Learn how to transcribe Arabic using the Latin alphabet
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Intro |
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| Michael: What types of Arabic romanization are there? |
| Nora: And which one is most common? |
| Michael: At ArabicPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: Ben, a college student, got confused about the romanization of the Arabic language. He decided to ask his Arabic language teacher |
| "Is there only one way of romanizing Arabic?" |
| Ben Lee:هَل هُناكَ طَريقَةٌ وَاحِدَةٌ فَقَط لِكِتابَةِ العَربِيَّة بِالحُروفِ اللاتينِيَّة؟ (hal hunāka ṭarīqaẗun waḥidah faqaṭ likitābaẗi al-ʿarabiyyah bilḥurūf al-lātīniyyah?) |
| Dialogue |
| Ben Lee:هَل هُناكَ طَريقَةٌ وَاحِدَةٌ فَقَط لِكِتابَةِ العَربِيَّة بِالحُروفِ اللاتينِيَّة؟ (hal hunāka ṭarīqaẗun waḥidah faqaṭ likitābaẗi al-ʿarabiyyah bilḥurūf al-lātīniyyah?) |
| Nancy Namek: .لا، هُناكَ أَكثَرُ مِن طَريقَة (lā, hunāka ʾakṯar min ṭarīqah.) |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Ben Lee:هَل هُناكَ طَريقَةٌ وَاحِدَةٌ فَقَط لِكِتابَةِ العَربِيَّة بِالحُروفِ اللاتينِيَّة؟ (hal hunāka ṭarīqaẗun waḥidah faqaṭ likitābaẗi al-ʿarabiyyah bilḥurūf al-lātīniyyah?) |
| Michael: "Is there only one way of romanizing Arabic?" |
| Nancy Namek: .لا، هُناكَ أَكثَرُ مِن طَريقَة (lā, hunāka ʾakṯar min ṭarīqah.) |
| Michael: "No, there are more. " |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: As you may know, the Latin alphabet serves as a base for most of the writing systems on Earth, but not all writing systems are based on the Latin alphabet. Some languages, like Greek, Russian, or Japanese, use alphabets based on other unique scripts. When it comes to Arabic, the Arabic alphabet is used. |
| However, if we have multiple alphabets, then, naturally, people from various countries won't be able to read all of them. For example, imagine that someone from the US is going to Egypt without knowing how to read the Arabic alphabet, and they are in the Egyptian countryside and want to visit a mango farm. How will they know how to read the street signs? |
| In a different scenario, imagine that a girl from Egypt is in America and has to write down her name, which is traditionally written in Arabic. What will she do? |
| Luckily, we have a way to make our lives easier! We use a system that makes it possible to decipher non-Latin alphabets. We call it romanization. For example, let’s consider the Arabic word meaning “Egypt” |
| Nora: [NORMAL] مِصر (miṣr) [SLOWLY] مِصر |
| Michael: On ArabicPod101.com, we romanize it as “m-i-ṣ-r”. Basically, you write the word phonetically—a process called “romanization.” Let’s try an everyday example: |
| Nora: [NORMAL] شُكراً (šukran) [SLOWLY] شُكراً |
| Michael: which means “thanks”, and we can write it as we say it: š-u-k-r-a-n. |
| Nora: šukran. |
| Michael: These letters mirror the pronunciation of the Arabic word. These days, there are many different romanization systems used. There is DIN, which is used in our lessons on ArabicPod101.com. Other systems like Buckwalter use different letters and symbols to express some sounds in Arabic. Then, there is the Franco-Arabic system, used in daily conversation between many Arabic speaking people. The Franco-Arabic system is an unofficial system used mainly because it has no symbols or special characters. Instead, it uses the Latin alphabet and Arabic numbers to express all necessary sounds in Arabic. The numbers are used to express sounds that are hard to express using Latin letters. |
| So, how does it work? Well, although standard romanizations exist, there are no official rules for romanizing Arabic letters and words into the English alphabet. When there’s a lack of equivalence between the English and Arabic, it’s common to write an approximate romanization. So, don’t be surprised if you see the same word romanized in different ways! For example, the Arabic word meaning “morning” |
| Nora: [NORMAL] صَباح (ṣabāḥ) [SLOWLY] صَباح, |
| Michael: can be found transliterated as ‘ṣ-a-b-ā-ḥ’ or ‘S-A-b-A-H’, or even ‘s-a-b-a-7’ Does this sound confusing? Well, it really just comes down to discrepancies in the romanization systems. Therefore, on ArabicPod101.com, we encourage learners to learn the Arabic Alphabet, since it only has 28 letters. Learning how to write them and connect them properly is probably easier than figuring out all the discrepancies between different romanization systems, which aren’t capable of accurately expressing the actual sounds of Arabic. |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: In this lesson, we learned that, since Arabic uses a peculiar script, to make it more accessible, you can romanize or transliterate it into the Latin alphabet. Although there isn’t a standard way to do this, learners need to know about the most common ways to convert Arabic into the Latin alphabet and then use whichever is most comfortable for them. Of course, it is preferable to learn the Arabic alphabet! |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We’re here to answer them! |
| Nora: !سلام (Salam!) |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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