"Transliterate" redirects here. For the concept of being literate in all media, seeTransliteracy. For the Wikipedia template, seeTemplate:Transliteration.
Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from onescript to another that involves swappingletters (thustrans- +liter-) in predictable ways, such as Greek⟨α⟩ →⟨a⟩ and⟨χ⟩ → the digraph⟨ch⟩, Cyrillic⟨д⟩ →⟨d⟩, Armenian⟨ն⟩ →⟨n⟩ or Latin⟨æ⟩ →⟨ae⟩.[1]
Transliteration is the process of representing or intending to represent a word, phrase, or text in a different script or writing system. Transliterations are designed to convey the pronunciation of the original word in a different script, allowing readers or speakers of that script to approximate the sounds and pronunciation of the original word. Transliterations do not change the pronunciation of the word. Thus, in the Greek above example,⟨λλ⟩ is transliterated⟨ll⟩ though it is pronounced exactly the same way as[l], or the Greek letters,⟨λλ⟩.⟨Δ⟩ is transliterated⟨D⟩ though pronounced as[ð], and⟨η⟩ is transliterated⟨ē⟩, though it is pronounced[i] (exactly like⟨ι⟩) and is notlong.
Transcription, conversely, seeks to capture sound, but phonetically approximate it into the new script;⟨Ελληνική Δημοκρατία⟩ corresponds to[eliniˈciðimokraˈtia] in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet. While differentiation is lost in the case of[i], note the allophonic realization of/k/ as a palatalized[c] when preceding front vowels/e/ and/i/.
Angle brackets⟨ ⟩ may be used to set off transliteration, as opposed to slashes/ / for phonemic transcription and square brackets for phonetic transcription. Angle brackets may also be used to set off characters in the original script. Conventions and author preferences vary.
Systematic transliteration is amapping from one system of writing into another, typicallygrapheme to grapheme. Most transliteration systems areone-to-one, so a reader who knows the system can reconstruct the original spelling.
Transliteration, which adapts written formwithout altering the pronunciation when spoken out, is opposed to lettertranscription, which is aletter by letter conversion of one language intoanother writing system. Still, most systems of transliteration map the letters of the source script to letters pronounced similarly in the target script, for some specific pair of source and target language. Transliteration may be very close to letter-by-letter transcription if the relations between letters and sounds are similar in both languages.
For many script pairs, there are one or more standard transliteration systems. However, unsystematic transliteration is common, as forBurmese, for instance.
InModern Greek, the letters ⟨η, ι, υ⟩ and the letter combinations ⟨ει, oι, υι⟩ are pronounced[i] (except when pronounced assemivowels), and a modern transcription renders them as ⟨i⟩. However, a transliteration distinguishes them; for example, by transliterating them as ⟨ē, i, y⟩ and ⟨ei, oi, yi⟩. (As theancient pronunciation of ⟨η⟩ was[ɛː], it is often transliterated as ⟨ē⟩.) On the other hand, ⟨αυ, ευ, ηυ⟩ are pronounced/af,ef,if/, and are voiced to[av,ev,iv] when followed by a voiced consonant – a shift from Ancient Greek/au̯,eu̯,iu̯/. A transliteration would render them all as ⟨au, eu, iu⟩ no matter the environment these sounds are in, reflecting the traditional orthography of Ancient Greek, yet a transcription would distinguish them, based on their phonemicand allophonic pronunciations in Modern Greek. Furthermore, the initial letter ⟨h⟩ reflecting the historicalrough breathing ⟨ ̔⟩ in words such as ⟨Hellēnikḗ⟩ would intuitively be omitted in transcription for Modern Greek, as Modern Greek no longer has the/h/ sound.
A simple example of difficulties in transliteration is theArabic letterqāf. It is pronounced, in literary Arabic, approximately like English [k], except that the tongue makes contact not on thesoft palate but on theuvula, but the pronunciation varies between differentdialects of Arabic. The letter is sometimes transliterated into "g", sometimes into "q" or"'" (for in Egypt it is silent) and rarely even into "k" in English.[2] Another example is the Russian letter"Х" (kha). It is pronounced as thevoiceless velar fricative/x/, like the Scottish pronunciation of⟨ch⟩ in "loch". This sound is not present in most forms of English and is often transliterated as "kh" as inNikita Khrushchev. Many languages have phonemic sounds, such asclick consonants, which are quite unlike any phoneme in the language into which they are being transliterated.
Some languages andscripts present particular difficulties to transcribers. These are discussed on separate pages. Examples of languages and writing systems and methods of transliterating include:
This is adynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help byediting the page to add missing items, with references toreliable sources.
Usage of Transliterations – condensed description of the definition of transliteration and its usage.
G. Gerych.Transliteration of Cyrillic Alphabets. Ottawa University, April 1965. 126 pp. – historical overview of the concept of transliteration and its evolution and application
