System for transliteration of the Arabic alphabet into the Latin alphabet
TheHans Wehr transliteration system is a system fortransliteration of theArabic alphabet into theLatin alphabet used in theHans Wehr dictionary (1952; in English 1961). The system was modified somewhat in the English editions. It is printed in lowercaseitalics. It marks some consonants using diacritics (underdot,macron below, andcaron) rather thandigraphs, and writes long vowels withmacrons.
The transliteration of the Arabic alphabet:
| Letter | Name | Transliteration | Eng. ed.[1] |
|---|
| ء | hamza | ʼ |
| ا | alif | ā |
| ب | bāʼ | b |
| ت | tāʼ | t |
| ث | ṯāʼ | ṯ |
| ج | ǧīm | ǧ | j |
| ح | ḥāʼ | ḥ |
| خ | ḫāʼ | ḫ | ḵ |
| د | dāl | d |
| ذ | ḏāl | ḏ |
| ر | rāʼ | r |
| ز | zāy | z |
| س | sīn | s |
| ش | šīn | š |
| ص | ṣād | ṣ |
| ض | ḍād | ḍ |
| ط | ṭāʼ | ṭ |
| ظ | ẓāʼ | ẓ |
| ع | ʽain | ʽ |
| غ | ġain | ġ | ḡ |
| ف | fāʼ | f |
| ق | qāf | q |
| ك | kāf | k |
| ل | lām | l |
| م | mīm | m |
| ن | nūn | n |
| ه | hāʼ | h |
| و | wāw | w,u, orū |
| ي | yāʼ | y,i, orī |
- Hamza (ء) is represented as ʼ in the middle and at the end of a word. At the beginning of a word, it is not represented.
- Thetāʼ marbūṭa (ة) is normally not represented, and words ending in it simply have a final-a. It is, however, represented with at when it is the ending of thefirst noun of aniḍāfa and with anh when it appears after a longā.
- Native Arabic long vowels:ā ī ū
- Long vowels in borrowed words:ē ō
- Short vowels:fatḥa is represented asa,kasra asi andḍamma asu. (seeshort vowel marks)
- Wāw andyāʼ are represented asu andi afterfatḥa:ʻain "eye",yaum "day".
- Non-standard Arabic consonants:p (پ),ž (ژ),g (گ)
- Alif maqṣūra (ى):ā
- Madda (آ):ā at the beginning of a word,ʼā in the middle or at the end
- A finalyāʼ (ي), thenisba adjective ending, is represented asī normally, but asīy when the ending contains the third consonant of the root. This difference is not written in the Arabic.
- Capitalization: The transliteration uses no capitals, even for proper names.
- Definite article: The Arabic definite articleالـ is represented asal- except whereassimilation occurs:al- +šams is transliteratedaš-šams (seesun and moon letters). Thea inal- is omitted after a finala (as inlamma šamla l-qatīʻ "to round up the herd") or changed toi after a feminine third person singular perfect verb form (as inkašafat il-ḥarbu ʻan sāqin "war flared up").
- ^English edition (1961, 1994), see "Introduction".
