Wiktionary:Transliteration and romanization

Many languages use writing systems other than the Latin alphabet (or Roman script) which is used for English. There are various methods of romanization of text in these writing systems, with varying degrees of standardization. For the English Wiktionary, it is important to have certain standards of romanization, particularly for languages with non-phonetic writing systems.

The intent of this and its derivative articles is to provide a guide to English-language Wiktionarians attempting to deal with foreign scripts.

Transliteration policy

Foreign scripts

A foreign term written in a language with a non-Roman phonetic alphabet should be accompanied by a transliteration in most places it appears, including:

Main inflection words of an entry
Inflection, conjugation, or declension table or listing
In any list of related terms, including Homophones, Rhymes, Synonyms, Antonyms, Derived terms, Related terms, Coordinate terms, Descendants, Translations, etc.
In prose, like in an Etymology or Usage notes section

Other Latin alphabets: For a foreign term written in a language that uses the Roman alphabet, there is no need for any transliteration. If a transliteration of one of these terms is especially common, then a soft redirect (e.g. a link from ===See also=== or using {{also}}) should be generated that points to the non-transliterated version of the term.

Borrowings into English: Some foreign words are partly or wholly naturalized in the English language. These should be considered simply as English terms, with their own English entries according to the criteria for inclusion, even though they may resemble or match a romanized version.

Wiki-romanization

Because most languages have multiple systems for romanization, any language that sees frequent romanization in Wiktionary should have a language considerations page defining the romanization standard to be used in Wiktionary.

Pages documenting romanization systems should be placed in the appropriate categories.

Category:Transliteration appendices: details of established romanization systems
Category:Wiktionary:Transliteration: romanization systems developed or modified for Wiktionary

Templates

Many of Wiktionary's standard templates have parameters which allow a term's transliteration and native script to be specified. Look for tr= and sc= parameters in the documentation for individual templates.

Established romanization systems

There are many established systems of romanization, including a few broad sets of systems for many languages. This is not to say that that any established way of doing this is the only way, or even the best way for a particular purpose.

A loose collection of romanization systems used in linguistics is referred to as scholarly or scientific transliteration.

Because of the large volume of books that it must process, The Library of Congress has developed its own guidelines for transliteration and romanization. Its adoption of pinyin for Chinese romanization is a very recent development in its long history. There are important deviations from its approach. Its primary advantage is that it provides a conveniently available comprehensive guide for this practice. ALA-LC Romanization Tables. It is also very widely used by North American libraries and publishers, and by the British Library since 1975.

BGN/PCGN romanization is another broad set of standards. Romanization Systems and Roman-Script Spelling Conventions (11 MB file).

Key terms

Writing system, language script, or script: The native representation of a language in writing or print. Types of writing systems include alphabets, abugidas, abjads, syllabaries, and pictographic, logographic, and ideographic writing systems.
Romanization: Rendering of written text from a foreign writing system into the Latin (Roman) alphabet, possibly supplemented by diacritical marks or additional characters.
Romanization system: Standardized romanization systems exist for most languages, used in linguistics, library science, geography, publishing, government and legal documentation, and other fields. For a list, see w:romanization.
Wiki-romanization: A romanization system chosen for Wiktionary. It is usually a common standard of romanization, or based on one and modified for Wiktionary's specific needs.
Transliteration: Literally ‘lettering across‘. Rendering of written text from one alphabet or syllabary into another, letter by letter. In Wiktionary we are mainly concerned with transliteration from a foreign system into the Latin alphabet (a subset of romanization).
Transcription: Literally ‘writing across‘. Transcription has several meanings, including transliteration and phonetic transcription, the written representation of spoken language. For the latter, see Wiktionary:Pronunciation.

Transliteration and romanization are not pronunciation. They relate to the written languages, not to the spoken languages. Although these systems will often approximate the pronunciation of a language, that remains a secondary consideration to their development. Thus, the very common Russian genitive singular ending -ого would normally be transliterated as -ogo but pronounced /-ovo/.

Other resources

Category:Entries needing various scripts