Transliterare

Transliterare is the process of converting text from one writing system to another while preserving the original letters or their approximate sounds. The term derives from Latin trans- "across" and littera "letter". In practice, transliteration focuses on form rather than meaning, unlike translation. It covers both cross-script rendering (for example Devanagari to Latin for Hindi) and cross-language mapping (Cyrillic to Latin for Russian).

It can be orthographic, offering a reversible mapping of letters, or phonetic, aiming to reproduce pronunciation. Schemes vary by language and purpose and may include diacritics to reflect distinctions not present in the target script.

Common standards include ISO 9 for Cyrillic and BGN/PCGN or ALA-LC for various languages. For Chinese, pinyin is widely used for dictionary transliteration and input methods, though it reflects pronunciation rather than a strict letter-by-letter mapping.

Applications include library cataloging, linguistic research, and cross-script information retrieval. Limitations include non-unique mappings, loss of orthographic nuance, and ambiguity when scripts share similar symbols. The choice of scheme should fit the purpose and be documented.