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Due to the fact that the Arabic Language has a number of Phoneme s that have no equivalent in English or other Europe an languages, a number of different Transliteration methods have been invented to represent certain Arabic Characters , due to various conflicting goals.


PROBLEMS

Any transliteration system of Arabic has to make a number of decisions, dependent on its intended field of application. The root of the problem is that the information contained in unvocalized Arabic writing is not sufficient to give a reader unfamiliar with the language sufficient information for accurate pronunciation. For use in newspapers, for example, it is insufficient to give an exact equivalent of : is not acceptable for an untrained reader. The full transliteration adds information not in the text, which has to be supplied by a speaker of Arabic, . Usually, transliterations used in newspapers try to avoid diacritics, thus removing information that was present in the original text, '' Saddam Hussein ''. Such "loose" transliterations will be dependent on the phonology of the "target language", compare '' Omar Khayyam '' with German ''Omar Chajjam'', both for (unvocalized , vocalized ). A full "scientific" transliteration, on the other hand, will make use of diacritics that may be unfamiliar to untrained readers. These issues are not so much connected with the transliteration itself but with historical inconsistencies of Arabic orthography itself, and the fact that users of a transliteration of Arabic expect more out of it than was present in the original text on one hand, and do not want to be bothered with details of Arabic phonology on the other.

In particular, questions that have to be addressed include:
  • Should the transliteration add phonological (such as vowels) or morphological (such as word boundaries) information, or should it bijectively reflect the Arabic as written in the original spelling?

  • should the assimilation ( Sandhi ) of the article be expressed in the transliteration (''al-shams'' vs. ''ash-shams'')

  • should "tied tā" (''ta marbouta'' ة) be transliterated with a special symbol?

  • --- ISO 233 has a unique symbol, , ISO/R 233 uses superscript h, t.

  • ---Sometimes it is transliterated as either ''t'' or ''h'' depending on pronunciation ( DIN 31635 ).

  • ---Some authors omit it, transliterating only the word-final ''-a''

  • should "broken alif" (ى) be transliterated with a special symbol, or simply as ''ā'', making it ambiguous with alif.

  • should nunation be expressed with a special symbol, or with the same symbol used for ''n''


Either way, the transliteration may be criticized as "flawed"
  • 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 transliterating of phonemes may be considered "too similar" (e.g., ` and ' or and for Ayin and Hamza )

  • ASCII transliterations using capital letters to disambiguate phonemes are easy to type but may be considered unaesthetic



TRANSLITERATION STANDARDS


A table comparing romanizations using DIN 31635, ISO 233, ISO/R 233, UN, ALA-LC, and Encyclopaedia of Islam systems is available here: {Link without Title} .


Comparison table



WORD PROCESSING


Assigning a shortcut key to a symbol or special character allows you to define your own keyboard layout for the Arabic transliteration/ Romanization fonts. Doing so will also allow you to quickly and easily enter symbols with a simple keystroke. This is a necessary step for scholars who want to quickly and efficiently type in Arabic transliteration without switching between keyboards and fonts. All one has to do is take ten minutes to map the Arabic transliteration keys onto their current English keyboard. This process as well as best practices when using transliteration fonts within Microsoft Word on a personal computer are explained in detail in two steps: Step 6b.ii: Defining your own keyboard layout for Arabic transliteration fonts and Step 9b: Free Arabic transliteration fonts and one worth paying for .


ONLINE


Main article: Arabic Chat Alphabet


Online Communication is often restricted to an ASCII environment in which not only the Arabic letters themselves but also Roman Characters with Diacritic s are unavailable. This problem is faced by most speakers of languages that use non-Roman alphabets, or heavily modifed ones. An Ad Hoc solution constists of using Arabic numerals which mirror or resemble the relevant Arabic.


SEE ALSO




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