Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations and symbols used in this book
- 1 Arabic linguistics: overview and history
- 2 Arabic phonology
- 3 Arabic phonotactics and morphophonology
- 4 Arabic syllable structure and stress
- 5 Introduction to Arabic morphology
- 6 Derivational morphology: the root/pattern system
- 7 Non-root/pattern morphology and the Arabic lexicon
- 8 Arabic inflectional morphology
- 9 Syntactic analysis and Arabic
- 10 Arabic syntax I: phrase structure
- 11 Arabic syntax II: clause structure
- Appendix A Fields of linguistics and Arabic
- Appendix B Arabic transcription/transliteration/romanization
- Appendix C Arabic nominal declensions
- Glossary of technical linguistic terms
- References
- Index
Appendix B - Arabic transcription/transliteration/romanization
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations and symbols used in this book
- 1 Arabic linguistics: overview and history
- 2 Arabic phonology
- 3 Arabic phonotactics and morphophonology
- 4 Arabic syllable structure and stress
- 5 Introduction to Arabic morphology
- 6 Derivational morphology: the root/pattern system
- 7 Non-root/pattern morphology and the Arabic lexicon
- 8 Arabic inflectional morphology
- 9 Syntactic analysis and Arabic
- 10 Arabic syntax I: phrase structure
- 11 Arabic syntax II: clause structure
- Appendix A Fields of linguistics and Arabic
- Appendix B Arabic transcription/transliteration/romanization
- Appendix C Arabic nominal declensions
- Glossary of technical linguistic terms
- References
- Index
Summary
The process of changing Arabic script into a romanized (or latinized) equivalent would seem to be a straightforward or even trivial one, but it is not. Because it requires complete accuracy, “scientific transcription” is a painstaking effort demanding high levels of phonological and morphological knowledge, and transliteration errors and inconsistencies tend to creep into even the best-edited publications. For a number of reasons, romanization (conversion from a non-roman alphabet to a roman one) from Arabic can be problematic, especially because of the invisibility of short vowels in Arabic script, which are crucial to accurate pronunciation. Other common areas of romanization problems include the misrepresentation of gemination, short versus long vowel notation, representation of epenthetic vowels, morpheme boundaries (if noted), case-marking, and word boundaries.
Traditionally, a distinction is drawn between transcription and transliteration. I have long relied on Charles Ferguson’s definitions of these processes, and reproduce them here.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- ArabicA Linguistic Introduction, pp. 145 - 148Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014