Transliteration

Transliteration is the process of converting text from one writing system into another by preserving the original letters or characters as closely as possible. Unlike transcription, which aims to reproduce the sounds of the source language, transliteration focuses on a graphemic representation, providing a reversible mapping that allows readers of the target script to reconstruct the source text.

Transliteration systems are usually formal mappings that assign, for each character or letter in the source script, a corresponding character or sequence in the target script. Some schemes are one-to-one; others use digraphs or diacritics. Because scripts encode language differently, multiple standards may exist for the same language, chosen for scholarly work, library cataloging, or official use.

Common examples include ISO 9 for Cyrillic to Latin, and various library-focused romanization tables such as ALA-LC. For other languages, several transliteration or romanization schemes are used, including Chinese pinyin, Japanese Hepburn or Kunrei-shiki, and Arabic transliteration schemes that employ marks like q, ḥ, and ḍ to represent distinct consonants.

Applications include library catalogs, passport and official document systems, academic linguistics, and digital text processing. A key limitation is that transliteration cannot fully capture pronunciation and may vary between schemes, which can hinder cross-project compatibility. Practitioners select standards to balance readability, reversibility, and interoperability.