BGN/PCGN romanization are the systems for romanization and Roman-script spelling conventions adopted by the United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) and the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use (PCGN).
The systems have been approved by the BGN and the PCGN for application to geographic names, but they have also been used for personal names and text in the US and the UK.
BGN/PCGN romanization system for Russian is a method for romanization of Cyrillic Russian texts, that is, their transliteration into the Latin alphabet as used in the English language.
There are a number of systems for romanization of Russian, but the BGN/PCGN system is relatively intuitive for anglophones to pronounce. It is part of the larger set of BGN/PCGN romanizations, which includes methods for 29 different languages. It was developed by the United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) and by the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use (PCGN). The portion of the system pertaining to the Russian language was adopted by BGN in 1944, and by PCGN in 1947.
Nasiriyah (UK: /ˌnæzɪˈriːə/ NAZ-irr-EE-ə, US: /ˌnɑːsɪ-/ NAH-sirr-; Arabic: ٱلنَّاصِرِيَّة, romanized: an-Nāṣiriyya, BGN: An Nāşirīyah, IPA: [ænnɑːsˤɪˈrɪjjæ]), also spelled Nassiriya or Nasiriya, is a city in Iraq, the capital of the Dhi Qar Governorate. It lies on the lower Euphrates, about 360 km (225 miles) south-southeast of Baghdad, near the ruins of the ancient city of Ur. Its population in 2018 was about 558,000, making it the ninth-largest city in Iraq. It had a diverse population of Muslims, Mandaeans and Jews in the early 20th century; today its inhabitants are predominantly Shia Muslims.
Nasiriyah was founded by the Muntafiq tribe in the late 19th century during the era of Ottoman Iraq. It has since become a major hub for transportation. Nasiriyah is the center of a date-growing area. The city's cottage industries include boat-building, carpentry and silver working. The city museum has a large collection of Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Abbasid artifacts. The ruins of the ancient cities of Ur and Larsa are nearby and the Euphrates merges with the Tigris for the final time about 10 kilometres from the city.
The Uyghur Latin alphabet (Uyghur: ئۇيغۇر لاتىن يېزىقى, romanized: Uyghur Latin Yëziqi, ULY) is an auxiliary alphabet for the Uyghur language based on the Latin script. Uyghur is primarily written in Uyghur Arabic alphabet and sometimes in Uyghur Cyrillic alphabet.
In 2023, the alphabet was agreed as the BGN/PCGN romanization system for Uyghur.
The Permanent Committee on Geographical Names (PCGN) is an independent inter-departmental body in the United Kingdom established in 1919. Its function is to establish standard names for places outside the UK, for the use of the British government. The Committee has collaborated with the Foreign Names Committee of the United States Board on Geographic Names to agree a joint romanization system, first published in 1994 as the Romanization Systems and Roman-Script Spelling Conventions.
The members of the PCGN are: British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring Service, Intelligence Collection Group (ICG) (formerly Defence Geospatial Intelligence), Defence Intelligence Staff, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Government Communications Headquarters, Hydrographic Office, Ordnance Survey, Royal Geographical Society and Royal Scottish Geographical Society.
The Kyrgyz language is written in the Kyrgyz alphabet, a modification of Cyrillic. There is no commonly accepted system of romanization for Kyrgyz, i.e. a rendering of Kyrgyz in the Latin alphabet. For geographic names, the Kyrgyz government adopted the BGN/PCGN romanization system.
There have been periodic discussions about changing the country's official writing system to Latin script. These proposals have seen little progress as the Cyrillic alphabet is more firmly established in Kyrgyzstan than in other post-Soviet Turkic states, which have either successfully switched to Latin script (Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan) or are in active transition (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan). In April 2023, Russia suspended dairy exports to Kyrgyzstan after the chairman of Kyrgyzstan’s National Commission for the State Language and Language Policies, Kanybek Osmonaliyev, proposed to change the official script from Cyrillic to Latin to bring the country in line with other Turkic-speaking nations. Osmonaliyev was reprimanded by President Sadyr Japarov who then clarified that Kyrgyzstan had no plans to replace the Cyrillic alphabet.
The BGN/PCGN romanization system for Belarusian is a method for romanization of Cyrillic Belarusian texts, that is, their transliteration into the Latin alphabet.
There are a number of systems for romanization of Belarusian, but the BGN/PCGN system is relatively intuitive for anglophones to pronounce. It is part of the larger set of BGN/PCGN romanizations, which includes methods for 29 different languages. It was developed by the United States Board on Geographic Names and by the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use. The portion of the system pertaining to the Belarusian language was jointly adopted by BGN and PCGN in 1979.