transliteration - Uses of transliteration, Issues in transliterating particular languages

The written representation of a word in the closest corresponding characters of a different language. The process is commonly seen at work in loan-words, as in the Welsh bws from ‘bus’, and in the writing of proper names, as in Tchaikovsky and Moscow from Russian Cyrillic characters.

Transliteration is the practice of transcribing a word or text written in one writing system into another writing system.

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.

One instance of transliteration is the use of an English computer keyboard to type in a language that uses a different alphabet, such as in 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 would actually support a keyboard layout for another language. Some programs, such as the Russian language word processor Hieroglyph provide typing by transliteration as an important feature.

If the relations between letters and sounds are similar in both languages, a transliteration may be (almost) the same as a transcription.

Greek word	Transliteration	Transcription
Ελληνική Δημοκρατία	Ellēnikē Dēmokratia	Elliniki Dimokratia
Ελευθερία	eleutheria	eleftheria
Ευαγγέλιο	Euaggelio	Evangelio
των υιών	tōn uiōn	ton ion

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, 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.

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.

Issues in transliterating particular languages

Some languages and scripts present particular difficulties to transcribers.

Ancient Near East Transliterating cuneiform languages Transliteration of ancient Egyptian (see also Egyptian hieroglyphs) hieroglyphic Luwian Avestan Brahmic family Devanagari: see Romanization of Sanskrit Pali Tocharian Malayalam: see Romanization of Malayalam Chinese language Romanization 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 Romaji Transliterating Japanese to Latin script Transcribing English to Japanese Cyrillization of Japanese Korean language McCune-Reischauer Semitic languages Ugaritic alphabet Hebrew alphabet Romanization of Hebrew Arabic alphabet Arabic transliteration Arabic Chat Alphabet Slavic languages written in the Cyrillic or Glagolitic alphabets Romanization of Bulgarian Romanization of Russian Volapuk encoding Romanization of Ukrainian Thai language Royal Thai General System of Transcription