
detectScript('123 !')         // 'unknown'

isCyrillic(text: string): boolean

Returns true if the string is written in Cyrillic (ignoring digits and punctuation).

isCyrillic('Привет')         // true
isCyrillic('Привет, world')  // false
isCyrillic('Privet')         // false

Locale differences

The same Cyrillic letter can sound (and therefore transliterate) differently across languages:

| Letter | ru | uk | bg | sr / mk | |--------|------|------|------|-------------| | Г г | G g | H h | G g | G g | | Х х | H h | Kh kh | H h | H h | | Щ щ | Sch sch | Shch shch | Sht sht | Sch sch | | Ъ ъ | (dropped) | — | A a (vowel) | (dropped) | | И и | I i | Y y | I i | I i |

Supported characters

Slavic alphabets

| Language | Unique letters | Latin | |---|---|---| | Ukrainian | І і | I i | | Ukrainian | Ї ї | Yi yi | | Ukrainian | Є є | Ye ye | | Ukrainian | Ґ ґ | G g (locale uk) | | Belarusian | Ў ў | W w | | Serbian | Ђ ђ | Dj dj | | Serbian | Ј ј | J j | | Serbian | Љ љ | Lj lj | | Serbian | Њ њ | Nj nj | | Serbian | Ћ ћ | Tj tj | | Serbian | Џ џ | Dzh dzh | | Macedonian | Ѓ ѓ | Gj gj | | Macedonian | Ѕ ѕ | Dz dz | | Macedonian | Ќ ќ | Kj kj |

Central Asian alphabets (Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Mongolian)

| Letter | Latin | Note | |---|---|---| | Ә ә | Ae ae | Front low vowel | | Ғ ғ | Gh gh | Voiced velar fricative | | Қ қ | Q q | Uvular stop | | Ң ң | Ng ng | Velar nasal | | Ө ө | Oe oe | Front rounded vowel (like German ö) | | Ұ ұ | U u | Back unrounded vowel (Kazakh) | | Ү ү | Ue ue | Front rounded vowel (like German ü) | | Ҳ ҳ | H h | Pharyngeal H (Tajik/Uzbek) | | Ҷ ҷ | Dj dj | Affricate (Tajik) | | Ӣ ӣ | I i | Long I (Tajik) | | Ӯ ӯ | Uu uu | Long U (Tajik) |

Russian transliteration reference

| Cyrillic | Latin | | Cyrillic | Latin | |---|---|---|---|---| | А а | A a | | Р р | R r | | Б б | B b | | С с | S s | | В в | V v | | Т т | T t | | Г г | G g | | У у | U u | | Д д | D d | | Ф ф | F f | | Е е | E e | | Х х | H h | | Ё ё | Yo yo | | Ц ц | Ts ts | | Ж ж | Zh zh | | Ч ч | Ch ch | | З з | Z z | | Ш ш | Sh sh | | И и | I i | | Щ щ | Sch sch | | Й й | J j | | Ъ ъ | (dropped) | | К к | K k | | Ы ы | Y y | | Л л | L l | | Ь ь | (dropped) | | М м | M m | | Э э | E e | | Н н | N n | | Ю ю | Yu yu | | О о | O o | | Я я | Ya ya | | П п | P p | | | |

Development

git clone https://github.com/MaxGrushevsky/cyrillic-latin-transliteration.git
cd cyrillic-latin-transliteration
npm install

npm run build         # compile to dist/
npm test              # run tests once
npm run test:watch    # run tests in watch mode
npm run typecheck     # TypeScript type-check only

License

MIT