ADril 21. 1975 Number 16

Transliteration, transcription, and One can also transcribe English using cause lots of work in libraries the reman . Lots of spelling re- and information centers-in cataloging, formers wish we would. Instead we con- abstracting, indexing, etc. If you’re not tinue to spell English in a way that baftles exactly clear as to what each of the three all of us-native speakers and foreigners is-where one leaves off and the other alike. English spelling is an historical begins-you’re not alone. Even experts monument, packed with ethnic, linguistic, frequently confuse them. They don’t con- martial, geopolitical, commercial, and fuse the actual concepts or definitions. even scientific memorabilia. As a menu. But they do confuse them-especially ment it is absorbingly interesting, but like transliteration and transcription-in monuments in general, it is rather awk- practice when they attempt to accomplish ward for daily use. both at the same time. Beyond transliteration and transcrip Tmnslitemtion is the spdiingof words tion is translation, the use of words in one from one with characters from language to express the meaning of words the alphabet of another. Ideally, it is a in another. one-for-one character-by-character re- As have said, there is frequent confu- placement. It should be a simple mechani- sion of the three in practice. Translitera- cal process. Too frequently it isn’t—as we tors, especially if they know the language shall see. they’re transliterating, have an itch to Tmscnption is the representation of turn what should be a straight one-for-one the sound of words in a language using trsnsiitemtion into as much of a tran- any set of symbols you may care to invent scription as possible. When they start or borrow for the purpose. For example, scratching the itch, the results can be you can transcribe Russian words using disastrous for bibliography. For example, the symbols of the international phonetic Khrushchev k a transliteration of the alphabet (IPA). You can also transcribe Russian name XPYKB. I must add, hasti- them using the letters of the reman - ly, that it is an English-speaking person’s . The results will differ. The IPA was transliteration. But to English-speakers invented for the purpose of transcribing who know Russian, it doesn’t transcribe various that do not use the the sound of the Russian name. To an reman alphabet or have no afphabets at English-s@er, a better transcription all. If you do not know the IPA, you will would be something like Kh-ooshtchofl find it used in most bilinguaf dictionaries Whenever that itch to transcribe in- to indicate the pronunciation of English trudes upon what should be the absolute worda, but rarely those of other hnguagea mechanicalness of transliteration, we with more rational and phonetic spellings. have to worry about who has scratched !%, for example, any of the excellent the itch. Mr. Khrushchev may be Cassell’s series of dictionaries. Khrooshtchoffif the scratcher spoke En-

254 glish. But he, was probably Chruh- Cognates are a wmpletely different szhtchowif he spoke German. (Note that matter, and linguistically much more in- a proper ‘German’ transliteration would teresting. They may turn up looking ex- be Chrustschev.)The transcription would actly alike, or completely unrecognizable. be Jmchev in Spanish, Chroesj~ov in In the latter case, recognition requires Dutch, and Crustsciofin Italian. When linguistic training, especially when the transcriptions of this sort intrude upon languagea involved are so distantly related transliteration, or when they are used as that they use different . Thus, translitemtiongthey create havoc in in- the almost recognizable baradarand dox- ternational information systems. @rare transliterations of the cognate Per- The transcriptions I’ve given are not sian words for brother and okughter products of my imagination. They were Bmt is the Russian cognate of Persian and still are generally used in European &m&r and English brother Gn the newspapers. Recently I came across an other han4 the Russian word slavo is a amusing example of this translitera- cognate of the name Clew. That sort of tionhmscription confusion, in a single specialized knowledge isn’t going to help article. Throughout XPY~s is transliter- you in dealing with problems oftransliter- ated as JG7&?ev, a very nearly correct ation and translation. Nor are cognates as ‘Slavic’ transliteration. The author never- straightforwardly or as reliably helpful in theless always speaks of the khrou- translating languages that are much more chtcht%kteem and Mr. Koaygin appears closely related than English and Persian throughout wholly GalliCized as or English and Russian. It would proba- Koasypk’ bly be impossible to count the number of The accidental or intended confusion times the French word dosage(titmtion, of translitemtion and transcription may determination, quantitative analysis) has be understandable enough. But some- been mistranslated as dosage in English times they are cont%sed even with transla- biochemical research documents. The tion. This happens when words borrowed same applies to the frequent mistransla- from one language by another are tmnsli- tion of German HerzMIer (cardiac @ated and/or transcribed back into the defect) as heartftiurein medical research language from which they were borrowed. documents. Borrowings are sometimes called I’ve gone into all of this because trans- loan-word. 1 should point out, perhaps, litemtion of Russian (that is tmnslitem- that they are not the same as cognate tion of the Cyrillic into the reman words in dfierent languagea. Cognates alphabet) is a major problem, no matter have an ultimate common origin, and how simple it ought to be. may or may not look alike. An example of Recently I used the AuthorIndexand borrowing is tit&gentsi% a word we bor- Address Dkec@y of CiwrentCbntent@ rowed from the Russians, who had bor- @5’9to locate an address. I came across rowed ita base (intelfigen$from French. two slightly different Russian names. The Note that ht&gen@ia is the English ‘two’ authom had the identical addreas. spelling btelhgentsr~a is the correct Furthermore the two articles reported translitemtion of the Russian word. research in the same field. The ‘two’ au- There are many such borrowings in thors’ namea proved to be different trans- Russian. Interes is a transliteration of a Iitemtions of the same name. word that Russian borrowed from How did this ‘mistake’ in CU occur? French—it’s not a translation. Likewise, At 1S1‘we have used the same system of htsdemtis not a misspelled translation of transliterating Russian for many years, a the Russian word. It’s a translitemtion of system thatagreea in essentials with that a borrowed word. used by the Russians. Naturally we stress

255 the importance of consistency. It isn’t in every case whether the man is really sufficient to be ‘almost correct’ about au- Gilbert or might be Hilbert. thors’ names.z Transliteration from one alphabet to As it turns out, the mistake was not another must be a simple, algorithmic or originality made by ISI. We merely perpet- mechanical process. I demonstrated this uated it by awepting a transliteration pro- about fifteen years ago at a meeting of the vided by a Soviet journal. American Chemical Society in Atlantic If one comparea the Russian contents Chy. At that time, 1S1 (then known as page in question with the English version Eugene Gas-field Associates, Information prepared in Moscow, one could not possi- Engineers) demonstrated truly mechani- bly conclude that any one system of trans- cal transliteration of Russian. Without literation had been used. This was surpris- knowledge of the Russian language a typ- ing, since we assumed that various Soviet ist familiar only with the Cyrillic alphabet dicta on this and other standard proce- copied a Cyrillic text. The typewriter key- dures would be followed. The Soviet board contained Cyrillic characters. Union doea have a standard system for However, the typewriter (it was a Flexo- English-language transliteration of Rus- writer) produced a perforated paper tape. sian, but its application depends upon Then, the tape was fed into the tape- human frailty.’ reading unit of the typewriter, which The error has been corrected now that printed out the transliterated text in re- we are aware how inconsistent the Rus- man characters. All of this can easily be sians can be in deahng with their system combined into a single typing operation. of transliteration. In some instances, this But the operator has to get used to a new means we must generate in toto anothel typing rhythm. Several Cyrillic characters English contents page. In this process, the require more striking than keying strokea. contents page will also become more legi- For example, four characters must strike ble, since the Russian publishing houses when keying the Cyrillic character u win few prizea for typographic style. This which we transliterate with -shclr-. practice will prevent a Russian name like Obviously the problem of translitera- lksunshteinfrom being re-Germanized tc tion will vanish if the typist is going to Braunstein.There’s always the odd prob- translate the document. It would also van- lem, however. If on occasion a Westeme] ish if the Russians published and cited in by the name of Hilbee-t should publish o] English, or if they used the reman alpha- be cited in Soviet journal, he’ll turn up in bet themselves. That suggestion, along the Cyrillic alphabet as Gilbert A consis. with some others regarding Russian and tent transliterating system will fail us in a the scientific literature, I’ll discuss in a case like this. It’s unlikely that we’ know follow-up a few weeks from now.

L Fejto J. Chine/f J. R.S.S.;de l’alliance au 3. Reformmtstdi A A. Transliterataiia rus- contlit [China/USSR; from alliance to skikh tekstov Iatinskimi bykvami ~ransliteration conflict], Revue de 1‘Est4(4):207-27, 1973,. of Russian texts with Latin letters]. Voprosy lazy. 2. Neiawender R. Russian translitera- khoznaniia (5)9G103, 1960. — 1 am indebted tion--sound and sense. Special Libmnks for this reference, and for the various examples of 53:3741, 1962. — This excellent article reviews continental transliterations of Khrushchev to Mr. the various systems of transliterating Ru.mian used H. Kraus of the Slavic Division of the Library of by speakers of EnSlish, and others. As its title COnSress. The article gives many systems of transli- implies, it discusses also the transcription vs. transli- teration, including one that the author finds suitable teration controversy. for ‘universal’ use in transliterating Russian with reman characters.

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