How to transliterate Cyrillic to Latin text

Question

I have a method which turns any Latin text (e.g. English, French, German, Polish) into its slug form,

e.g. Alpha Bravo Charlie => alpha-bravo-char

Answer 1

You can use .NET open source dll library UnidecodeSharpFork to transliterate Cyrillic and many more languages to Latin.

Example usage:

Assert.AreEqual("Rabota s kirillitsey", "Работа с кириллицей".Unidecode());
Assert.AreEqual("CZSczs", "ČŽŠčžš".Unidecode());
Assert.AreEqual("Hello, World!", "Hello, World!".Unidecode());

Testing Cyrillic:

/// <summary>
/// According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Russian BGN/PCGN.
/// http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BGN/PCGN_romanization_of_Russian
/// With converting "ё" to "yo".
/// </summary>
[TestMethod]
public void RussianAlphabetTest()
{
    string russianAlphabetLowercase = "а б в г д е ё ж з и й к л м н о п р с т у ф х ц ч ш щ ъ ы ь э ю я";
    string russianAlphabetUppercase = "А Б В Г Д Е Ё Ж З И Й К Л М Н О П Р С Т У Ф Х Ц Ч Ш Щ Ъ Ы Ь Э Ю Я";

    string expectedLowercase = "a b v g d e yo zh z i y k l m n o p r s t u f kh ts ch sh shch \" y ' e yu ya";
    string expectedUppercase = "A B V G D E Yo Zh Z I Y K L M N O P R S T U F Kh Ts Ch Sh Shch \" Y ' E Yu Ya";

    Assert.AreEqual(expectedLowercase, russianAlphabetLowercase.Unidecode());
    Assert.AreEqual(expectedUppercase, russianAlphabetUppercase.Unidecode());
}

Simple, fast and powerful. And it's easy to extend/modify transliteration table if you want to.

Answer 2

Optimized the answer of Sarvar Nishonboev, seems like a simplest solution without unnecessary complexity related to the re-creating of string at each iteration:

public static class Converter
{
    private static readonly Dictionary<char, string> ConvertedLetters = new Dictionary<char, string>
    {
        {'а', "a"},
        {'б', "b"},
        {'в', "v"},
        {'г', "g"},
        {'д', "d"},
        {'е', "e"},
        {'ё', "yo"},
        {'ж', "zh"},
        {'з', "z"},
        {'и', "i"},
        {'й', "j"},
        {'к', "k"},
        {'л', "l"},
        {'м', "m"},
        {'н', "n"},
        {'о', "o"},
        {'п', "p"},
        {'р', "r"},
        {'с', "s"},
        {'т', "t"},
        {'у', "u"},
        {'ф', "f"},
        {'х', "h"},
        {'ц', "c"},
        {'ч', "ch"},
        {'ш', "sh"},
        {'щ', "sch"},
        {'ъ', "j"},
        {'ы', "i"},
        {'ь', "j"},
        {'э', "e"},
        {'ю', "yu"},
        {'я', "ya"},
        {'А', "A"},
        {'Б', "B"},
        {'В', "V"},
        {'Г', "G"},
        {'Д', "D"},
        {'Е', "E"},
        {'Ё', "Yo"},
        {'Ж', "Zh"},
        {'З', "Z"},
        {'И', "I"},
        {'Й', "J"},
        {'К', "K"},
        {'Л', "L"},
        {'М', "M"},
        {'Н', "N"},
        {'О', "O"},
        {'П', "P"},
        {'Р', "R"},
        {'С', "S"},
        {'Т', "T"},
        {'У', "U"},
        {'Ф', "F"},
        {'Х', "H"},
        {'Ц', "C"},
        {'Ч', "Ch"},
        {'Ш', "Sh"},
        {'Щ', "Sch"},
        {'Ъ', "J"},
        {'Ы', "I"},
        {'Ь', "J"},
        {'Э', "E"},
        {'Ю', "Yu"},
        {'Я', "Ya"}
    };

    public static string ConvertToLatin(string source)
    {
        var result = new StringBuilder();
        foreach (var letter in source)
        {
            result.Append(ConvertedLetters[letter]);
        }
        return result.ToString();
    }
}

Use it like this:

Converter.ConvertToLatin("Проверочный текст");

Answer 3

You can use my library for transliteration: https://github.com/nick-buhro/Translit
It is also available on NuGet.

Example:

var latin = Transliteration.CyrillicToLatin(
    "Предками данная мудрость народная!", 
    Language.Russian);

Console.WriteLine(latin);   
// Output: Predkami dannaya mudrost` narodnaya!

Answer 4

For future readers

Windows 7+ can do this with its Extended Linguistic Services. (You'll need the Windows API Code Pack to do it from .NET)