Arabic-L:GEN:Transliteration responses

[Dilworth Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Thu 19 Aug 2006
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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1) Subject:Transliteration response
2) Subject:Transliteration response

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1)
Date: 19 Aug 2006
From:Douglas Young <douglasyoung at sbcglobal.net>
Subject:Transliteration response

Thanks to Rose Aslan for articulating a poorly-defined and frequent  
problem
in Arabic transliteration (capitalization of the article, "al").  The
randomness of whether or not to capitalize is just one of a multitude of
problems that bedevil anyone who attempts an accurate and consistent
transliteration.  Unfortunately, I agree with Rose's friend in their
mini-debate.  Since "al" is an article, and because standard English  
usage
does not capitalize articles (except at the beginning of a sentence or
title), I would argue that the transliterated article should be lower- 
case.
The example of the capitalized article in the Spanish "El Camino Real"
ignores the fact that this set phrase long ago was borrowed into
California-ese, which, of course, applied its own English capitalization
conventions to the first word of the phrase "el,"  probably without a  
full
awareness that it even was an article.  If this specific street were
referred to mid-sentence in a Spanish text, it would be with a lower- 
case
article, "...el Camino Real..."  The other example (a mid-sentence, "The
United Nations") is simply not standard capitalization:  I would be  
running
for my red editorial pen to revise the article to a lower-case "t."
However, this does remind me of one of my pet peeves in the US, "The  
Ohio
State University" (initiated by OSU and afterwards aped by a few  
other state
schools, and even some prestige private ones, such as, NYU and Chicago).
That the university requires the use of a definite article before its  
name,
when there usually would be none, and the fact that the article is  
always
capitalized, really "takes the cake" for academic pomposity (pace  
those at
OSU, NYU, Chicago, and anyone who has to live with this abomination  
in the
institution's name).

Douglas Young

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2)
Date: 19 Aug 2006
From: "Suhel Jaber" <suhel2 at tin.it>
Subject:Transliteration response

I think it depends. I mean, to transliterate scientifically next to  
an arabic next for the purpose of aid in reading I use al- , whereas  
if it's part of a proper name then I capitalize it. It's like in  
English. The article in "The United Nations" begins with a capital  
letter because it's become part of a proper name somehow.. But to be  
honest I've never seen it written that way. Anyway, I think it  
depends on what value you give to the name you're trying to  
transliterate, and the purpose of your transliteration. It's not  
always clear whether a name is a proper name or a common one. That's  
the real issue, I think. So it becomes quite relative! As long as  
books are concerned, if you need a standard, then perhaps you should  
check librarian guidelines, keeping in mind though that those vary  
from nation to nation. In the case of names, if you're American you  
could check the Authorities section of the Library of Congress. I'm  
working in a library, and I always check there to see the thousands  
of transliterations that were done of an author's name when I've got  
to run searches for users and so on! Hope I was of any help!
Greetings,

Suhel Jaber,
Arabic Student
Languages and cultures of Eurasia and the Mediterranean area
Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy

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End of Arabic-L:  19 Aug 2006
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