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Arabic & Fársí transcription list & glossary for Bahá’ís Revised September Contents Introduction.. ................................................. Arabic & Persian numbers.. ....................... Islamic calendar months.. ......................... What is transcription?.. .............................. ‘Ayn & hamza consonants.. ......................... Letters of the Living ().. ........................ Transcription of Bahá ’ı́ terms.. ................ Bahá ’ı́ principles.. .......................................... Meccan pilgrim meeting points.. ............ Accuracy.. ........................................................ Bahá ’u’llá h’s Apostles................................... Occultation & return of th Imám.. ..... Capitalization.. ............................................... Badı́‘-Bahá ’ı́ week days.. .............................. Persian solar calendar.. ............................. Information sources.. .................................. Badı́‘-Bahá ’ı́ months.. .................................... Qur’á n suras................................................... Hybrid words/names.. ................................ Badı́‘-Bahá ’ı́ years.. ........................................ Qur’anic “names” of God............................ Arabic plurals.. ............................................... Caliphs (first ).. .......................................... Shrine of the Bá b.. ........................................ List arrangement.. ........................................ Elative word forms........................................ Special characters.. ...................................... Searching the list.. ........................................ Font information.. .......................................... Traditional Qur’anic/ṣú fı́ concepts.. ..... Phonetic or common spelling................... Gregorian week days & months.. ............. Travels of Bahá ’u’llá h.. ............................... Suffixes and links.. ........................................ Hands of the Cause of God.. ........................ Underdots and underscores.. .................. Arabic letters & abjad values.................... Imams (a’imma).. ........................................... Word macros (Microsoft).. ....................... A B C Ch D Dh E F G Gh H I J K Kh L M N P Q R S Sh T Th U V W Y Z Zh1 Introduction.. This document lists the Latin script transcription forms of many of the Arabic and Fársı́ (including some of Turkish origin) names and words used in the Bahá ’ı́ Writings, books by Bahá ’ı́s and the Qur’á n as a GUIDE to their transcription. The full names of some people are listed, but for other people the listing for each individual name will have to be checked. Some root words have been added as a guide to the meaning of their derivatives. Some glossary terms, and information on them, can be found in the Glossary of This Decisive Hour: Messages from Shoghi Effendi to the American Bahá’ís –. What is transcription?.. The Romanization of Arabic in Latin script makes use of various diacritics and non-standard Latin characters to represent Arabic phonemes that do not exist in English. Amongst other issues is the representation of the Arabic definite article, which is always spelled the same way in written Arabic but has numerous pronunciations in the spoken language depending on context. Likewise, the pronunciation of short vowels (a, i or u—these are not normally shown in written Arabic though they always appear in the Qur’á n), may be modified according to preceding consonants or may vary from place to place according to local dialects. This accounts for variations such as Moslem for Muslim; and Mohammed or Mohamed for Muḥammad. Romanization is often termed “transliteration”, but this is not technically correct. Transliteration is the direct representation of foreign letters using Latin symbols, while most systems for Romanization of Arabic, in particular, are transcription systems in which Latin symbols are used to represent the sound of Arabic letters. Technically, transliteration is concerned primarily with accurately representing the graphemes2 of another script, whilst transcription is concerned primarily with representing its phonemes.3 In addition, transliteration is concerned with scripts, whilst transcription (from one language to another) is concerned with writing systems (the way a script is applied to a particular is transcripted as muná ẓaratu’l-ḥ urú fi’l-‘arabı́yah, indicating the pronunciation, and an example ﻣﻨﺎﻅﺮﺓ ﺍﻟﺤﺮﻭﻑ ﺍﻟﻌﺮﺑﻴﺔ ,language). As an example of transliteration would be mnaẓrh alḥrwf al‘rbyh . Shoghi Effendi introduced a system of transcription of Arabic letters to Roman letters that is an adaptation of the system recommended by the Tenth International Congress of Orientalists held in September at Geneva. Refer to Muḥammad and the Course of Islám, pp. xiii–xvi for more details. However, Shoghi Effendi himself often uses Persian forms of Arabic words where “w” is replaced by “v”, and the last one or two letters are replaced by “ah”, “ih”, “yah” and “yih”. Shoghi Effendi also uses hybrid “words” in The Promised Day Is Come where the singular form of a word (and sometimes plural forms) is “converted” to a “plural” by adding an English “s” instead of using the correct plural form of the Arabic word. Paragraph (pp. –) is an atypical example where a large number of hybrid “words” have been used. Transcription of Bahá’í terms.. On another page [The complete list of terms is to be found in many volumes of The Bahá’í World] is given the list of the best known and most current Bahá’í terms, and other Oriental names and expressions, all properly and accurately transliterated [transcripted], the faithful spelling of which by all the Western friends will avoid confusion in future, and insure in this matter a uniformity which is greatly needed at present in all Bahá’í literature.4 Regarding the transliteration [transcription] of Persian and Arabic words the House of Justice requests that the method adopted by the beloved Guardian, and which is described in the various volumes of The Bahá’í World, be followed, as it permits all languages which use the Roman alphabet to transliterate [transcript] such terms in the same way throughout the Bahá’í world.5 Whatever “house styles” Publishing Trusts and other Bahá’í publishers may adopt, transliteration [transcription] of oriental terms into languages using the Roman alphabet must at present be according to the system chosen by the Guardian and described in volumes of The Bahá’í World.6 1 Note: The text colour is , , . 2 The smallest meaningful contrastive unit in a writing system. 3 Any of the perceptually distinct units of sound in a specified language that distinguish one word from another. 4 Shoghi Effendi, postscript to a letter dated March , Bahá’í Administration, p. 5 From a letter written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice to the National Spiritual Assembly of Panama, July . 6 The Universal House of Justice, July , Messages from the Universal House of Justice –, p. Arabic & Fársı́ transcription list & glossary for Bahá’ı́s The terms “Guardian” and “Universal House of Justice” are explained in the alphabetical list below. Accuracy.. Any variations in transcription by the authors listed under the Information sources heading, and information from all other Bahá ’ı́ authors have been subjected to the following progressive checks: a) Consistency with transcription rules as used by Shoghi Effendi, and similar words. b) An internet search of transcripted forms of the words. c) An internet search for the original Arabic of the words that are then manually transcripted. d) A search for the words in Arabic dictionaries (e.g. The Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic). e) Consulting knowledgeable Arabic and/or Fársı́ speaking Bahá ’ı́s. However, this information needs to be cross checked with the above sources. Entries in this document are amended when new information is found, and new ones are added when new names and words are found in relevant publications. Hence, it is recommended that you use the latest available Word copy from www.miscellanie.com/ transcription/index.html or https://bahai-library.com/glossary_arabic_persian_transcription. My thanks go to Romane Takkenberg (www.miscellanie.com) for noting inconsistencies in the list while converting, and regularly updating, this list to HTML on his web page. Corrections, additions and suggested improvements to the list are welcomed. Contact [email protected] or [email protected]. Capitalization.. Arabic and Fá rsı́ do not have capital letters. When transcripted, capital letters should only be used for proper Names and attributes of God, otherwise, lowercase letters should be used. This document uses capital letters for all words/names as if they were proper names—these should be converted to lower case for other uses. Information sources.. Some sources of information are given in brackets. The most reliable sources of information are to be found in documents issued by the Universal House of Justice; and books by Shoghi Effendi, Hasan Balyuzi and Adib Taherzadeh (caution: there are some errors in all published documents). Entries are checked using digital copies of Arabic (Hans Wehr, also a printed copy) and Persian (Steingass) dictionaries. If these sources lack the required information, then information is sought from the internet and a few knowledgeable individuals. Hybrid words/names.. Most words (there are