Languages can be romanized in a variety of ways, as shown here with Mandarin Chinese

In linguistics, romanization (or latinization, also spelled romanisation or latinisation) is the representation of a word or language with the Roman (Latin) alphabet, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system (or none). Standard Mandarin, also known as Standard Spoken Chinese, is the official modern Chinese spoken language used in mainland China and Taiwan Linguistics is the scientific study of Language, encompassing a number of sub-fields A word is a unit of Language that carries meaning and consists of one or more Morphemes which are linked more or less tightly together and has a Phonetic A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them A writing system is a type of Symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in Language. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and transcription, for representing the spoken word. Transliteration is the practice of Transcribing a Word or text written in one Writing system into another writing system or system of rules for such practice Transcription is the conversion into written typewritten or printed form of a Spoken language source such as the proceedings of a court hearing 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. A phonemic orthography is a Writing system where the written Graphemes correspond to Phonemes the spoken sounds of the language The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU Semantics is the study of meaning in communication The word derives from Greek σημαντικός ( semantikos) "significant" from A phonemic orthography is a Writing system where the written Graphemes correspond to Phonemes the spoken sounds of the language Each romanization has its own set of rules for pronunciation of the romanized words.

Examples of languages to which this process is often applied are Chinese, Japanese and Korean. is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system

Cyrillization is the similar process of representing a language using the Cyrillic alphabet. A Cyrillization is a system for rendering words of a language that normally uses a writing system other than the Cyrillic alphabet into a (version of Cyrillic alphabet The Cyrillic alphabet (səˈrɪlɪk also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters is actually a family of Alphabets, subsets of which are used by

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. Transliteration is the practice of Transcribing a Word or text written in one Writing system into another writing system or system of rules for such practice 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. Nihon-shiki or Nippon-shiki Rōmaji (日本式ローマ字 "Japan-style" romanized as Nihon-siki or Nippon-siki in Nippon-shiki itself is a is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities Kana is a general term for the syllabic Japanese scripts Hiragana (ひらがな and Katakana (カタカナ as well as the old system

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. Transcription is the conversion into written typewritten or printed form of a Spoken language source such as the proceedings of a court hearing A phonemic orthography is a Writing system where the written Graphemes correspond to Phonemes the spoken sounds of the language 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. A phonemic orthography is a Writing system where the written Graphemes correspond to Phonemes the spoken sounds of the language The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU The popular Hepburn romanization of Japanese is an example of a transcriptive romanization designed for English speakers. The is named after James Curtis Hepburn, who used it to transcribe the sounds of the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet in the third edition of his Japanese–English

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. Phonetic transcription (or phonetic notation) is the visual system of symbolization of the sounds occurring in spoken human Language. Phonetics (from the Greek φωνή ( phonê) "sound" or "voice" is the study of the physical sounds of human speech Within Phonetics, a phone is a speech sound or gesture considered a physical event without regard to its place in the Phonology of a Language 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. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA is a system of phonetic notation based on the Latin alphabet, devised by the International Phonetic

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. A written language is the representation of a Language by means of a Writing system. A spoken language is a human Natural language in which the Words are uttered through the Mouth. 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. literally meaning the " art of softness " or "way of yielding" is a collective name for Japanese martial art styles consisting of grappling

Romanization of specific writing systems

Arabic

Main article: Arabic transliteration

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 which do not have alphabets of their own. Different approaches and methods for the Romanization of Arabic exist The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa such as Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language Urdu ( ur '''{{Nastaliq اردو}}''' trans Urdū, historically spelled Ordu) is a Central Indo-Aryan language Urdu is a standardised There are an estimated 2000 Languages spoken in Africa. About a hundred of these are widely used for inter-ethnic communication There is a wide variety of Languages spoken throughout Asia, comprising a number of families and some unrelated isolates Romanization standards include:

• Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft (1936): Adopted by the International Convention of Orientalist Scholars in Rome. The Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft (DMG in English the German Oriental Society, is a scholarly organization dedicated to studies of Asia and the broader It is the basis for the very influential Hans Wehr dictionary (ISBN 0-87950-003-4). The Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic is an Arabic - English Dictionary compiled by Hans Wehr and edited by J Milton Cowan ^[1]
• BS 4280 (1968): Developed by the British Standards Institute [1]
• SATTS (1970s): Developed by US military
• UNGEGN (1972): [2]
• DIN-31635 (1982): Developed by the Deutsches Institut für Normung (German Institute for Standardization)
• ISO 233 (1984). BSI Group, also known in its home market as the British Standards Institution (or BSI) is a multinational business services provider whose principal activity The Standard Arabic Technical Transliteration System, commonly referred to by its acronym SATTS is a system for writing and transmitting Arabic language text using the one-for-one substitution The United Nations Statistical Commission oversees the work of the United Nations Statistical Division or UNSD, and is a Functional Commission of the UN DIN 31635 is a DIN standard for the Transliteration of the Arabic alphabet adopted in 1982 Deutsches Institut für Normung eV ( DIN; in English, the German Institute for Standardization) is the German national organization for The International standard ISO 233 establishes a system for Arabic transliteration ( Romanization) Transliteration.
• Qalam (1985): A system that focuses upon preserving the spelling, rather than the pronunciation, and uses mixed case [3]
• ISO 233-2(1993). A qalam ( قلم) is a type of pen made from a dried reed, used for Arabic calligraphy. Simplified transliteration.
• Buckwalter Transliteration (1990s): Developed at Xerox by Tim Buckwalter [4]; doesn't require unusual diacritics [5]
• ALA-LC (1997): [6]
• Arabic Chat Alphabet

Persian

Main article: Persian transcription

Hebrew

Main article: Romanization of Hebrew

The Hebrew alphabet is romanized using several standards:

• ANSI Z39. The Buckwalter Arabic transliteration was developed at Xerox by Tim Buckwalter in the 1990s Xerox Corporation ( (name ˈziːrɒks is a global document management company which manufactures and sells a range of color and black-and-white printers, multifunction A diacritic ( also called a diacritic or diacritical mark, point, or sign, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation ALA-LC is a set of standards for Romanization, or the representation of text in other Writing systems using the Latin alphabet. The Arabic chat alphabet or Arabish (عربيزي ‘Arabīzī) is used to communicate in the Arabic language over the Internet or for The Persian language (Tehrani dialect has six vowels and twenty-three consonants Hebrew uses the Hebrew alphabet with optional vowel points. The romanization of Hebrew is the use of the Latin alphabet to Transliterate The Hebrew alphabet (אָלֶף-בֵּית עִבְרִי alephbet ’ivri) consists of 22 letters used for writing the Hebrew language. 25 (1975):
• UNGEGN (1977): [7]
• ISO 259 (1984): Transliteration. The United Nations Statistical Commission oversees the work of the United Nations Statistical Division or UNSD, and is a Functional Commission of the UN ISO 259 is an international standard for the Romanization of Hebrew, dating to 1984, with updated ISO 259-2 (a simplification disregarding several vowel
• ISO 259-2 (1994): Simplified transliteration. ISO 259 is an international standard for the Romanization of Hebrew, dating to 1984, with updated ISO 259-2 (a simplification disregarding several vowel
• ISO/DIS 259-3: Phonemic transcription.
• ALA-LC: [8]

Brahmic scripts

The Brahmic family of abugidas is used for languages of the Indian subcontinent and south-east Asia. ALA-LC is a set of standards for Romanization, or the representation of text in other Writing systems using the Latin alphabet. The Brahmic family is a family of syllabaries (writing systems used in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and parts of Central Asia and East Asia, An abugida ( from Ge‘ez አቡጊዳ ’äbugida or Amharic አቡጊዳ ’abugida is a segmental Writing system which There is a long tradition in the west to study Sanskrit and other Indic texts in Latin transliteration. Sanskrit (sa संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short sa संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is a historical 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]

• ISO 15919 (2001): A standard transliteration convention was codified in the ISO 15919 standard. ISO 15919 Transliteration of Devanagari and related Indic scripts into Latin characters is an international standard for the Transliteration of Indic scripts to the Transliteration is the practice of Transcribing a Word or text written in one Writing system into another writing system or system of rules for such practice It uses diacritics to map the much larger set of Brahmic consonants and vowels to the Latin script. A diacritic ( also called a diacritic or diacritical mark, point, or sign, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation In Articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a Speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper Vocal tract, the upper vocal In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract See also Transliteration of Indic scripts: how to use ISO 15919. The Devanagari-specific portion is identical to the academic standard, IAST: "International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration", and to the United States Library of Congress standard, ALA-LC: [10]
• The National Library at Kolkata romanization, intended for the romanization of all Indic scripts, is an extension of IAST
• Harvard-Kyoto: Uses upper and lower case and doubling of letters, to avoid the use of diacritics, and to restrict the range to 7-bit ASCII. The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration ( IAST) is a popular Transliteration scheme that allows a lossless Romanization of Indic ALA-LC is a set of standards for Romanization, or the representation of text in other Writing systems using the Latin alphabet. The National Library at Kolkata Romanization is the most widely used Transliteration scheme in dictionaries and grammars of Indic languages The Brahmic family is a family of syllabaries (writing systems used in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and parts of Central Asia and East Asia, The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration ( IAST) is a popular Transliteration scheme that allows a lossless Romanization of Indic The Harvard-Kyoto Convention is a system for transliterating in ASCII the Sanskrit language and other languages that use the Devanāgarī
• ITRANS: a transliteration scheme into 7-bit ASCII created by Avinash Chopde that used to be prevalent on Usenet. The " I ndian languages TRANS literation" ( ITRANS) is an ASCII Transliteration scheme for Indic scripts, particularly but Usenet, a Portmanteau of "user" and "network" is a world-wide distributed Internet discussion system
• MEFI: A fantasy name of a transliteration alphabet created by Gabriel Pradiipaka, also into 7-bit ASCII [11]
• ISCII (1988)

See also: Devanagari transliteration and Romanization of Malayalam

Chinese

Main article: Romanization of Chinese

Romanization of the Chinese language, in particular, has proved a very difficult problem, although the issue is further complicated by political considerations. Indian Script Code for Information Interchange ( ISCII) is a coding scheme for representing various writing systems of India. There are several methods of Transliteration from Devanāgarī into Roman scripts. Malayalam has a number of Romanization schemes the most widely used today being the Mozhi. The Romanization of Chinese is the use of the Latin alphabet to write Chinese Another complication is the fact that Mandarin is perceived to be written non-phonetically, and this myth has retarded acceptance of romanization efforts. Because of this, many romanization tables contain Chinese characters plus one or more romanizations or Zhuyin.

Standard Mandarin

• ALA-LC: Used to be similar to Wade-Giles [12], but converted to Hanyu Pinyin since 2000 [13]
• EFEO. ALA-LC is a set of standards for Romanization, or the representation of text in other Writing systems using the Latin alphabet. Pinyin, more formally Hanyu pinyin, is the most common Standard Mandarin Romanization system in use 2000 ( MM) was a Leap year that started on Saturday of the Common Era, in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. The École française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO is a French institute dedicated to the study of Asian societies Developed by Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient in 19th century, used mainly in France. The École française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO is a French institute dedicated to the study of Asian societies This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics.
• Latinxua Sinwenz (1926): Omitted tone sounds. Latinxua Sin Wenz ( also known as Sin Wenz, Latinxua Sinwenz, Zhongguo Latinxua Sin Wenz, Beifangxua Latinxua Sin Wenz or Latinxua Used mainly in the Soviet Union and Xinjiang in the 30s. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 Xinjiang ( Uyghur: شىنجاڭ Shinjang;; Postal map spelling: Sinkiang; Turkish: Sincan, Sincan Uygur Özerk Predecessor of Hanyu Pinyin. Pinyin, more formally Hanyu pinyin, is the most common Standard Mandarin Romanization system in use
• Lessing-Othmer: Used mainly in Germany. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe.
• Chinese Postal Map Romanization (1906): Early standard for international addresses
• Wade-Giles (1912): Transliteration. Chinese Postal Map Romanization ( Traditional Chinese: 郵政式拼音 Simplified Chinese: 邮政式拼音 Pinyin: Yóuzhèngshì Pīnyīn refers to the Wade-Giles (ˌweɪdˈʤaɪlz) sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a Romanization system (phonetic notation and Transcription) for the Mandarin Very popular from 19th century until recently and continues to be used by some Western academics.
• Yale (1942): Created by the U. The Yale romanizations are four systems created during World War II for use by United States military personnel. S. for battlefield communication and used in the influential Yale textbooks.
• Legge romanization: Created by James Legge a Scottish missionary. Legge romanization is a Transcription system for Mandarin Chinese, used by the prolific 19th century sinologist James Legge. Life James Legge was born at Huntly, Aberdeenshire, and educated at Aberdeen Grammar School and then Kings College Aberdeen.

Mainland China

• Hanyu Pinyin (1958): In Mainland China, Hanyu Pinyin has been used officially to romanize Mandarin for decades, primarily as a linguistic tool for teaching Standard Mandarin (the standardized Chinese spoken language) to students whose mother tongue is not Standard Mandarin. Pinyin, more formally Hanyu pinyin, is the most common Standard Mandarin Romanization system in use Mainland China, Continental China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term synonymous with the area that is under the jurisdiction Standard Mandarin, also known as Standard Spoken Chinese, is the official modern Chinese spoken language used in mainland China and Taiwan A first language (also mother tongue, native language, arterial language, or L1) is the language a human being learns from birth The system is also used in some other Chinese-speaking areas such as Singapore and parts of Taiwan, and has been adopted by much of the international community as a standard for writing Chinese words and names in the Roman alphabet. Singapore Taiwan ( Taiwanese: Tâi-oân/Tāi-oân (historically 大灣/台員/大員/台圓/大圓/台窩灣 is an Island in East Asia. The value of Hanyu Pinyin in education in China lies in the fact that China, like any other populated area with comparable area and population, has literally thousands of distinct dialects, though there is just one common written language and one common standardized spoken form. Spoken Chinese ( comprises many regional variants the largest of which are Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese, and Min. (These comments apply to Romanization in general)
• ISO 7098 (1991): Based on Hanyu Pinyin. Pinyin, more formally Hanyu pinyin, is the most common Standard Mandarin Romanization system in use

Taiwan

Main article: Romanization of Chinese in Taiwan

• Gwoyeu Romatzyh: (1926-1984): Used in mainland China before the Communist takeover in 1949. Gwoyeu Romatzyh (literally "National Romanization " abbreviated GR, is a system for writing Mandarin Chinese in the Latin alphabet Year 1949 ( MCMXLIX) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar.
• Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II (1984-2000): Not to be confused with MPS I which is Zhuyin. Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II (國語注音符號第二式 abbreviated MPS II is a Romanization system formerly used in the Republic of China ( Taiwan
• Tongyong Pinyin (since 2000): Based on Hanyu Pinyin. Tongyong pinyin ( was the official Romanization of Mandarin Chinese in the Republic of China (commonly known as Taiwan) between 2002 and 2008

Singapore

Main article: Chinese language romanisation in Singapore

Standard Cantonese

• Barnett-Chao
• Guangdong (1960)
• Hong Kong Government
• Jyutping
• Meyer-Wempe
• Sidney Lau
• Yale (1942)

Standard Shanghainese

• The latin phonetic method of Shanghainese

Min Nan

• Pe̍h-oē-jī (POJ), once the de facto official script of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (since the late 19th century). The Romanisation of the Chinese language in Singapore is not dictated by a single policy nor is its policy implementation consistent as the local Guangdong Romanization refers to the four romanization schemes published by the Guangdong Provincial Education Department in 1960 for transliterating the Standard Cantonese The Hong Kong Government Cantonese Romanisation ( not an official name is the more or less consistent way for romanising Cantonese Proper nouns Jyutping (sometimes spelled Jyutpin) is a Romanization system for Standard Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK The Meyer-Wempe Romanization system was developed by two Catholic missionaries in Hong Kong, Bernhard F Sidney Lau ( wrote a series of textbooks in the 1970s for teaching western people to speak Cantonese. The Yale romanizations are four systems created during World War II for use by United States military personnel. Pe̍h-ōe-jī ( POJ) ( is an Orthography in the Latin alphabet created and introduced to Fujian and Taiwan by Presbyterian Technically this represented a largely phonemic transcription system, as Min Nan was not commonly written in Chinese. The Southern Min language or Min Nan ( POJ: Bân-lâm-gú or "Southern Fujian" language refers to a family of Chinese languages Dialects
• Guangdong (1960), for the distinct Teochow variety. Guangdong Romanization refers to the four romanization schemes published by the Guangdong Provincial Education Department in 1960 for transliterating the Standard Cantonese

Min Dong

• Romanized BUC

Japanese

Main article: Romanization of Japanese

Romanization (or, more generally, Roman letters) is called "rōmaji" in Japanese. Foochow Romanized, aka Bàng-uâ-cê ( BUC for short Chinese characters: 平話字 or The romanization of Japanese or ( is the use of the Latin alphabet to write the Japanese language. The romanization of Japanese or ( is the use of the Latin alphabet to write the Japanese language. is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities The most common systems are:

• Hepburn (1867): transcription
• Nihon-shiki (1885): transliteration. The is named after James Curtis Hepburn, who used it to transcribe the sounds of the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet in the third edition of his Japanese–English Nihon-shiki or Nippon-shiki Rōmaji (日本式ローマ字 "Japan-style" romanized as Nihon-siki or Nippon-siki in Nippon-shiki itself is a Also adopted as (ISO 3602 Strict) in 1989. Nihon-shiki or Nippon-shiki Rōmaji (日本式ローマ字 "Japan-style" romanized as Nihon-siki or Nippon-siki in Nippon-shiki itself is a
• Kunrei-shiki (1937): transliteration. is a Romanization system ie a system for transcribing the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet. Also adopted as (ISO 3602). is a Romanization system ie a system for transcribing the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet.
• JSL (1987)
• ALA-LC: Similar to Hepburn [14]
• Wāpuro: transliteration. JSL is a Romanization system for transcribing the Japanese language into the Roman alphabet. ALA-LC is a set of standards for Romanization, or the representation of text in other Writing systems using the Latin alphabet. or kana spelling, is a style of Romanization of Japanese originally devised for entering Japanese into Word processors ( wādo purosessā Not strictly a system, but a collection of common practices.

Korean

Main article: Korean romanization

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

• McCune-Reischauer (MR; 1937?), the first transcription to gain some acceptance. Korean romanization is a system for representing the Korean language using the Roman alphabet McCune-Reischauer romanization is one of the two most widely used Korean language Romanization systems along with the Revised Romanization of Korean, which A slightly changed version of MR was the official system for Korean in South Korea from 1984 to 2000, and yet a different modification is still the official system in North Korea. This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea and often referred to as Korea ( Korean: 대한민국 tɛː North Korea is the commonly used short form name for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (or DPRK) a State located in East Asia, Uses breves, apostrophes and diereses, the latter two indicating orthographic syllable boundaries in cases that would otherwise be ambiguous. Length The breve sign indicates a short vowel as opposed to the Macron  ¯ which indicates long vowels in academic transcription In Linguistics, diaeresis, or dieresis, is the pronunciation of two adjacent Vowels in two separate Syllables rather than as a Diphthong
  What is called MR may in many cases be any of a number of systems that differ from each other and from the original MR mostly in whether word endings are separated from the stem by a space, a hyphen or – according to McCune's and Reischauer's system – not at all; and if a hyphen or space is used, whether sound change is reflected in a stem's last and an ending's first consonant letter (e. g. pur-i vs. pul-i). Although mostly irrelevant when transcribing uninflected words, these aberrations are so widespread that any mention of "McCune-Reischauer romanization" may not necessarily refer to the original system as published in the 1930s.
  • There is, for example, the ALA-LC / U. ALA-LC is a set of standards for Romanization, or the representation of text in other Writing systems using the Latin alphabet. S. Library of Congress system, based on MR but with some deviations. Word division is addressed in detail, with a generous use of spaces to separate word endings from stems that is not seen in MR. Syllables of given names are always separated with a hyphen, which is expressly never done by MR. Sound changes are ignored more often than in MR. Distinguishes between ‘ and ’. [15]

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

• Yale (1942): This system has become the established standard romanization for Korean among linguists. The Yale romanizations are four systems created during World War II for use by United States military personnel. Linguistics is the scientific study of Language, encompassing a number of sub-fields Vowel length in old or dialectal pronunciation is indicated by a macron. A macron, from Greek el μακρόv ( makrón) meaning "long" is a Diacritic ¯ placed over or under a Vowel which was originally In cases that would otherwise be ambiguous, orthographic syllable boundaries are indicated with a period. Indicates disappearance of consonants.
• Revised Romanization of Korean (RR; 2000): Includes rules both for transcription and for transliteration. The Revised Romanization of Korean is the official Korean language Romanization system in South Korea. South Korea now officially uses this system which was approved in 2000. Road signs and textbooks were required to follow these rules as soon as possible, at a cost estimated by the government to be at least US$20 million. All road signs, names of railway and subway stations on line maps and signs etc. have been changed. Romanization of surnames and existing companies' names has been left untouched; the government encourages using the new system for given names and new companies. Basically similar to MR, but uses no diacritics or apostrophes. In cases of ambiguity, orthographic syllable boundaries may be indicated with a hyphen, although state institutions never seem to make use of this option e. A hyphen ( -) is a Punctuation mark It is used for both Words to join and to separate Syllables It is often confused with the dashes g. on street signs or linemaps.
• ISO/TR 11941 (1996): This actually is two different standards under one name: one for North Korea (DPRK) and the other for South Korea (ROK). ISO/TR 119411996 is a Korean language romanization system used in ISO. The initial submission to the ISO was based heavily on Yale and was a joint effort between both states, but they could not agree on the final draft. A superficial comparison between the two is available here: [16]
• Lukoff romanization, developed 1945-47 for his Spoken Korean coursebooks [17]
• Chosŏn Kwahagwŏn (조선민주주의인민공화국 과학원) romanization

Vietnamese

See 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. Fred Lukoff (November 12 1920 - August 13 2000 was an American linguist who specialized in the study of the Korean language and was the first president Vietnamese ( tiếng Việt, or less commonly Việt ngữ) formerly known under French colonization as Annamese ( see Annam) Thai (th ภาษาไทย, transcription: phasa thai, transliteration:; pʰāːsǎːtʰāj is the national and The Kingdom of Thailand (ˈtaɪlænd ราชอาณาจักรไทย, râːtɕʰa-ʔaːnaːtɕɑ̀k-tʰɑj The Brahmic family is a family of syllabaries (writing systems used in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and parts of Central Asia and East Asia, Also see Thai alphabet. The Thai Alphabet (อักษรไทย àksŏn thai) is used to write the Thai language and other minority languages in Thailand

• Royal Thai General System of Transcription:
• ALA-LC: [18]
• ISO 11940 (1998): Transliteration

Cyrillic

In linguistics, scientific transliteration is used for both Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets. The Royal Thai General System of Transcription ( RTGS) is the official system for rendering Thai language words in the Latin alphabet. ALA-LC is a set of standards for Romanization, or the representation of text in other Writing systems using the Latin alphabet. ISO 11940 is an ISO standard for the Romanization of the Thai alphabet, published in 1998 (updated September 2003 Scientific transliteration, also called the International Scholarly System, is a system for Transliteration of text from the Cyrillic to the Latin The Cyrillic alphabet (səˈrɪlɪk also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters is actually a family of Alphabets, subsets of which are used by The Glagolitic alphabet or Glagolitsa is the oldest known Slavic Alphabet. This applies to Old Church Slavonic, as well as modern Slavic languages which use these alphabets. to make sure old Cyrillic letters are displayed properly (For example instead of just Ѣ write Ѣ The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages) a group of closely related Languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages

Belarusian

Main article: Romanization of Belarusian

• BGN/PCGN romanization of Belarusian, 1979 (United States Board on Geographic Names and Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use)
• Scientific transliteration, or the International Scholarly System for linguistics
• ALA-LC romanization, 1997 (American Library Association and Library of Congress): [19]
• ISO 9:1995
• Instruction on transliteration of Belarusian geographical names with letters of Latin script, 2000

See also: Belarusian Latin alphabet

Bulgarian

Main article: Romanization of Bulgarian

The official Bulgarian scheme for the Roman transliteration of Bulgarian Cyrillic is the English-oriented Streamlined System proposed by L.L. Ivanov and introduced by the Antarctic Place-names Commission of Bulgaria on 2 March 1995. Romanization or Latinization of Belarusian is any system for Transliterating written Belarusian from the Cyrillic alphabet to the Latin The BGN/PCGN romanization system for Belarusian is a method for Romanization of Cyrillic Belarusian texts that is their Transliteration into The United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN is a United States federal body whose purpose is to establish and maintain uniform usage of geographic Scientific transliteration, also called the International Scholarly System, is a system for Transliteration of text from the Cyrillic to the Latin Linguistics is the scientific study of Language, encompassing a number of sub-fields ALA-LC is a set of standards for Romanization, or the representation of text in other Writing systems using the Latin alphabet. The International standard ISO 9 establishes a system for the Transliteration into Latin characters of Cyrillic characters constituting the alphabets Instruction on transliteration of Belarusian geographical names with letters of Latin script is an officially adopted method of Romanisation of the Belarusian Cyrillic text in geographical The Belarusian Latin alphabet (also known as Latsinka (in BGN/PCGN) or Łacinka (in itself from лацінка, informal for the Latin alphabet Romanization of Bulgarian is the Transliteration of text in the Bulgarian language from the Cyrillic alphabet into the Latin alphabet. The Streamlined System is the official Bulgarian system for the Romanization of the Bulgarian language. Lyubomir Ivanov (Любомир Иванов born October 7, 1952 in Sofia) is a scientist non-governmental activist and Antarctic explorer The Antarctic Place-names Commission was established by the Bulgarian Antarctic Institute in 1994, and since 2001 has been a body affiliated to the Ministry of Foreign The Streamlined System was subsequently adopted by the Bulgarian Government (Ordinances #61 of 2 April 1999 and #10 of 11 February 2000) for the purposes of introducing new identity documents. Presently the system is being promulgated by the Ministry of Public Administration and Administrative Reform for further usage in road signs, street names, official information systems, databases, local authorities’ websites etc.

In the USA and Britain, the US Board on Geographic Names (BGN) and the UK Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use (PCGN) still retain their 1952 BGN/PCGN System for the Romanization of Bulgarian, used primarily in the English spelling of Bulgarian geographical names. That system differs from the Streamlined System in the case of three Cyrillic letters. See also Romanization of Bulgarian. Romanization of Bulgarian is the Transliteration of text in the Bulgarian language from the Cyrillic alphabet into the Latin alphabet.

• L. L. Ivanov, On the Romanization of Bulgarian and English, Contrastive Linguistics, XXVIII, 2003, 2, 109-118.

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. The Romanization of Macedonian is the transliteration of text in the Macedonian language from the Macedonian Cyrillic alphabet into the Latin alphabet. The Romanization of the Russian alphabet is the process of transliterating the Russian language from the Cyrillic alphabet and Russian ( transliteration:,) is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages g. German or French), some are designed as a librarian's transliteration, some are prescribed for Russian traveller's passports; the transcription of some names is purely traditional.   All this has resulted in great reduplication of names.   E. g. the name of the great Russian composer Tchaikovsky may also be written as Tchaykovsky, Tchajkovskij, Tchaikowski, Tschaikowski, Czajkowski, Čajkovskij, Čajkovski, Chajkovskij, Çaykovski, Chaykovsky, Chaykovskiy, Chaikovski, Tshaikovski, Tšaikovski etc. Systems include:

• BGN/PCGN (1947): Transliteration system (United States Board on Geographic Names & Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use). BGN/PCGN romanization refers to the systems for Romanization ( Transliteration into the Latin alphabet) and Roman-script spelling conventions adopted by [20]
• GOST 16876-71 (1971): A now defunct Soviet transliteration standard. GOST 16876-71 (ГОСТ 16876-71 is a Romanization system (for Transliteration of Cyrillic texts into the Latin alphabet) devised by the National Replaced by GOST 7. 79, which is an ISO 9 equivalent. The International standard ISO 9 establishes a system for the Transliteration into Latin characters of Cyrillic characters constituting the alphabets
• United Nations romanization system for geographical names (1987): Based on GOST 16876-71. The United Nations ( UN) is an International organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in International law, International security GOST 16876-71 (ГОСТ 16876-71 is a Romanization system (for Transliteration of Cyrillic texts into the Latin alphabet) devised by the National
• ISO 9 (1995): Transliteration. The International standard ISO 9 establishes a system for the Transliteration into Latin characters of Cyrillic characters constituting the alphabets From the International Organization for Standardization.
• ALA-LC (1997): [21]
• "Volapuk" encoding (1990s): Slang term (it's not really Volapük) for a writing method that's not truly a transliteration, but used for similar goals (see article). ALA-LC is a set of standards for Romanization, or the representation of text in other Writing systems using the Latin alphabet. Volapuk encoding ( Russian: кодировка "волапюк" kodirovka "volapyuk") is a slang term for rendering the letters of the Cyrillic Volapük (volaˈpyk or ˈvɒləpʊk in English is a Constructed language, created in 1879-1880 by Johann Martin Schleyer, a Roman Catholic priest
• Conventional English transliteration is based to BGN/PCGN, but doesn't follow a particular standard. Described in detail at transliteration of Russian into English. The Romanization of the Russian alphabet is the process of transliterating the Russian language from the Cyrillic alphabet and
• Streamlined system for the transliteration of Russian
• Comparative transliteration of Russian in different languages (Western European, Arabic, Georgian, Braille, Morse)

Ukrainian

Main article: Romanization of Ukrainian

Ukrainian personal names are usually transcribed phonetically; see the main article section Conventional romanization of proper names. The romanization or latinization of Ukrainian is the representation of the Ukrainian language using Latin letters. The romanization or latinization of Ukrainian is the representation of the Ukrainian language using Latin letters. The Ukrainian National system is used for geographic names in Ukraine.

• ALA-LC: (PDF). ALA-LC is a set of standards for Romanization, or the representation of text in other Writing systems using the Latin alphabet.
• ISO 9
• Ukrainian National transliteration: (JPEG, in Ukrainian). The International standard ISO 9 establishes a system for the Transliteration into Latin characters of Cyrillic characters constituting the alphabets
• Ukrainian National and BGN/PCGN systems, at the UN Working Group on Romanization Systems: (PDF).
• Thomas T. Pedersen's comparison of five systems: (PDF).

See also: Ukrainian Latin alphabet

Greek

Main article: Romanization of Greek

Greek language includes the modern language spoken in Greece, as well as ancient Polytonic orthography. A Latin alphabet for the Ukrainian language has been proposed or imposed several times in history but has never challenged the conventional Cyrillic Ukrainian alphabet. There are several methods for the romanization of Greek, especially depending whether the language written with Greek letters is Ancient Greek or Modern Greek and Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly Greece (Ελλάδα transliterated: Elláda, historically, Ellás,) officially the Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία See also Greeklish. Greeklish, a Portmanteau of the words Greek and English, also known as Grenglish, Latinoellinika / Λατινοελληνικά

• ISO 843 (1997): [22]
• ALA-LC: [23]
• Beta code: [24]

Indic

India has many regional languages and these scripts are so different that they can not be identified by a person familiar with only one system. The International standard ISO 843 establishes a system for the Transliteration into Latin characters of Greek characters. ALA-LC is a set of standards for Romanization, or the representation of text in other Writing systems using the Latin alphabet. Beta Code is a method of representing using only ASCII characters characters and formatting found in Ancient Greek texts (and other archaic languages Roman script is known to almost all so romanisation has important place in that.

• Girgit Online Indic to Indic, and Indic to Roman Transliteration of Webpages বংলা (Bengali), हिन्दी (Hindi), ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada), മലയാളം (Malayalam), ଓଡ଼ିଆ (Oriya), ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ (Punjabi), தமிழ் (Tamil), తెలుగు (Telugu) and ગુજરાતી (Gujarati) can be read in roman characters.

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. (Because the number of hangul characters are prohibitively large, only the first characters are provided in the following table. )

See also

• Anglicisation
• Francization

References

External links

• Unicode Transliteration Guidelines
• UNGEGN Working Group on Romanization Systems
• U.S. Library of Congress Romanization Tables in PDF format
• Java romanization app
• One of the few printed books with lists of romanizations is ALA-LC Romanization Tables, Randall Barry (ed. Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly Russian ( transliteration:,) is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages The Cyrillic alphabet (səˈrɪlɪk also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters is actually a family of Alphabets, subsets of which are used by Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language is a Japanese Syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with Hiragana, Kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet Anglicisation or anglicization (see -ise vs -ize) is a process of conversion of verbal or written elements of any other language into a more comprehensible English Francization or Gallicization (and informally Frenchification) is a process of Cultural assimilation that gives a French character to a ), U. S. Library of Congress, 1997, ISBN 0-8444-0940-5.
• Microsoft Transliteration Utility - A tool for creating, debugging and using transliteration modules from any script to any other script.