Transliteration - Blog Posts

Transliteration

Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus trans- + liter-) in predictable ways, such as Greek ⟨α⟩ → ⟨a⟩, Cyrillic ⟨д⟩ → ⟨d⟩, Greek ⟨χ⟩ → the digraph ⟨ch⟩, Armenian ⟨ն⟩ → ⟨n⟩ or Latin ⟨æ⟩ → ⟨ae⟩.

Exemple:

Transliteration and Translation are very different things! For instance, for the Modern Greek term "Ελληνική Δημοκρατία", which is usually translated as "Hellenic Republic", the usual transliteration to Latin script is ⟨Ellēnikḗ Dēmokratía⟩.

Transliteration is not primarily concerned with representing the sounds of the original but rather with representing the characters, ideally accurately and unambiguously. Thus, in the Greek above example, ⟨λλ⟩ is transliterated ⟨ll⟩ though it is pronounced [l], ⟨Δ⟩ is transliterated ⟨D⟩ though pronounced [ð], and ⟨η⟩ is transliterated ⟨ē⟩, though it is pronounced [i] (exactly like ⟨ι⟩) and is not long.

However, I would say transliteration can also be used as a means of helping to learn the pronunciation of words in the target language, especially in non-Latin alphabets.

Transliteração

Transliteração é o processo de mapeamento de um sistema de escrita em outro. No caso da língua portuguesa, o processo de transliteração se dá quando se incluem palavras de idiomas escritos em outros alfabetos em textos em português, o qual utiliza uma versão do alfabeto latino com 26 letras e diacríticos. 

Exemplo:

A transliteração também pode ser usado como um meio de auxiliar a aprender a pronúncia correta de palavras na língua alvo, principalmente em alfabetos não latinos: