Romanization

Under transliteration or transcription ( in the broad sense ) is the transfer of characters in a writing system in the characters of another writing system (including phonetics ). Especially when playing East Asian languages with the characters of the Latin alphabet and diacritics are also referred Romanisierungen ( see below). Plays an important role in a transcription of the letter not translatable proper names.

Terminology in English

The equivalent English term is, according to ISO conversion. Rather common for transcription using Latin letters is romanization and roma tion or latinization and latinisation.

Transcription and transliteration

Transcription ( in the narrow sense ) is the transfer of characters a source language to a target language other characters on the basis of the pronunciation rules of the target language. Based on both the phonetic transcription has the advantage that a linguist of the target language can correctly pronounce the readily written in transliteration words of the source language. A transcription is regularly not reversible and therefore not unique ( injective ). A good transcription is characterized in that it gets as far as possible the pronunciation rules. A transcription is about the German transliteration of Cyrillic according to the dictionary.

In the transliteration of each character an alphabetic writing system of the source language is assigned exactly one character of another alphabetic writing system of the target language, so that, conversely, these characters in the target language exactly the original characters in the source language can be assigned again. These are usually used characters that can at least guess at the pronunciation, so that here phonetic factors may play a role. When the system initially contains more characters than the target system ( multiple characters of the target system using a sign of the initial system ) are used in the inscription usually diacritics or combinations of characters used (see below). The transliteration is literally and unique ( injective ). The great advantage of transliteration is the ability to be able to any time retransferred the translitierten characters again through the application of standardized mapping rules. A proper pronunciation of the words written down in transcription of the source language is possible for anyone on the basis of standardized mapping rules without knowing the pronunciation rules of the target language. The independence of the rules of the target language gives the transliteration greater internationality. On the other hand, a speaker of the target language to only those issued by the transliteration embraced in order to be able to read this type of transcription.

" Indirect " inscription

"Indirect " inscription, the case can be referred to that a Umschriftsystem is based on that has emerged within the source language itself, due to the use of different writing systems in different places (eg: Serbo-Croatian ) or at different times (eg: Turkish, other Turkic former Soviet republics ).

Can be found at the writing systems of the source language the desired target system, then a direct transfer possible (eg: transliteration Cyrillic → Serbo-Croatian Latin for according to DIN 1460; transcription Arabic → Turkish Latin for according to DIN 31635 design ).

Can be found at the writing systems of the source language is not the desired target system or is a direct transfer is not desired, the transcription of the output systems can be explained as also relevant to the other output systems (eg: transcription Arabic → Latin on the romanization of the Cyrillic form for Turkic former Soviet republics in accordance with DIN 31635 ).

Existing standards

In the context of ISO and DIN are available for the following systems of writing standards for transliteration into Latin:

Arabic: ISO 233, DIN 31635
Armenian: ISO 9985, DIN 32706
Chinese: ISO 7098
Georgian: ISO 9984, DIN 32707
Greek: ISO 843, DIN 31634
Hebrew: ISO 259, DIN 31636
Indian writing circle: ISO 15919
Japanese: ISO 3602
Korean: ISO / TR 11941
Cyrillic: ISO 9, DIN 1460
Thai: ISO 11940

The DIN 1460 Romanization of Cyrillic is strictly speaking neither a transcription with respect to the German ( as diacritics are used, which do not exist in German ) nor a transliteration (since strings are like SC or ju not clearly reversible: they can for щ or шч or ю or йу stand ). Conversely, purely theoretically conceivable systems, which represent both a transcription and a transliteration.

In some cases, however, these standards do not play a significant role, for example, find Korean Revised Romanization or the McCune -Reischauer romanization or non-standard transcriptions much more common application.

Diacritics, digraphs and special characters

To illustrate the basic alphabet not occurring sounds are to diacritics extended characters ( such as " í ", " é ", " õ ") or digraphs ( such as " nh ", " rh ", " gh ") or mehrbuchstabige combinations ( " ch ") employed.

When reading such a transcription, knowledge of the applied conventions necessary (about "! " For a clicking sound when the people! Kung ). Often several Umschriftvarianten exist ( eg in the case of the Chinese Pinyin Beijing, Wade- Giles pei ching ¹ ³ and others) or in the course of time changing conventions ( Cyrillic " в " in German either traditionally as a " w " or as in English / French as " v ").

Problems arise especially if retranslated or when transferred to a third language. By using a phonetic alphabet as the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA ) or SAMPA to the problems of ambiguity be resolved and be read the pronunciation right on the typeface. A disadvantage is the very special character set is little more readable for laymen.

Examples

Transliteration of Slavic languages

Examples:

The transliteration of the name of the President of Russia ( Russian: Владимир Путин ) takes place in German as Vladimir Putin, Vladimir Poutine in French than in English, as Vladimir Putin.
In the earlier inscription also names were often replaced by their German counterpart; For example, instead of Peter Pyotr Tchaikovsky (Russian Пётр Ильич Чайковский ). Tchaikovsky himself had so circumscribed.

Even an internationally known name as the Soviet statesman Khrushchev appears in the German-speaking other languages may be very foreign (Russian Хрущев ( Хрущёв ), transliterated Khrushchev ( Khrushchev ), IPA xruʃtʃof ). Possible transcriptions are:

English: Khrushchev
French: Khrouchtchev
German: Khrushchev

In the Soviet Union, only the French transliteration of the Russian name was officially used consistently, then appeared also in the passport. Even the name of German origin were then transcribed written French - from Schulze thus became Choultse from Schneider was Chnaider. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the official Umschriftsystem was converted in the early 1990s in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus gradually to the English transliteration - for example, is now in the passport of stone by Shtayn. Since the Russian language again no "H" and the Russians know it as the " ch " or "g" try to pronounce, was from the German Hans in Russian formerly mostly goose ( Ганс ), today more Chans ( Ханс ), resulting in the transcription then only with difficulty as " Hans " is recognizable.