hidden pixel

Romanization Information

In linguistics, romanization or latinization is the representation of a written word or spoken speech with the Roman (Latin) alphabet, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system (or none). Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and transcription, for representing the spoken word. The latter can be subdivided into phonemic transcription, which records the phonemes or units of semantic meaning in speech, and more strict phonetic transcription, which records speech sounds with precision. Each romanization has its own set of rules for pronunciation of the romanized words.

Contents

Methods of romanization

Transliteration

Main article: Transliteration

If the romanization attempts to transliterate the original script, the guiding principle is a one-to-one mapping of characters in the source language into the target script, with less emphasis on how the result sounds when pronounced according to the reader's language. For example, the Nihon-shiki romanization of Japanese allows the informed reader to reconstruct the original Japanese kana syllables with 100% accuracy, but requires additional knowledge for correct pronunciation.

Transcription

Main article: Transcription (linguistics)

Phonemic

See also: Phonemic orthography

Most romanizations are intended to enable the casual reader who is unfamiliar with the original script to pronounce the source language reasonably accurately. Such romanizations follow the principle of phonemic transcription and attempt to render the significant sounds (phonemes) of the original as faithfully as possible in the target language. The popular Hepburn romanization of Japanese is an example of a transcriptive romanization designed for English speakers.

Phonetic

See also: Phonetic transcription

A phonetic conversion goes one step further and attempts to depict all phones in the source language, sacrificing legibility if necessary by using characters or conventions not found in the target script. In practice such a representation almost never tries to represent every possible allophone—especially those that occur naturally due to coarticulation effects—and instead limits itself to the most significant allophonic distinctions. The International Phonetic Alphabet is the most common system of phonetic transcription.

Tradeoffs

For most language pairs, building a usable romanization involves tradeoffs between the two extremes. Pure transcriptions are generally not possible, as the source language usually contains sounds and distinctions not found in the target language, but which must be shown to for the romanized form to be comprehensible. Furthermore due to diachronic and synchronic variance no written language represents any spoken language with perfect accuracy and the vocal interpretation of a script may vary by a great degree among languages. In modern times the chain of transcription is usually spoken foreign language, written foreign language, written native language, spoken (read) native language. Reducing the number of those processes, i.e. removing one or both steps of writing, usually leads to more accurate oral articulations. In general, outside a limited audience of scholars romanizations tend to lean more towards transcription. As an example, consider the Japanese martial art 柔術: the Nihon-shiki romanization zyûzyutu may allow someone who knows Japanese to reconstruct the kana syllables じゅうじゅつ, but most native English speakers or rather readers would find it easier to guess the pronunciation from the Hepburn version, jūjutsu.

Romanization of specific writing systems

Arabic

Main article: Romanization of Arabic

The Arabic alphabet is used to write Arabic, Persian, and Urdu as well as numerous other languages in the Muslim world, particularly African and Asian languages without alphabets of their own. Romanization standards include the following:

Armenian

Main article: Romanization of Armenian

Georgian

Main article: Romanization of Georgian

Persian

Main article: Romanization of Persian See also: Category:Persian orthography

Hebrew

Main article: Romanization of Hebrew

The Hebrew alphabet is romanized using several standards:

Brahmic (Indic) scripts

See also: Devanagari transliteration, Romanization of Bengali, and Romanization of Malayalam

The Brahmic family of abugidas is used for languages of the Indian subcontinent and south-east Asia. There is a long tradition in the west to study Sanskrit and other Indic texts in Latin transliteration. Various transliteration conventions have been used for Indic scripts since the time of Sir William Jones. A comparison of some of them is provided here: [9]

Chinese

Main article: Romanization of Mandarin Chinese

Romanization of the Chinese language, in particular, has proved a very difficult problem, although the issue is further complicated by political considerations. Another complication is the fact that Mandarin is perceived to be written non-phonetically, and this myth has slowed acceptance of romanization efforts[citation needed]. Because of this, many romanization tables contain Chinese characters plus one or more romanizations or Zhuyin.

Mandarin

Mainland China
Taiwan
Main article: Romanization of Chinese in Taiwan
  1. Gwoyeu Romatzyh (GR, 1928–1986, in Taiwan 1945-1986; Taiwan used Japanese Romaji before 1945),
  2. Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II (MPS II, 1986–2002),
  3. Tongyong Pinyin (2002–2008),[2][3] and
  4. Hanyu Pinyin (since January 1, 2009).[4][5]
Singapore
Main article: Chinese language romanisation in Singapore

Cantonese

Min Nan

Min Dong

Japanese

Main article: Romanization of Japanese

Romanization (or, more generally, Roman letters) is called "rōmaji" in Japanese. The most common systems are:

Korean

Main article: Korean romanization

While romanization has taken various and at times seemingly unstructured forms, some sets of rules do exist:

Several problems with MR led to the development of the newer systems:

Vietnamese

Main article: Vietnamese Writing System

Thai

Thai, spoken in Thailand and some areas of Laos, Myanmar and China, is written with its own script, probably descended from mixture of Tai-Laotian and Old Khmer, in the Brahmic family. Also see Thai alphabet.

Cyrillic

In English-language library catalogues, bibliographies, and most academic publications, the Library of Congress transliteration method is used worldwide.

In linguistics, scientific transliteration is used for both Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets. This applies to Old Church Slavonic, as well as modern Slavic languages which use these alphabets.

Belarusian

Main article: Romanization of Belarusian

See also: Belarusian Latin alphabet

Bulgarian

Main article: Romanization of Bulgarian

A system based on scientific transliteration and ISO/R 9:1968 was considered official in Bulgaria since the 1970s. Since the late 1990s, Bulgarian authorities have switched to a new system avoiding the use of diacritics and optimized for compatibility with English. This system became mandatory for public use with a law passed in 2009.[6] Where the old system uses <č,š,ž,št,j,ă>, the new system uses <ch,sh,zh,sht,y,a>.

Different transliteration standards are in use at the US Board on Geographic Names (BGN) and the UK Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use (PCGN), as well as the US Library of Congress (ALA-LC Romanization). These English-based systems agree with the new official system in the use of <ch,sh,zh,sht>, but differ in their treatment of some vowel letters.

Macedonian

Main article: Romanization of Macedonian

Russian

Main article: Romanization of Russian

There is no single universally accepted system of writing Russian using the Latin script — in fact there are a huge number of such systems: some are adjusted for a particular target language (e.g. German or French), some are designed as a librarian's transliteration, some are prescribed for Russian travellers' passports; the transcription of some names is purely traditional. All this has resulted in great reduplication of names. E.g. the name of the Russian composer Tchaikovsky may also be written as Tchaykovsky, Tchajkovskij, Tchaikowski, Tschaikowski, Czajkowski, Čajkovskij, Čajkovski, Chajkovskij, Çaykovski, Chaykovsky, Chaykovskiy, Chaikovski, Tshaikovski, Tšaikovski, Tsjajkovskij etc. Systems include:

Ukrainian

Main article: Romanization of Ukrainian

Ukrainian personal names are usually transcribed phonetically; see the main article section Conventional romanization of proper names. The Ukrainian National system is used for geographic names in Ukraine.

See also: Ukrainian Latin alphabet

Greek

Main article: Romanization of Greek

There are romanization systems for both Modern and Ancient Greek.

Overview and summary

The chart below shows the most common phonemic transcription romanization used for several different alphabets. While it is sufficient for many casual users, there are multiple alternatives used for each alphabet, and many exceptions. For details, consult each of the language sections below. (Hangul characters are broken down into jamo components.)

Romanized Greek Russian (Cyrillic) Hebrew Arabic Persian Katakana Hangul
A A А ַ, ֲ, ָ َ, ا ا, آ
AE
AI י ַ
B ΜΠ, Β Б בּ ﺏ ﺑ ﺒ ﺐ ﺏ ﺑ
C Ξ
CH TΣ̈ Ч צ׳ چ
CHI
D ΝΤ, Δ Д ד ﺩ — ﺪ, ﺽ ﺿ ﻀ ﺾ د
DH Δ דֿ ﺫ — ﺬ
DZ ΤΖ Ѕ
E Ε, ΑΙ Э , ֱ, י ֵֶ, ֵ, י ֶ エ, ヱ
EO
EU
F Φ Ф פ (final ף ) ﻑ ﻓ ﻔ ﻒ
FU
G ΓΓ, ΓΚ, Γ Г ג گ
GH Γ Ғ גֿ, עֿ ﻍ ﻏ ﻐ ﻎ ق غ
H Η Һ ח, ה ﻩ ﻫ ﻬ ﻪ, ﺡ ﺣ ﺤ ﺢ ه ح ﻫ
HA
HE
HI
HO
I Η, Ι, Υ, ΕΙ, ΟΙ И ִ, י ִ دِ イ, ヰ
IY دِي
J TZ̈ ДЖ, Џ ג׳ ﺝ ﺟ ﺠ ﺞ ج
JJ
K Κ К כּ (final ךּ ) ﻙ ﻛ ﻜ ﻚ ک
KA
KE
KH X Х כ ,חֿ (final ך ) ﺥ ﺧ ﺨ ﺦ خ
KI
KK
KO
KU
L Λ Л ל ﻝ ﻟ ﻠ ﻞ ل
M Μ М מ (final ם ) ﻡ ﻣ ﻤ ﻢ م
MA
ME
MI
MO
MU
N Ν Н נ (final ן ) ﻥ ﻧ ﻨ ﻦ ن
NA
NE
NG
NI
NO
NU
O Ο, Ω О , ֳ, וֹֹ ُا
OE
P Π П פּ (final ףּ ) پ
PP
PS Ψ
Q Θ ק ﻕ ﻗ ﻘ ﻖ غ ق
R Ρ Р ר ﺭ — ﺮ ر
RA
RE
RI
RO
RU
S Σ С ס, שׂ ﺱ ﺳ ﺴ ﺲ, ﺹ ﺻ ﺼ ﺺ س ث ص
SA
SE
SH Σ̈ Ш שׁ ﺵ ﺷ ﺸ ﺶ ش
SHCH Щ
SHI
SO
SS
SU
T Τ Т ט, תּ, ת ﺕ ﺗ ﺘ ﺖ, ﻁ ﻃ ﻄ ﻂ ت ط
TA
TE
TH Θ תֿ ﺙ ﺛ ﺜ ﺚ
TO
TS ΤΣ Ц צ (final ץ )
TSU
TT
U ΟΥ, Υ У , וֻּ دُ
UI
UW دُو
V B В ב و
W Ω ו, וו ﻭ — ﻮ
WA
WAE
WE
WI
WO
X Ξ, Χ
Y Υ, Ι, ΓΙ Й, Ы, Ј י ﻱ ﻳ ﻴ ﻲ ی
YA Я
YAE
YE Е, Є
YEO
YI Ї
YO Ё
YU Ю
Z Ζ З ז ﺯ — ﺰ, ﻅ ﻇ ﻈ ﻆ ز ظ ذ ض
ZH Ζ̈ Ж ז׳ ژ

See also

References

  1. ^ Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft official website
  2. ^ "Tongyong Pinyin the new system for romanization". Taipei Times. 2002-07-11. http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2002/07/11/147813.
  3. ^ "Taiwan Authority Concerned Passes Tongyong Pinyin Scheme". People's Daily Online. 2002-07-12. http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200207/12/print20020712_99598.html.
  4. ^ "Hanyu Pinyin to be standard system in 2009". Taipei Times. 2008-09-18. http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2008/09/18/2003423528.
  5. ^ "Gov't to improve English-friendly environment". The China Post. 2008-09-18. http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national%20news/2008/09/18/175155/Gov%27t-to.htm.
  6. ^ State Gazette # 19, Sofia, 13 March 2009. (in Bulgarian)

External links

Categories: Romanization | Latin alphabet | Multilingual orthographies | Orthography

 

The above information uses material from Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Some facts may not have been fully verified for accuracy. [Disclaimers]
This page was last archived by our server on Fri May 18 21:24:52 2012.
Displaying this page or its contents does not use any Wikimedia Foundation's resources.
The owners of this site proudly support the Wikimedia Foundation.



Noun

Singular romanization Plural romanizations romanization (plural romanizations)
  1. Putting text into the Latin (Roman) alphabet, by means such as transliteration and transcription.
Usage notes
  • Latin transliteration refers to the romanization of text in an alphabetic script, but not for the romanization of text in a logographic script, especially as for many Asian languages.

from: Wiktionary: romanization,
Fri Jul 15 01:16:36 2011

Matching Results for Romanization:

To Kit
To Kit (Chinese: 陶傑, pinyin: Tao Jie) is the pseudonym of Chip Tsao (Chinese: 曹捷, Cantonese Romanization: Tso Chit, pinyin: Cao Jie), a Hong Kong ...




from: Wikiquote: romanization,
Fri Jul 15 01:16:36 2011