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Qur'an Arabic Basics
Demystifying the language of the Qur'an
Qur'an Arabic Basics
Demystifying the language of the Qur'an
Arabic Stardardation of Transliteration
5. Alternative Transliteration - Sounds of Letters
Is there such a thing as standardization in transliteration ?
Check out these site's graphics and use of transliteration
When you look at various transliteration schemes, you can see a lot of differences
in the way they use the ANSI codes and character sets.
A. Alternate spelling of Definite Articles - Practicality
To preserve agreement, some show the marks on the definite different.
Al-insanu l-khayrun. The man (is) the good (one). See the empty definite al- to l-?
Either way is good. One emphasizes the grammar, and the other the agreement. I
use al- , because l- looks like the construct liy, meaning in or by. That confuses, but
as you get used to the system, you can cope with that.
B. Alternate Spelling of Tri-literal Letters
Because there is no capitalization in Arabic, we can use capitals to show letters that
in the alpha numeric English would be inconsistent or inaccurate.
There is a “t” and a “t”. a tee and a tau. This can be also shown by using a capital
“T” for the “t”. There are other letters like that. It’s just a way to distinguish
different Arabic letters: i.e. Capitals vs. Underlined. You must recognize which
letter is being used to understand the meaning of the word, and use the constructs.
C. Note: Recall that other letters are shown by using 2 English letters to represent
one Arabic letter.
Please make reference to the charts that are on the links above.
khabiyr & kabiyr – aware vs. big – kh verses k, 2 different meanings. That small
difference in the spelling completely changes the meaning.
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Is there such a thing as standardization in transliteration ?
Check out these site's graphics and use of transliteration
- www.omniglot.com/writing/arabic.htm
- transliteration.eki.ee/pdf/Arabic.pdf
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Arabic
- www.islamicart.com/main/calligraphy/catalog/alphabet.html
When you look at various transliteration schemes, you can see a lot of differences
in the way they use the ANSI codes and character sets.
A. Alternate spelling of Definite Articles - Practicality
To preserve agreement, some show the marks on the definite different.
Al-insanu l-khayrun. The man (is) the good (one). See the empty definite al- to l-?
Either way is good. One emphasizes the grammar, and the other the agreement. I
use al- , because l- looks like the construct liy, meaning in or by. That confuses, but
as you get used to the system, you can cope with that.
B. Alternate Spelling of Tri-literal Letters
Because there is no capitalization in Arabic, we can use capitals to show letters that
in the alpha numeric English would be inconsistent or inaccurate.
There is a “t” and a “t”. a tee and a tau. This can be also shown by using a capital
“T” for the “t”. There are other letters like that. It’s just a way to distinguish
different Arabic letters: i.e. Capitals vs. Underlined. You must recognize which
letter is being used to understand the meaning of the word, and use the constructs.
- S and s = sad and seen
- H and h
- D and d
- T and t
- Z or zh = the letter zheen
- Salaw verses salaam – 2 different s’s. (salaw)
- Hamid verses hadiy – 2 different h’s. (hamid)
- Dalaal verses daliyl – straying verses instruction (d-l-l)
- Talib verses taqwa – (t-l-b) student, (ta qawiy)(q-w-y) strength
C. Note: Recall that other letters are shown by using 2 English letters to represent
one Arabic letter.
Please make reference to the charts that are on the links above.
- dh = no equivalent sound - dhikr
- Sounds like the th in th word "that".
- kh = like German dark K – khayr
- sh = there is an English sound, but not by one letter - shams = sun
- ‘a or ^a = ayn glottal stop – ‘aliym, ^aliym = knowing
- gh = ghayn glottal stop – also g (underlined) – ghadab = anger
- zh = dark z – zhuhar – manifested/material
- Like the letter z in the word "zoo".
- th = thalath - number 3
- Like the th in the word "the".
khabiyr & kabiyr – aware vs. big – kh verses k, 2 different meanings. That small
difference in the spelling completely changes the meaning.
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