Translitterering

Translitterering, or transliteration, is the process of converting text from one writing system into another by mapping letters or letter combinations from the source script to corresponding symbols in the target script. Unlike transcription, which aims to reproduce pronunciation, transliteration focuses on the graphemic form so that the original text can be recovered, at least in principle, from the transliteration.

Standards and systems vary by language and purpose. There are formal schemes intended to be reversible, widely used in libraries, cartography, and international communication. ISO 9 provides a one-to-one Cyrillic-to-Latin transliteration; ALA-LC and BGN/PCGN offer romanizations for several languages; Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and other scripts have their own standardized schemes. For Chinese, pinyin is the predominant romanization and often used as a transliteration that reflects pronunciation, while ASCII-only variants may omit diacritics. Because different schemes exist, the same word can have multiple valid transliterations depending on the chosen standard.

Examples illustrate the practice. Москва is transliterated as Moskva under common Cyrillic-to-Latin schemes; 北京 is rendered as Beijīng in pinyin (Beijing without diacritics in ASCII contexts); 国家 is guójiā in pinyin; القاهرة is al-Qahira in many Arabic transliteration systems.

Limitations and considerations include variability among standards, potential loss of information (such as diacritics), and the fact that transliteration does not convey meaning or exact pronunciation. While intended to be reversible, reversibility depends on using a consistent system, and multiple valid transliteration choices can exist for the same source text.