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Different approaches and methods for the romanization
Romanization

In linguistics, romanization is the representation of a written word or spoken speech with the Latin alphabet, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system ....
 of Arabic
Arabic language

Arabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages languages such as Hebrew language and Aramaic language....
 exist. They vary in the way that they address the inherent problems of rendering written and spoken Arabic in the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....
; they also use different symbols for Arabic phoneme
Phoneme

In human language, a phoneme is the smallest posited linguistically distinctive unit of sound. Phonemes carry no semantic content themselves. In theoretical terms, phonemes are not the physical segment s themselves, but cognitive abstractions or categorizations of them....
s that do not exist in English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
 or other Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
an languages.

transliteration
Transliteration

Transliteration is the practice of transcribing a word or text written in one writing system into another writing system or system of rules for such practice....
 system has to make a number of decisions which are dependent on its intended field of application.






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Different approaches and methods for the romanization
Romanization

In linguistics, romanization is the representation of a written word or spoken speech with the Latin alphabet, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system ....
 of Arabic
Arabic language

Arabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages languages such as Hebrew language and Aramaic language....
 exist. They vary in the way that they address the inherent problems of rendering written and spoken Arabic in the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....
; they also use different symbols for Arabic phoneme
Phoneme

In human language, a phoneme is the smallest posited linguistically distinctive unit of sound. Phonemes carry no semantic content themselves. In theoretical terms, phonemes are not the physical segment s themselves, but cognitive abstractions or categorizations of them....
s that do not exist in English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
 or other Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
an languages.

Romanization issues

Any transliteration
Transliteration

Transliteration is the practice of transcribing a word or text written in one writing system into another writing system or system of rules for such practice....
 system has to make a number of decisions which are dependent on its intended field of application. One basic problem is that written Arabic is normally unvocalized
Harakat

The Arabic script has numerous diacritics, including , consonant pointing, and , supplementary diacritics. The latter include the , vowel marks....
, i.e., many of the vowel
Vowel

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis....
s are not written out, and must be supplied by a reader familiar with the language. Hence unvocalized Arabic writing
Abjad

An abjad is a type of writing system in which each symbol stands for a consonant; the reader must supply the appropriate vowel. It is a term suggested by Peter T....
 does not give a reader unfamiliar with the language sufficient information for accurate pronunciation. An exact equivalent of would be , which is meaningless to an untrained reader. A "full transliteration" adds information not in the text, which has to be supplied by a speaker of Arabic, . Usually, newspapers and popular books do not use a transliteration
Transliteration

Transliteration is the practice of transcribing a word or text written in one writing system into another writing system or system of rules for such practice....
, but a transcription
Transcription (linguistics)

Transcription is the conversion into written, typewritten or printed form, of a spoken language source, such as the proceedings of a court hearing....
: Instead of transliterating each written letter, they try to reproduce the sound of the words according to the orthography rules of the target language: Qatar.

Most issues related to the romanization
Romanization

In linguistics, romanization is the representation of a written word or spoken speech with the Latin alphabet, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system ....
 of Arabic are about transliterating vs. transcribing – others, about what should be romanized:
  • transliteration ignores assimilation (sandhi
    Sandhi

    Sandhi is a cover term for a wide variety of phonology processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries . Examples include the fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of sounds due to neighboring sounds or due to the grammatical function of adjacent words....
    ) of the article before the "sun letters", and may be easily misread by non-Arabs. For instance an-nur (or an-nuur, or an-noor) would be more correctly transliterated along the lines of alnur. In the transcription an-nur, a hyphen is added and the unpronounced 'l' removed for the convenience of the uninformed non-Arab reader, who would otherwise pronounce an 'l', probably not understand the word to be nur, pronounce only one 'n', and be confused by the role of the double 'n'. Alternatively, if the shadda
    Shadda

    Shadda , is one of the diacritics used with the Arabic alphabet, marking a long consonant . It is functionally equivalent to writing a consonant twice in the orthographies of languages like Latin, Italian language, Swedish language, and Ancient Greek, and is thus rendered in Latin script in most schemes of Arabic transliteration, e.g....
     is not transliterated (since it is strictly not a letter), a hypercorrect transliteration would be alnur, which presents similar problems for the uninformed non-Arab reader.
  • a transliteration must render the "closed ta" (ta marbuta
    Ta' marbuta

    The is a variant of the letter Taw used at the end of words. It mostly exists in grammatically feminine words. It denotes the sound //, and when in construct state, //....
     ?) faithfully, a transcription must render the sound ("a" like any other "a" or "t" like any other "at" — or in a vocalized text
    Harakat

    The Arabic script has numerous diacritics, including , consonant pointing, and , supplementary diacritics. The latter include the , vowel marks....
     nothing vs. t)
    • ISO 233
      ISO 233

      The international standard ISO 233 establishes a system for Arabic transliteration ....
       has a unique symbol, , ISO/R 233 uses superscript h, t.
  • "shortened alif" (, ?) must be transliterated with a special symbol, but is transcribed like standing alif, when it stands for a long a (a)
  • Nunation
    Nunation

    In some Semitic languages, notably Arabic language, nunation is the addition of a final -n to a noun or adjective to indicate that it is fully declension and syntactically unmarked for definiteness....
    : what is true elsewhere is also true for nunation: transliteration renders what you see, transcription what you hear.


A transcription may reflect the language as spoken, for example, by the people of Baghdad, or the official standard as spoken by a preacher in the mosque or a TV news reader. A transcription is free to add phonological (such as vowels) or morphological (such as word boundaries) information. Transcriptions will also vary depending on the writing conventions of the target language; compare English Omar Khayyam
Omar Khayyám

Omar Khayyam was a Persian peoples polymath: Islamic mathematics, Iranian philosophy, Islamic astronomy and above all Persian literature.He has also become established as one of the major mathematicians and astronomers of the medieval period....
 with German Omar Chajjam, both for (unvocalized , vocalized ).

A transliteration is ideally fully reversible: a machine must be able to transliterate it into Arabic and back. A transliteration can be considered as flawed for any one of the following reasons:
  • A "loose" transliteration is ambiguous, rendering several Arabic phonemes with an identical transliteration, or digraphs for a single phoneme (such as sh) may be confused with two adjacent phonemes;
  • Symbols representing phonemes may be considered too similar (e.g., ` and ' or and for ayin
    Ayin

    ' or ' is the sixteenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician alphabet, Aramaic language, Hebrew language and Arabic alphabet ....
     and hamza
    Hamza

    Hamza is a letter in the Arabic alphabet, representing the glottal stop . Hamza is not one of the 28 "full" letters, and owes its existence to historical orthographical inconsistencies in early Islamic times....
    );
  • ASCII transliterations using capital letters to disambiguate phonemes are easy to type but may be considered unaesthetic.


A fully accurate transcription may not be necessary for native Arabic speakers as they would be able to pronounce names and sentences correctly anyway, but it can be very useful for those not fully familiar with spoken Arabic and who are familiar with the Roman alphabet. An accurate transliteration serves as a valuable stepping stone for learning, pronouncing correctly, and distinguishing phonemes. It is a useful tool for anyone familiar with the sounds of Arabic but who are not fully conversant in the language.

One criticism is that a fully accurate system would require special learning that most do not have to actually pronounce names correctly, and that with a lack of a universal Romanization system they will not be pronounced correctly by non-native speakers anyway. The precision will be lost if special characters are not replicated and if someone is not familiar with Arabic pronunciation.

Transliteration standards

  • Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft
    Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft

    The Deutsche Morgenl?ndische Gesellschaft , in English the German Oriental Society, is a scholarly organization dedicated to studies of Asia and the broader The Orient....
     (1936): Adopted by the International Convention of Orientalist Scholars in Rome. It is the basis for the very influential Hans Wehr
    Hans Wehr

    Hans Wehr was a German Arabist. A professor at the University of M?nster from 1957-1974, he published the Arabisches W?rterbuch , which was later published in an English edition as Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, edited by J Milton Cowan....
     dictionary (ISBN 0-87950-003-4).
  • ISO/R 233 (1961). Replaced by ISO 233
    ISO 233

    The international standard ISO 233 establishes a system for Arabic transliteration ....
     in 1984 but still encountered.
  • BS 4280 (1968): Developed by the British Standards Institute.
  • SATTS: One-to-one mapping to Latin Morse equivalents.
  • UNGEGN (1972):
  • DIN-31635 (1982): Developed by the Deutsches Institut für Normung
    Deutsches Institut für Normung

    Deutsches Institut f?r Normung e.V. is the Germany national organization for standardization and is that country's International Organization for Standardization member body....
     (German Institute for Standardization).
  • ISO 233
    ISO 233

    The international standard ISO 233 establishes a system for Arabic transliteration ....
     (1984).
  • Qalam
    Qalam

    A qalam is a type of pen made from a dried Phragmites, used for Arabic calligraphy. The word derives from the Greek language word ???a???, meaning Reed ....
     (1985): A system that focuses upon preserving the spelling, rather than the pronunciation, and uses mixed case.
  • ArabTeX
    ArabTeX

    ArabTeX is a free software package providing support for the Arabic alphabet and Hebrew alphabet alphabets to TeX and LaTeX. Written by Klaus Lagally, it can take Romanization ASCII or native script input to produce quality ligatures for Arabic language, Persian language, Urdu language, Pashto language, Sindhi language, Maghreb, Uyghur lang...
     (since 1992) its "native" input is 7-bit ASCII: "has been modelled closely after the transliteration standards ISO/R 233 and DIN 31635"
  • ISO 233-2(1993). Simplified transliteration.
  • Buckwalter Transliteration
    Buckwalter transliteration

    The Buckwalter Romanization of Arabic was developed at Xerox by Tim Buckwalter in the 1990s. It is an ASCII only transliteration scheme, representing Arabic orthography strictly one-to-one, unlike the more common romanization schemes that add morphological information not expressed in Arabic script....
     (1990s): Developed at Xerox
    Xerox

    Xerox Corporation is a global document management company which manufactures and sells a range of color and black-and-white Computer printer, multifunction systems, photo copiers, digital production printing presses, and related consulting services and supplies....
     by Tim Buckwalter ; doesn't require unusual diacritic
    Diacritic

    A diacritic is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation or to distinguish between similar words. The term derives from the Greek language d?a???t???? ....
    s.
  • Bikdash Transliteration: A system which is a compromise between Qalam and Buckwalter Transilterations. It represents consonants with one letter and possibly the single quotation mark as a modifier, and uses one or several latin vowels to represent short and long Arabic vowels. It strives for minimality as well as phonetic expressiveness. It does not distinguish between the different shapes of the hamza since it assumes that a software implementation can resolve the differences through the standard rules of spelling of Arabic .
  • ALA-LC (1997).
  • SAS: Spanish Arabists School (José Antonio Conde
    José Antonio Conde

    Jos? Antonio Conde y Garc?a , Spain Orientalist, was born at La Peraleja on 28 October 1766, and was educated at the university of Alcal?. His translation of Anacreon obtained him a post in the royal library in 1795, and in 1796-1797 he published paraphrases from Theocritus, Bion, Moschus, Sappho and Meleager....
     and others, early 19th century onwards).


A table comparing romanizations using DIN 31635, ISO 233, ISO/R 233, UN, ALA-LC, and Encyclopaedia of Islam systems is available here: .

Comparison table


Letter Unicode
Unicode

Unicode is a computing industry standard allowing computers to consistently represent and manipulate Character expressed in most of the world's writing systems....
 Name SATTS
Standard Arabic Technical Transliteration System

The Standard Arabic Technical Transliteration System, commonly referred to by its acronym SATTS, is a system for writing and transmitting Arabic language text using the one-for-one substitution of ASCII-range characters for the letters of the Arabic alphabet....
 UNGEGN
United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names

The United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names is a periodic international conference organised by the United Nations Statistical Commission, the central purpose of which is to facilitate the standardization of national geographical names....
 ALA-LC
Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the de facto national library of the United States and the research arm of the United States Congress. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and holds the largest number of books....
 DIN
DIN 31635

DIN 31635 is a DIN standard for the transliteration of the Arabic alphabet adopted in 1982. It is based on the rules of the Deutsche Morgenl?ndische Gesellschaft as modified by the International Orientalist Congress 1936 in Rome....
 		 ISO
ISO 233

The international standard ISO 233 establishes a system for Arabic transliteration ....
 		 ISO/R Qalam
Qalam

A qalam is a type of pen made from a dried Phragmites, used for Arabic calligraphy. The word derives from the Greek language word ???a???, meaning Reed ....
 SAS SM
SM

SM may refer to:...
 Buckwalter
Buckwalter transliteration

The Buckwalter Romanization of Arabic was developed at Xerox by Tim Buckwalter in the 1990s. It is an ASCII only transliteration scheme, representing Arabic orthography strictly one-to-one, unlike the more common romanization schemes that add morphological information not expressed in Arabic script....
 IPA
International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic....
 BATR
Bikdash Arabic Transliteration Rules

A set of rules for the romanization of Arabic that is highly phonetic, almost one-to-one, and uses only two special characters, namely the hyphen and the apostrophe as modifiers....
 ArabTeX
ArabTeX

ArabTeX is a free software package providing support for the Arabic alphabet and Hebrew alphabet alphabets to TeX and LaTeX. Written by Klaus Lagally, it can take Romanization ASCII or native script input to produce quality ligatures for Arabic language, Persian language, Urdu language, Pashto language, Sindhi language, Maghreb, Uyghur lang...
? 0621 E ' ' ' e '
? 0627 A  aa aa A aa or A a
? 0628 B b b b b b b
? 062A T t t t t t t
? 062B C th ç v c _t
? 062C J j j j j ^g
? 062D H H H H .h
? 062E O kh j x x K _h
? 062F D d d d d d d
? 0630 Z dh d * z' _d
? 0631 R r r r r r r
? 0632 ; z z z z z z
? 0633 S s s s s s s
? 0634 : sh $ x ^s
? 0635 X S S S .s
? 0636 V D D D .d
? 0637 U T T T .t
? 0638 Y Z d? Z Z .z
? 0639 ` ` r E E `
? 063A G gh g g g g .g
? 0641 F f f f f f f
? 0642 Q q q q q q q
? 0643 K k k k k k k
? 0644 L l l l l l l
? 0645 M m m m m m m
? 0646 N n n n n n n
? 0647 ~ h h h h h h
? 0648 W w w; o w w or uu w
? 064A I y y; e y y or ii y
? 0622 AEA  | eaa 'A
? 0629 @ h, t t; — t p t' T
? 0649 /   ae à à Y aaa _A
? FEFB LA la laa  laa lA
??  AL al al- al-; ál-  var. Al- al-


Online

Online communication
Communication

Communication is commonly defined as "the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs...",, 1: an act or instance of transmitting and 3 a: "a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or beha...
 is sometimes restricted to an ASCII
ASCII

American Standard Code for Information Interchange , is a coding standard that can be used for interchanging information, if the information is expressed mainly by the written form of English words....
 environment in which not only the Arabic letters themselves but also Roman characters with diacritic
Diacritic

A diacritic is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation or to distinguish between similar words. The term derives from the Greek language d?a???t???? ....
s are unavailable. Even when Arabic letters and Roman characters with diacritics are available, they are often difficult to type. This problem is faced by most speakers of languages that use non-Roman alphabets, or heavily modified ones. An ad hoc
Ad hoc

Ad hoc is a List of Latin phrases which means "for this [purpose]". It generally signifies a solution designed for a specific problem or task, non-generalisable and which cannot be adapted to other purposes....
 solution consists of using Arabic numerals which mirror or resemble the relevant Arabic letters in shape. They appear as follows:

3 represents the Arabic letter ? .

5 or 7' represent the Arabic letter ? .

6 represents the Arabic letter ? .

6' represents the Arabic letter ? .

7 represents the Arabic letter ? .

8 represents the Arabic letter ? .

9 represents the Arabic letter ? .

9' represents the Arabic letter ? .

2 is sometimes used to represent the ? when it is in the middle of a word

The numerals 2, 3 and 7 are vastly used in Arabic chatting, because they represent Arabic letters that do not sound like any letter of the roman script. The other numerals can be replaced by roman letters that have a very close pronunciation (for example ? can be represented by d, ? by s, ? by q) or a combination of roman letters (for example, kh can represent ?).

When numerals are to be avoided, a single quote (') may be used in the place of 2, h in the place of 7 and a single quote (') or double vowels in the place of 3 (for example 3a can become aa).

See also

  • Arabic alphabet
    Arabic alphabet

    The Arabic alphabet is the writing system used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa, such as Arabic language, Persian language, and Urdu language....
  • Turkish alphabet
    Turkish alphabet

    The Turkish alphabet is a Latin-based alphabet used for writing the Turkish language, consisting of 29 letters, a certain number of which have been adapted or modified for the phonetic requirements of the language....
     — a Latin-based alphabet which replaced the Arabic-based Ottoman Turkish alphabet
    Ottoman Turkish alphabet

    The Ottoman Turkish alphabet was the version of the Perso-Arabic alphabet that was used for the Ottoman Turkish language during the time of the Ottoman Empire and in the early years of the Republic of Turkey, until the adoption of the new Turkish alphabet, derived from the Latin Alphabet, on November 1, 1928....
     in 1928
  • Arabic Chat Alphabet
    Arabic Chat Alphabet

    The Arabic chat alphabet or Arabish is used to communicate in the Arabic language over the Internet or for sending Short message service via cellular phones when the actual Arabic alphabet is unavailable for technical reasons....
  • Arabic grammar
    Arabic grammar

    Arabic is a Semitic languages language. See Arabic language for more information on the language in general. This article describes the grammar of Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic - the Arabic grammar ....
  • Arabic language
    Arabic language

    Arabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages languages such as Hebrew language and Aramaic language....
  • Arabic names
  • Glottal stop (letter)
    Glottal stop (letter)

    The symbol is a letter of the Latin alphabet, used to represent a glottal stop in several phonetic transcription schemes, as well as in the alphabets of some languages....
  • Romanization
    Romanization

    In linguistics, romanization is the representation of a written word or spoken speech with the Latin alphabet, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system ....
  • Transliteration
    Transliteration

    Transliteration is the practice of transcribing a word or text written in one writing system into another writing system or system of rules for such practice....
  • English exonyms of Arabic speaking places
    English exonyms of Arabic speaking places

    The list includes countries and territories and their capitals or administrative centres, where, at least one official language is Arabic language. Literary Arabic pronunciation was chosen....
  • Harakat (Arabic vocalisation)
    Harakat

    The Arabic script has numerous diacritics, including , consonant pointing, and , supplementary diacritics. The latter include the , vowel marks....
  • Maltese alphabet
    Maltese alphabet

    The Maltese alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet with the addition of some letters with diacritic marks and digraphs. It is used to write the Maltese language....


External links

  • Layout, Type Roman and get Arabic in Realtime.
  • converts Roman-based input to Arabic option with comprehensive search services.
  • to type Arabic using English characters phonetically.
  • allows instantaneous phonetic conversion of Latin ASCII keystrokes to Arabic
  • Online Arabic transliteration. Web based editor and Arabic search engine