transliterations

Transliteration is the process of converting text from one writing system into another while preserving the original's grapheme identities, not primarily its pronunciation. It is used to represent names, technical terms, place names, and literary titles in languages written in scripts different from their original.

Transliteration differs from transcription and translation. Transliteration maps individual characters or graphemes from one script to another. Transcription renders the sounds of the source language and is intended to reproduce pronunciation. Translation conveys meaning in another language.

Several standardized systems exist. ISO 9 is a widely used one-for-one transliteration of Cyrillic into Latin scripts, intended to be reversible for scholarly reference. Other widely used schemes include ALA-LC Romanization tables and BGN/PCGN standards for geographic names. For Chinese, pinyin serves as the most common romanization, while Japanese and Korean have multiple systems such as Hepburn and Revised Romanization, respectively.

Applications include library cataloging, international publishing, data interoperability, and geographical naming. Transliteration must balance reversibility, readability, and consonance with established usage. Challenges include ambiguity, especially when multiple scripts map to the same Latin sequence, the presence of diacritics or non-Latin letters, and the evolving preferences of institutions and communities.

In practice, transliteration helps enable searching, indexing, and cross-script communication, while recognizing that it may not perfectly capture pronunciation or etymology. It is a foundational tool in information management, linguistics, and cross-cultural communication.