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Arabic-L: Thu 07 Jul 2010
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <<a href="mailto:dilworth_parkinson@byu.edu">dilworth_parkinson@byu.edu</a>>
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1) Subject: Transcription
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1)
Date: 07 Jul 2010
From: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">Charles Butterworth <</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><a href="mailto:cebworth@gvpt.umd.edu">cebworth@gvpt.umd.edu</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">></span>
Subject: Transcription
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">Dear Colleagues,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">Many thanks to Kurt Vikor for this full statement about</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">transliteration systems. It serves as a perfect complement to my own</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">very brief message about the IJMES and EI systems. From my own</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">experience, I find that scholars in France, Germany, and Italy prefer</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">the old EI system. For me, however, it is far too cumbersome.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">And to this list should be added the system introduced several years</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">ago by Isma'il Faruqi and now adopted by the International Institute of</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">Islamic Thought in all of its many publications.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">But two of the acronyms used by Mr. Vikor in his message leave me</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">puzzled. Would he or someone else please spell them out.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">1. IPA</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">2. ISO</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">Many thanks,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">Charles Butterworth</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><br></span></font></p><p align=""><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">--------------------------------------------------------------------------
2)
Date: 07 Jul 2010
From: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">"Knut S. Vikør" <</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><a href="mailto:knut.vikor@ahkr.uib.no">knut.vikor@ahkr.uib.no</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">></span>
Subject: Transcription
<br></span></font></p><p align=""><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; "><br></span></font></p><p align=""><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; "><blockquote type="cite" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">But two of the acronyms used by Mr. Vikor in his message leave me<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">puzzled. Would he or someone else please spell them out.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">1. IPA <br></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">Internationial Phonetic Alphabet</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipa">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipa</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><blockquote type="cite" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">2. ISO <br></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">International Standards Organization, strictly speaking its transliteration standard number 233 for Arabic, so "ISO 233". It was a very complex system that used the "single Latin character for single Arabic character" principle, but with many special characters to impose absolute correspondence Arabic/Latin (ta marbuta was written as a t with diaresis / two dots above, sukun had to be indicated as ° , degree sign, between the consonants, the definite article was written: hamza - small superscript dotless i - a - l, and so on.) Basically it required quite some knowledge of grammar to get its i'rab rules quite right. Because it was an international standard, it was actually "imposed" by our national library catalogue body, until someone had to start input Arabic material and it was quietly dropped for LC. Still, some libraries in continental Europe may still use it (I am not sure how well it survived computerization with its idiosyncratic characters).</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><a href="http://transliteration.eki.ee/pdf/Arabic_2.2.pdf">http://transliteration.eki.ee/pdf/Arabic_2.2.pdf</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">As for the old EI system, its main problem was the double characters th, sh, kh, dh, dj, gh which all should be written thus, but underlined. Computerwise, Brill had a special font with these as separate characters, but that was of course non-standard, so users were increasingly forced to use regular underline formatting instead, which was not ideal. More logical, probably, and well used in Europe is to use a systematic "single character" system, where th and dh becomes t/d with line under, gh is g with dot above, etc.; these characters all exist as separate characters in contemporary computer systems and it works. Still, it requires more special characters than the IJMES or LC systems.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">Knut S.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br></span></span></span></font></p><p align=""><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">--------------------------------------------------------------------------
End of Arabic-L: </span></font><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; ">07 Jul 2010</span></p><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; "><br></span></div></pre></body></html>