The process of converting a language from one written script to another written script is known as transliteration. To transliterate or not to transliterate: that is the question. Names are very personal, and their transliterations are not always clear. When should names be transliterated and when should they be left as they are? Why is transliteration performed, and what purpose does it serve?
Transliterating names is normally a matter of ease of pronunciation as much as accurate representation. Speakers of a given language are accustomed to the pronunciation rules for that language. In English, for example, if you see the name Rebecca, you know how that name should be pronounced based on the pronunciation rules for English. In contrast, if you see the name “Jose,” the pronunciation of that name depends on the pronunciation rules of Spanish and must be learned.
The Spanish name “Guillermo” is unpronounceable to someone unfamiliar with the Spanish rules of pronunciation. It is often easier to transliterate the name to “William,” which is very standard and simple for English speakers to pronounce. Speaking of Spanish and similar languages, should you transliterate “Jose to “José” or Maria to “María?” Often in cases where names have accents to mark pronunciation or other features, these features are not transliterated, as they only exist in that language and serve no purpose in English.
Name transliteration is not standardized, although often well-known figures and saints’ names are transliterated. What, though, about transliteration from a character-based language to a Latin-based one? How should the name be rendered to maintain accuracy?
Many character-based languages have Latin alphabet equivalents, such as Chinese’s Hanyu Pinyin or Japanese’s Romaji, and including many other languages such as Arabic, Russian, and Hebrew. For scripts which have adopted official rules for the Romanization of a character-based language, special pronunciation rules may apply, so that letters such as “x,” “q,” or “z” may not be pronounced according to standard rules of English.
In many cases, native speakers of a language encountering a transliterated name will often pronounce that name according to their own language’s rules for pronunciation, even if special pronunciation rules apply to certain letters or combinations of letters. The person whose name has been transliterated will generally instruct people how to pronounce his or her name, since it may not otherwise be clear. Even in English, non-standard written forms can cause confusion for otherwise common names, although this confusion is generally a matter of spelling difficulty.
Points to remember:
- Transliteration is the process of converting one written script into another written script, such as Hebrew characters into the Latin alphabet
- If a transliteration system is standardized, special pronunciation rules may apply to certain letters or combinations of letters to account for sounds in a given language, such as “zh” in Chinese
- Saints’ names and well-known figures’ names are normally transliterated, although they may change slightly as transliteration rules evolve
- Special characters used in the source script are generally not included if they do not normally occur in the target script
- Speakers of some languages may deliberately adopt a name that is easier for speakers of the target language to pronounce and write, such as is commonly found in Chinese names
- For languages and cultures that write the family name first, this order is reversed in English to conform to the English naming order
What are your thoughts on transliteration? Do you think it is more important to maintain a name’s proper written form, to conform to the pronunciation rules of the target language, or should a combination of these strategies be used depending on the situation? For example, legal documents may require one form, while casual conversations, emails, etc. may use another. We would love to read your thoughts in the comments!
