APPENDIX II.
REPORT OF THE TRANSLITERATION COMMITTEE.
[See § [36]. This Report was made to the American Library Association in 1885, and printed in the Proceedings of the Lake George Conference, and in the Library journal, 10: 302–8.]
In determining the principles of transliteration it must be remembered that a catalogue is not a learned treatise intended for special scholars, and bound to an erudite consistency, at whatever cost of convenience. It is simply a key to open the doors of knowledge to a partly ignorant and partly learned public, and it is very important that such a key should turn easily. A good catalogue, therefore, will be a compromise between the claims of learning and logic on the one hand, and of ignorance, error, and custom on the other. Speaking generally, that form of name must be chosen with which people now are, and in the future will be, most familiar. This reference to the future is important. The catalogue must not be in advance of its age; but, on the other hand, it will not be well that it should be behind the next generation. If, therefore, there is an evident current of progress in any direction the makers of the catalogue will do well to be a little before the present practice, in the hope that the world will soon catch up with them, not to pass them before the catalogue itself has been superseded by another. The larger the catalogue, therefore, and the less likely to be soon reprinted, the more may it venture to be ahead of the times. Nevertheless the maker will do well to remember that the future is very uncertain.
One evident current of progress there is,—in favor of adopting the continental value of the vowels, representing the ou sound, for instance, not by ou nor by oo (as does Dr. Thomas), but by u; writing, therefore, Butan, not Boutan, nor Bootan, Turgenef and not Tourgueneff; using also a and not ah for the sound of a in father, papa (I speak as a New Englander); using the i for the English e sound; and giving what are unfortunately called the corresponding short sounds by doubling the following consonant; thus Nānā would be spelt with one n, but Nanny with two. This tendency, which has been gathering strength for some time, has at last received the sanction of an influential body, the Royal Geographical Society, and can be followed with safety.
The following notes are taken mostly from Mr. Heilprin’s articles in the Nation:
1. For ancient Greek names use the Latin forms, e. g., Homerus not Homeros, Plato not Platon, Philippus not Philippos. But where two forms are in common use choose that which is nearest the Greek.
2. For Egyptian names known to us through the Greek, both the Greek and the Egyptian form (as Cheops and Shufu) should be given, with a reference from the one which is not chosen for the main entry.
3. Biblical names are to be written as we find them in the English Bible, and the names of post-Biblical Jews, if derived from the Scriptures, should retain their Anglicized form. On the other hand, a strict transliteration is demanded of rabbinical and other more or less pure Hebrew names which are not taken from Scriptures, and therefore have no popular English forms, to which, again, there is an exception in the case of a few celebrated Jewish authors, as Maimonides, where an un-Hebrew form has been fully adopted in English literature.
East Indian names have such long accepted forms that it might well be doubted whether it will do to use any others. Cashmere, Mooltan, Jellaleddin, Punjaub, have taken their places in literature and in the popular mind. Nevertheless, as the better system which writes Kashmir, Multan, Jalal ud Din, Panjab, is now adopted in most histories, in all official documents, among others in Hunter’s great statistical dictionary of Bengal, it is evident that it is the coming method, and, in accordance with the {109} principles already laid down, we are inclined to recommend this spelling rather than the clumsy English fashion of the last generation.
All other Asiatic and African names should be transliterated according to the rules of the Royal Geographical Society, which we quote here from their Proceedings for August, 1885 (pp. 535, 536).
The Council of the Royal Geographical Society have adopted the following rules for such geographical names as are not, in the countries to which they belong, written in the Roman character. These rules are identical with those adopted for the Admiralty charts, and will henceforth be used in all publications of the society:—
1. No change will be made in the orthography of foreign names in countries which use Roman letters: thus, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, etc., names will be spelt as by the respective nations.
2. Neither will any change be made in the spelling of such names in languages which are not written in Roman character as have become by long usage familiar to English readers: thus, Calcutta, Cutch, Celebes, Mecca, etc., will be retained in their present form.
3. The true sound of the word, as locally pronounced, will be taken as the basis of the spelling.
4. An approximation, however, to the sound is alone aimed at. A system which would attempt to represent the more delicate inflections of sound and accent would be so complicated as only to defeat itself.
5. The broad features of the system are, that vowels are pronounced as in Italian and consonants as in English.
6. One accent only is used—the acute—to denote the syllable on which stress is laid.
7. Every letter is pronounced. When two vowels come together each one is sounded, though the result, when spoken quickly, is sometimes scarcely to be distinguished from a single sound, as in ai, au, ei.
8. Indian names are accepted as spelt in Hunter’s Gazetteer.
The amplification of the rules is given below:
| Letters. | Pronunciation and remarks. | Examples. |
|---|---|---|
| a | ah, a as in father | Java, Banána. |
| e | eh, e as in benefit | Tel-el-Kebír, Oléleh, Yezo, Medina, Levúka, Peru. |
| i | English e; i as in ravine; the sound of ee in beet. Thus not Feejee, but | Fiji, Hindi. |
| o | o as in mote | Tokio. |
| u | long u, as in flute; the sound of oo in boot. Thus, not Zooloo, but | Zulu, Sumatra. |
| All vowels are shortened in sound by doubling the following consonant. | Yarra, Tanna, Mecca, Jidda, Bonny. | |
| Doubling of a vowel is only necessary where there is a distinct repetition of the single sound. | Nuulúa, Oosima. | |
| ai | English i as in ice | Shanghai. |
| au | ow as in how. Thus not foochow, but | Fuchau. |
| ao | is slightly different from above. | Macao. |
| ei | is the sound of the two Italian vowels, but is frequently slurred over, when it is scarcely to be distinguished from ey in the English they. | Beirút, Beilúl. |
| b | English b. | |
| c | is always soft, but is so nearly the sound of s that it should be seldom used. (If Celebes were not already recognized it would be written Selebes.) | Celebes. |
| ch | is always soft as in church. | Chingchin. |
| d | English d. | |
| f | English f. ph should not be used for the sound of f. Thus, not Haiphong but | Haifong, Nafa. |
| g | is always hard. (Soft g is given by j.) | Galápagos. |
| h | is always pronounced when inserted. | |
| j | English j. Dj should never be put for this sound. | Japan, Jinchuen. |
| k | English k. It should always be put for the hard c. Thus, not Corea, but | Korea |
| kh | the Oriental guttural | Khan. |
| gh | is another guttural, as in the Turkish. | Dagh, Ghazi. |
| l,m,n | as in English. | |
| ng | has two separate sounds, the one hard as in the English word finger, the other as in singer. As these two sounds are rarely employed in the same locality, no attempt is made to distinguish between them. | |
| p | as in English. | |
| q | should never be employed; qu is given as kw. | Kwangtung. |
| r,s,t,v,w,x,y | as in English | Sawákin. |
| y | is always a consonant, as in yard, and therefore should never be used as a terminal, i or e being substituted. Thus, not Mikindány but | Mikíndáni. |
| not Kwaly, but | Kwale. | |
| z | English z | Zulu. |
| Accents should not generally be used, but when there is a very decided emphatic syllable or stress, which affects the sound of the word, it should be marked by an acute accent. | Tongatábu, Galápagos, Paláwan, Saráwak. |
A few points need to be emphasized. Of course the consonantal sound in itch should never be expressed in transliteration by the Polish cz, nor by the German tsch. Tch has been much used for this sound; but the t is hardly necessary if, as the Geographical Society recommend, ch is always used with this sound only and never with the sound sh. Of course there is no reason why ch should be used in foreign names with the sound sh any more than j with the sound zh. All that was needed to prevent ambiguity was for some competent authority to make a rule; and these rules of the Geographical Society will no doubt soon be copied into all manuals and followed by the majority. In this connection we express our regret that a new edition of Dr. Thomas’s excellent Dictionary of Biography continues to give his support to what we believe is an obsolescent system of transliteration.
Nor should the consonantal sound in judge be rendered by the English dg, nor the French dj, nor the German dsch, but by j alone. Likewise the consonantal sound in she is not to be written after the French style, ch, or as the Germans do, sch. The sound which the French transliterate by j we must express by zh (e.g., Nizhni Novgorod). Tz is best to use in Semitic and Slavic names, and ts in Japanese and Chinese. For the Semitic “yod” y is the proper equivalent, and not the German j. But after a consonant in the same syllable it is usual to change the y to i (Biela not Byela), and in Russian names ai, ei, oi, ui are used instead of ay, ey, oy, uy (Alexei not Alexey). After i the y is dropped (Dobni not Dobniy). W is to be used rather than i in Arabic names (e. g., Moawiyah). But the Russian, Serb, Bulgarian, and Wallach contain no such sound or letter as w, and we must write Paskevitch, Vasili, not as do the Germans, Paskewitch, Wasili. In the last syllable of names of places (Azov, Kiev) ev and ov are to be used, because the Russians used the corresponding letter, though they pronounce ef and of (in the nominative cases). But in the last syllable of family names, similarly pronounced, of and ef may be used, because the Russians sign their names off and eff when using Roman characters. The last f, which they use, may be omitted as being plainly not required to express the sound, and not corresponding to the Russian character. Kh represents the full guttural, which the Germans make ch and the Spanish j in Slavic and Oriental names. H answers to the softer guttural as well as to the Hebrew he. K answers to the Semitic Kaph and Koph.
The use of ei for the sound of a in fate, ea in great, ai in trait, is not altogether satisfactory. It is not easy to see why e was not used to represent this sound, and {111} the short e, like the short a, i, o, and u, indicated by doubling the following consonant, as Yeddo, Meddina.
The general rule, then, is to use the consonants with their English value, the vowels with their continental, or, to speak more exactly, their German and Italian value, for the French value of u should never be used, and the short French a requires of us a doubled consonant after it. Their ou and our oo is quite unnecessary to express the sound of the last syllable of Timbuctu or Khartum.
C: A. CUTTER.
C. B. TILLINGHAST.
W: C. LANE.
MICHAEL HEILPRIN.
Professor Toy, of Harvard University, furnished to the committee a transliteration table for Semitic languages, Professor Lanman, of the same University, one for Sanskrit, and Mr. Heilprin, of the committee, one for Russian.
Professor LANMAN remarked on his table:
1. It will be observed that each of the five rows numbered 1 to 5 consists of five letters; the second and fourth in each, i. e., the aspirates, are often written, especially in older works, thus, k῾, g῾, c῾, j῾,
῾,
῾, t῾, d῾, p῾, b῾; that is, the rough breathing takes the place of the h.
2. Write long vowels with a macron, thus, ā, ī, ū,
, and not with a circumflex.
3. Wherever you find the combination
i, with a dot under the
, reduce it to simple
, since it is a simple unitary sound.
4. The palatals (row 2) are often written by means of the gutturals and an accent: thus, we find k´ k´h g´ g´h ; for c ch j jh and in some German books c (which has the sound of ch in church) is written tsch, and j (= j in judge) in like manner dsch. Further, c and ch are written in some English works as ch and cch, a useless waste of labor.
5. When the third palatal is written by
, it is common among the Germans to write the first semi-vowel by j. The last semi-vowel is often written w (instead of v).
6. The transliteration of the first two sibilants is very fluctuating. My ç, is written
, by Monier Williams in his dictionary.
The second sibilant is often written sh, sometimes š, by me as
, like the other linguals.
7. Finally an s at the end of a Sanskrit word is converted into an aspiration called risarga, and written thus : , and in transliteration is written in this manner,
. The nasality of a vowel is marked by
or
which appears in the Sanskrit as a dot above the body of the consonant.
For a brief and lucid discussion of these matters and a defense of the system of Professor Whitney, of Yale, which is followed in his grammar and in Lanman’s Reader, see The Proceedings of the American Oriental Society, October, 1880, p. xvii.
Sanskrit Transliteration Report.
Semitic Transliteration.
Russian Transliteration.
