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Arabic-L: Fri 08 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: 08 Jul 2010
From: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; ">Benjamin Geer <</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><a href="mailto:benjamin.geer@gmail.com">benjamin.geer@gmail.com</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; ">"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; ">> wrote:</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; ">> More logical, probably, and well used in Europe is to use a systematic "single character" system,</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; ">> where th and dh becomes t/d with line under, gh is g with dot above, etc.; these characters all exist</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 separate characters in contemporary computer systems and it works.</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; ">That's the DIN 31635 system, which is the one used in the Hans Wehr dictionary:</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; "><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIN_31635">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIN_31635</a></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; ">The main advantage of this system is that, since each Arabic letter is represented by a single distinct character in transcription, there's no ambiguity, as there can be with the IJMES system (where "yushir" can be يشير or يسهر). For the same reason, if I write a text using DIN transcription, and I need to change it to any other transcription system to meet a publisher's requirements, I can easily do this with a few search-and-replace operations in the word processor, but the reverse (e.g. going from IJMES to DIN) can't be done automatically.</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; ">Ben</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><br></span>
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End of Arabic-L: </span></font><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; ">08 Jul 2010</span></p><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; "><br></span></div></pre></body></html>