RU-Translit installs an intuitive phonetic keyboard layout for the Russian cyrillic alphabet.
Translit is convenient for people who are touch-typists with English/US keyboard.
Phonetic (a.k.a. transliterated) layout: same/cognate letters are located on matching keys.
Benefits
- Russian-speakers: type faster in Russian cyrillic if you are more proficient in QWERTY keyboard vs. ЙЦУКЕН.
- English-speakers: transliteration may save you the hassle of learning the standard Russian (RU) ЙЦУКЕН keyboard.
- Use RU-Translit to avoid buying the ЙЦУКЕН hardware.
RU-Translit helps you type in Russian, Belarussian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Serbian and any other cyrillic texts instead of the usual fall-back of transcribing the words with latin/English alphabet. The layout was created using IME (input method editor), and behaves like any of the Microsoft-supplied keyboard layouts in Windows™.
FAQ's
Q: How is RU-Translit better than the other programs and "translit keyboard" websites?
A: RU-Translit installs a native Windows keyboard layout that "plays nice" with Windows. There are no custom drivers, no tray application (other than the standard Windows Language Toolbar), no adware/malware. There is no system resource penalty for using RU-Translit vs. other options known to the author.
Q: What OS's can RU-Translit be installed on?
A: Version 2007 supports Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Windows7. Version 2016 supports Windows 8.1 and 10.
Tested on both 32 and 64-bit systems.
Q: How do you configure and use RU-Translit?
A: The installer will add Russian language to the system's enabled Input Languages in Windows. RU language will default to keyboard layout "Russian Transliterated". RU-Translit will not delete or reset any preconfigured languages and keyboard layouts.
Q: Is this layout standard? Why don't some of the keys in your layout match the "Translit" layout that is available on [some translit site, application, OS]?
A: There is no "standard" for Translit layouts; many translit implementations are arbitrary hacks that software or web developers put together as an afterthought, or something that they feel is "intuitive". The author of RU-Translit has a couple of years of university linguistics education, and used the generally accepted transcription and phonetic principles to make the layout as easy to learn and intuitive as possible.
Q: How and why did you assign the keys the way you did?
A: The general guiding principle was to make typing in Russian as transparent to an English touch-typist as possible. For instance, if you type the Russian city name Novosibirsk with your eyes closed, you will get the correct result Новосибирск when layout is set to RU-Translit. To accomplish this, we first match "same" letters that both look the same and are phonetically similar (Russian а <-> a, к <-> k, etc.) Then assign similarly sounding letters (English v <-> в, p<->п) to their counterparts, then deal with the remaining letters. Where there is no ibvious match, more often-used letters were given preference, hence you see Я on the center cluster, while Ё went to the number register.
NB: for all those just beginning to study Russian. We were able to resist the urge and not succumb to the misleading trend in pop-culture of using Я as a substitute for R. People who do that suck. Ask your teacher why.
Q: Why is this software free?
A: This software was developed out of necessity for myself and a circle of , and I do not feel like I put so much effort into it that it would justify charging people money. A thank-you email and a link-back if you choose to re-distribute the software is all I ask for.
Troubleshooting
RU-Translit installer completed, but the layout for Russian language remains set to standard Russian "ЙЦУКЕН" keyboard.Select the transliterated layout manually. You may already have had the Russian language and layout configured before using RU-Translit.
The only input language remains "EN(US)" do the following: open Control Panel -> Regional and Language Options -> Text Services and Input Languages. If you have not already done so, Add Russian language. For keyboard layout, select the newly installed "Russian Transliterated". You are good to go!
Support/Contact
Direct your questions, suggestions, concerns to ilia at funtik.com.