transliterate

Transliteration is the practice of transcribing a word or text written in one writing system into another writing system. It is also the system of rules for that practice.

Technically, from a linguistic point of view, it is a mapping from one system of writing into another. Transliteration attempts to be exact, so that an informed reader should be able to reconstruct the original spelling of unknown transliterated words. To achieve this objective transliteration may define complex conventions for dealing with letters in a source script which do not correspond with letters in a goal script. Romaji is an example of a transliterating method.

This is opposed to transcription, which maps the sounds of one language to the script of another language. Still, most transliterations map the letters of the source script to letters pronounced similarly in the goal script, for some specific pair of source and goal language.

It is not to be confused with translation, which involves a change in language while preserving meaning. Here we have a mapping from one alphabet into another.

One instance of transliteration is the use of an English computer keyboard to type in a language that uses a different alphabet, such as Russian. While the first usage of the word implies seeking the best way to render foreign words into a particular language, the typing transliteration is a purely pragmatic process of inputting text in a particular language. Transliteration from English letters is particularly important for users who are only familiar with the English keyboard layout, and hence could not type quickly in a different alphabet even if their software actually supported a keyboard layout for another language. Some programs, such as the Russian language word processor Hieroglyph provide typing by transliteration as an important feature. The rest of the article concerns itself with the first meaning of the word, that is rendering foreign words into a different alphabet.

Transliterated text, often used in emails, blogs, and electronic correspondence where non-Latin keyboards are unavailable, is sometimes referred to by special composite terms that demonstrate the combination of English characters and the original non-Latin word pronunciation: Ruglish, Hebrish, Greeklish, or Arabish.

If the relations between letters and sounds are similar in both languages, a transliteration may be (almost) the same as a transcription. In practice, there are also some mixed transliteration/transcription systems that transliterate a part of the original script and transcribe the rest. Greeklish is an example of such a mixture.

In a broader sense, the word transliteration is used to include both transliteration in the narrow sense and transcription. Anglicizing is a transcription method. Romanization encompasses several transliteration and transcription methods.

Difference between transliteration and transcription

In Modern Greek, the letters <η> <ι> <υ> and the letter combinations <ει> <oι> <υι> are all pronounced [i] (in IPA notation). A transcription consequently renders them all as <i>, but a transliteration still distinguishes them, for example by transliterating to <ē> <i> <y> and <ei> <oi> <yi>. (As the old Greek pronunciation of <η> was [ɛː], this proposal uses the character appropriate for an Old Greek transliteration or transcription <ē>, an <e> with a macron.) On the other hand, <ευ> is sometimes pronounced [ev] and sometimes [ef], depending on the following sound. A transcription distinguishes them, but this is no requirement for a transliteration.

Uses of transliteration

Transliterations in the narrow sense are used in situations where the original script is not available to write down a word in that script, while still high precision is required. For example, traditional or cheap typesetting with a small character set; editions of old texts in scripts not used any more (such as Linear B); some library catalogues (see www.ifla.org/VII/s13/pubs/isbdg0.htm).

For example, the Greek language is written in the 24-letter Greek alphabet, which overlaps with, but differs from, the 26-letter version of the Roman alphabet in which English is written. Etymologies in English dictionaries often identify Greek words as ancestors of words used in English. Consequently, most such dictionaries transliterate the Greek words into Roman letters.

Transliteration in the broader sense is a necessary process when using words or concepts expressed in a language with a script other than one's own.

The idea of transliteration is complicated by the genuine use in multiple languages of different common nouns for the same person, place or thing. Thus, "Muhammad" is in common use now in English and "Mohammed" is less popular, though there are excellent reasons for each spelling (and similarly for "Muslim" and "Moslem") — in particular, the forms with "o" reflect modern pronunciation, while those with "u" reflect Classical Arabic.

Transliteration is also used for simple encryption.

Issues in transliterating particular languages

Some languages and scripts present particular difficulties to transcribers. These are discussed on separate pages.

• Ancient Near East
  • Transliterating cuneiform languages
  • Transliteration of ancient Egyptian (see also Egyptian hieroglyphs)
  • hieroglyphic Luwian
• Avestan
• Brahmic family
  • Devanagari: see Devanagari transliteration
  • Pali
  • Tocharian
  • Malayalam: see Romanization of Malayalam
• Chinese language
  • transliteration into Chinese characters
• Greek language
  • Transliteration of Greek to the Latin Alphabet
  • Greek alphabet
  • List of Greek words with English derivatives
  • Linear B
  • Greeklish
• Japanese language
  • Romanization of Japanese
  • Cyrillization of Japanese
• Korean language
  • McCune-Reischauer
  • Revised Romanization of Korean
• Semitic languages
  • Ugaritic alphabet
  • Hebrew alphabet
    • Romanization of Hebrew
  • Arabic alphabet
    • Romanization of Arabic
    • Arabic Chat Alphabet
• Slavic languages written in the Cyrillic or Glagolitic alphabets
  • Romanization of Belarusian
  • Romanization of Bulgarian
  • Romanization of Russian
  • Romanization of Ukrainian
  • Volapuk encoding
• Thai language
  • Royal Thai General System of Transcription
  • ‎ISO 11940

See also

• Phonemic orthography
• Romanization
• Transcription (linguistics)
• List of ISO transliterations

External links

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• Transliteration of Non-Roman Scripts - Collection of Transliteration Tables for many Non-Roman Scripts maintained by Thomas T. Pedersen.
• Russian Online Transliteration and Untranslitiration ISO 9.
• United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN) - working group on Romanization Systems.
• SIL International - Provides free fonts for transliteration and IPA
• Microsoft Transliteration Utility - A powerful, free tool for creating, debugging and using transliteration modules from any script to any other script.
• Automatic Cyrillic Converter
• Statistical Machine Transliteration
• Library of Congress: Romanization
• Transliteration history - history of the transliteration of Slavic languages into Latin alphabets.
• Transliteration of Indic Scripts - How to use ISO 15919
• Online Devanagari Transliteration - Transliteratation service for transliterating from Devanagari to 8 Indian Scripts.
• Translit - converter: Latin <-> Georgian, Russian, Greek alphabets
• ICU User Guide: Transforms - Transliteration services in International Components for Unicode
• Online Machine Transliteration (free) - converter between Roman and 6 other scripts
• Rusklaviatura: Real-time Cyrillic Converter
• writeKA Scripto - Transliteration utility that works based on configurable transliteration maps. Maps can be devised for most languages.
• Quillpad - intuitive real-time transliteration for many Indian languages.
• Google Indic Transliteration - Useful for Hindi. Also has spellcheker!
• Indian Language Converter
• Dual screen English-Tamil transliteration software with reverse transliteration facility

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