![]() When you’re learning a new language, the hardest pronunciations are the ones that you’ve never come across before. This doesn’t present too much of a problem as long as enough people agree, but it can be confusing for newcomers to figure out. Going back to the Cyrillic alphabet, you can find the letter я transliterated as ja, ya, i͡a, ia or â. For the most part, there are agreed upon norms, but there are still plenty of edge cases. There Are Differing StandardsĪs an outgrowth of the previous problem, transliteration is not always standardized universally. This problem isn’t completely insurmountable, but it does mean that decisions need to be made to decide which letter combinations, accent marks or punctuation will be used to express these nuances. And if you count the full number of kanji used in Japanese, there are tens of thousands. Here’s a rundown of some of the problems with transliteration. The truth is, transliteration can get a little complicated. What Problems Exist In Transliteration?Īlright, so we talked a big game about transliteration being easy, but that’s kind of a best-case scenario. There’s no magic spell or secret formula - it’s a process of replacement. While every language and writing system has its own needs for transliteration, the basic concept is the same. You probably don’t need us to walk you through every word like that, but we want to include a few examples with more letters so you can practice if you want. Put it all together, and you get Rossija. Then there are two letters that look like backwards Latin letters, but have no fear! The и becomes i and the я becomes a ja. Then there’s o, which conveniently stays an o. To begin with a common word you might run into, let’s try Россия, the Russian word for “Russia.” The first letter is Р, so you go to the chart and see that it’s equivalent to R. Now that you’ve got the table above, you can start transliterating away. Note: While not technically a letter, we should mention the soft sound ь is transliterated with the ‘ mark. Because it’s probably easier to do this with an example, let’s try working with the Cyrillic alphabet, which is used in Russian, Ukrainian, Czech, Macedonian and other languages. The only thing you need to get started is a chart to see which symbols are equivalent to the letter combos of the Latin alphabet. Really, though, it’s pretty simple when you get down to it. If you’re new to transliteration, you might think that there is some advanced linguistic formula behind it. That said, the histories of cultural spread and transliteration are certainly linked. You may also see terms like sinicization or francization that seem similar, but those usually refer to cultural shifts rather than shifts in writing systems. A common term for transliterating a script into the Latin alphabet is romanization, and transliterating into Cyrillic is called cyrillization. Transliteration may also go by other names. Transliteration should reflect the sounds of the language to a certain extent, but it is not always as exact as a transcription might be. It’s also different from transcription, because that focuses entirely on the sounds of the language. It’s different from translation, because the result isn’t in a different language. Transliteration is the act of converting a written language from one writing system to another. ![]() ![]() Fortunately, there’s a way around this problem: transliteration. ![]() When it uses another writing system, then you’re entirely at a loss without even some familiar symbols to guide you. Understanding a written language you’re not very familiar with is hard enough even when it does use the Latin alphabet. ![]()
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