Instruction on transliteration of Belarusian geographical names with letters of Latin script

System for romanization of Belarusian language texts

Instruction on transliteration of Belarusian geographical names with letters of Latin script is an official standard of Romanization of Belarusian geographical names.

The instruction was adopted by a decree of the Belarusian State Committee on Land Resources, Geodetics and Cartography (2000 11 23). The official name of the document is: «Инструкция по транслитерации географических названий Республики Беларусь буквами латинского алфавита». The document had been published in the National registry of the judicial acts of the Republic Belarus (issue №3, 2001 01 11). It is reported in the press that since October 2006 this instruction is recommended for use by the Working Group on Romanization Systems of the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN). The final decision of the UN was planned for a 2007 conference. The system was modified again on 11 June 2007, mainly in order to conform with the recommendations of the UN WGRS, which advise avoiding the use of digraphs if possible, and adopted by the UN in version 3.0 of their romanization report, 17 March 2008. The transliteration standard is based on the traditional Belarusian Latin alphabet (Łacinka). The instruction replaces the previous equivalent regulations and sets up the rules of the rendering of the Belarusian geographical names, which are mandatory on the territory of the Republic of Belarus, when producing the cartographic and other (equivalent?) goods, destined for the international use.