Romanizations

Romanization is the process of rendering text from a non-Latin writing system into the Latin alphabet. It serves to render names, places, and words in languages that do not use the Latin script, and it supports language learning, lexicography, and international communication. There are two related notions: transliteration, which aims to reproduce the original script letter for letter, and transcription, which renders the pronunciation. A language may have multiple romanization systems, and contexts may favor different ones.

Common systems include: for Chinese, Pinyin is the standard in mainland China and internationally, often with diacritics to mark tones; Wade-Giles and other older transcriptions use different spellings. For Japanese, Hepburn romanization is widely used in English-language contexts, while Kunrei-shiki and Nihon-shiki are more systematic but less familiar to the general reader. For Korean, the Revised Romanization of Korean is the current standard in South Korea; McCune-Reischauer has historical use. For Cyrillic scripts, ISO 9 provides a one-to-one transliteration, while national standards such as ALA-LC support library use. Arabic and Greek, among others, have multiple systems balancing accuracy, ease of use, and reversibility.

Practical romanization may omit diacritics to ease typing or include them to preserve phonetic information. Since many languages have sounds not present in the Latin alphabet, no single system perfectly captures pronunciation for all readers. In official contexts—diplomatic usage, travel documents, and library cataloging—standardized romanizations align with national or international standards to reduce ambiguity.