Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Arabic)
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This page is part of the Manual of Style, and is considered a guideline for Wikipedia. The consensus of many editors formed the conventions described here. Wikipedia articles should heed these guidelines. Feel free to update this page as needed, but please use the discussion page to propose major changes. |
 This policy in a nutshell: |
| Arabic names on Wikipedia should use a standard transliteration of Arabic, unless a primary transliteration exists. A strict transliteration should generally not be used. |
This page proposes a guideline regarding the transliteration from the Arabic alphabet to Roman letters in the English Wikipedia. The discussion is ongoing at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Arabic).
Contents |
[edit] Definitions
[edit] Arabic article
For the purposes of this convention, an Arabic article is a Wikipedia article with a title that is a transliteration of a word, name, or phrase that is most commonly originally rendered in the Arabic alphabet, and that in English is not usually translated into a common English word. These could be in any language that uses this script, such as Arabic, Persian, or Ottoman Turkish.
Examples:
- Abu Sayyaf (organization)
- Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi (poet),
- Ta'if (city).
Counter-examples:
- Yazdegerd III of Persia (ruled Persia before Arabic script became used),
- Ahmet Necdet Sezer (rules Turkey after the script stopped being used)
- Egypt (does not derive from an Arabic word).
- Algorism and Algorithm (common English words, no longer perceived as "transliterations" of الخوارزمي)
[edit] Primary transliteration
A name has a primary transliteration if at least 75% of all references in English use the same transliteration, or if a reference shows that the individual self-identified with a particular transliteration, and if that transliteration does not contain any non-printable characters (including underscores). Primary transliterations may sometimes be less accurate than other transliterations.
Examples of references include the FBI, the NY Times, CNN, the Washington Post, al-Jazeera, Encarta, Britannica, Library of Congress, and other academic sources. Examples of self-identification include a driver's license or passport in which the individual associated with a particular form of transliteration.
Google searches can be useful in determining the most common usage, but should not be heavily relied upon. The content of large searches may not be relevant to the subject being discussed. For example, القائم has a standard transliteration of "al-Qa'im", but "al-Qaim" receives five times as many hits. This word is used in the names of three historical Caliphs and a town in Iraq, and is also another name for the Mahdi in Shi'a Islam. Since Google searches do not discriminate between them, other sources must be used to determine if a primary transliteration exists for any particular usage.
If there is no primary transliteration, a standard transliteration is used (see below).
Examples:
- There is no single most-popular transliteration for the name of the Prophet of Islam. "Mohammed", "Mohammad", "Muhammad", and "Mohamed" are all commonly used. Since there is no primary transliteration for his name, the standard transliteration of Muhammad is used.
- There is no single most-popular transliteration for the Holy Book of Islam. "Quran", "Koran", and "Coran" are all common, so the standard transliteration of Qur'an is used.
[edit] Standard transliteration
The standard transliteration uses a systematic convention of rendering Arabic script into English which is used and standardized by academics and linguists. The current proposal for the standard transliteration from Arabic to Roman letters is found below.
[edit] Strict transliteration
A strict transliteration is uniquely reversible and allows recreating of the original writing. A strict transliteration need not be a 1:1 mapping of characters. A source character may be mapped (1:n) into a sequence of several target characters without losing sequential reversibility.
The standard transliteration does not carry enough information to accurately write or pronounce the original Arabic script. The standard transliteration does not differentiate between several letters, or between long and short vowels. A strict transliteration is one that uses a system of accents, underscores, and underdots to render the original Arabic in a form that carries all the information held in the original Arabic.
Note that in the standard convention a grave accent [`] and an apostrophe ['] (both found on the keyboard) are used for the "ayin" and "hamza" characters, respectively. To avoid confusion, the higher level of transliteration uses left and right single quotation marks [‘] [’], respectively.
[edit] Printability - use of the unicode template
Note that several letters proposed in the strict transliteration system below are non-printable in several hardware/software/settings combinations, e.g. ḥ, ṣ, ḍ, ṭ, ṛ, ẓ and ṁ. These letters can be made visible on most systems by enclosing them in the {{unicode}} template, like this: {{unicode|ḥ, ṣ, ḍ, ṭ, ṛ, ẓ and ṁ}}, which results in: ḥ, ṣ, ḍ, ṭ, ṛ, ẓ and ṁ. This template should be used for most expressions using strict transliteration.
Similarly ʾ, ʿ, ᾿ and ῾ can only be used when "unicodified": {{unicode|ʾ, ʿ, ᾿ and ῾}} → ʾ, ʿ, ᾿ and ῾
The {{ArTranslit}} template includes this "unicodifying" of characters that have this printability issue.
[edit] Examples
| Arabic | Primary translit. | Standard translit. | Strict translit. |
|---|---|---|---|
| القاهرة | Cairo | al-Qahira | al-Qāhirah |
| السلف الصالح | Salaf | as-Salaf as-Salih | as-Salaf aṣ-Ṣāliḥ |
| قرآن | n/a | Qur'an | Qur’ān |
| صدام حسين | Saddam Hussein | Saddam Husayn | Ṣaddām Ḥusayn |
| العبّاسيّون | Abbasid | al-`Abbasiyun | al-‘Abbāsīyūn |
| كربلاء | Karbala | Karbala' | Karbalā’ |
| محمد | n/a | Muhammad | Muḥammad |
| القاعدة | al-Qaeda | al-Qa`ida | al-Qā‘idah |
[edit] Proposed standard
[edit] Article titles
[edit] Lead paragraphs
All Arabic articles should have a lead paragraph which includes the article title, along with the original Arabic script and the strict transliteration in parenthesis, preferably in the lead sentence. The article title, the Arabic script, and the transliteration should all be in boldface.
This is in accordance with the official wikipedia policy at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). Many articles that are missing this information are listed at Category:Articles needing Arabic script.
The standard format is as in the following examples:
- Cairo (Arabic: القاهرة translit: al-Qāhirah) is. . .
- Gamal Abdel Nasser (Arabic: جمال عبد الناصر translit: Jamāl ‘Abdu’n-Nāṣir) (January 15, 1918 – September 28, 1970) was the second President of Egypt...
Some cases will require variations on this format. If the name is extremely long, the first appearance of the name is suitable to provide the strict transliteration. Likewise, if a strict transliteration appears overly repetitious, it should be in place of the page title in the lead paragraph.
Example:
- Abū al-‘Abbās ‘Abdu'llāh ibn Muḥammad as-Saffāḥ (Arabic: أبو العباس عبد الله بن محمد السفاح ) (721 - 754) was the first Abbasid caliph. Abu al-`Abbas was the head of...
[edit] Redirects
All common transliterations should redirect to the article. There will often be many redirects, but this is intentional and does not represent a problem.
[edit] Alphabetization
- Alphabetize by family name in modern cases where there is one, otherwise by the first component in the commonly used name
- Example: Mu‘awiyah ibn Abi Sufyan should be alphabetized under "Mawiyah".
- For alphabetization, the definite article "al-" and its variants (ash-, ad-, etc.) should be ignored, unless the primary transliteration makes the prefix a part of the name (such as Mohamed ElBaradei).
- Example: Al-Qaeda should be alphabetized as "Qaeda".
- For alphabetization, the family name designators "bin", "ibn", and "bint" should be ignored, unless the primary transliteration makes it a part of the name (as in the Saudi Binladin Group).
- For alphabetization, the apostrophe (representing hamza) should be ignored, and letters with diacriticals should be alphabetized as if they did not have their diacriticals.
- Example: Ibn Sa'ūd should be alphabetized as "Saud".
[edit] Transliteration
The current proposal for the strict transliteration is based on the ALA-LC Romanization method (1997), and standards from the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names. The standard transliteration is the same, without accents, underscores and underdots.
[edit] Consonants
| Arabic | Name | Standard translit. | Strict translit. | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ب | b | b | ||
| ت | t | t | ||
| ث | th | th | The sequence ته is written t′h | |
| ج | j | j | in Egyptian g | |
| ح | h | ḥ | ||
| خ | kh | kh | The sequence كه is written k′h | |
| د | d | d | ||
| ذ | dh | dh | The sequence ده is written d′h | |
| ر | r | r | ||
| ز | z | z | ||
| س | s | s | ||
| ش | sh | sh | The sequence سه is written s′h | |
| ص | s | ṣ | ||
| ض | d | ḍ | ||
| ط | t | ṭ | ||
| ظ | z | ẓ | ||
| ع | ` | ‘ | Different from hamza. | |
| غ | gh | gh | ||
| ف | f | f | ||
| ق | q | q | Sometimes transliterated as "G" | |
| ك | k | k | ||
| ل | l | l | ||
| م | m | m | ||
| ن | n | n | ||
| ه | h | h | ||
| ء | ' | ’ | Hamza should never be omitted. | |
| ة | a or ah or at | ah or at | Ways of dealing with ta' marbuta are still to be determined. | |
| و | w | w | See also long vowels. | |
| ُوّ | uw | ūw | When doubled | |
| ي | y | y | See also long vowels. | |
| ِيّ | iy | īy | When doubled | |
| آ | a, 'a | ā, ’ā | Initially a/ā, medially 'a/’ā |
[edit] Short vowels
| Short vowels | Name | Translit. (standard and strict) |
|---|---|---|
| 064E َ◌ |
fatḥa | a |
| 064F ُ◌ |
ḍamma | u |
| 0650 ِ◌ |
kasra | i |
[edit] Long vowels
| Long vowels | Name | Standard Trans. | Strict Trans. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 064E 0627 َا◌ |
fatḥa ʼalif | a | ā |
| 064E 0649 َى◌ |
fatḥa ʼalif maqṣūra (Arabic) | a | á |
| 064E 06CC َی◌ |
fatḥa yeh (Farsi, Urdu) | ā / aỳ | |
| 064F 0648 ُو◌ |
ḍamma wāw | u | ū |
| 0650 064A ِي◌ |
kasra yāʼ | i | ī |
[edit] Definite article
| Solar letters |
Standard translit. |
Strict translit. |
|---|---|---|
| ت | t | t |
| ث | th | th |
| د | d | d |
| ذ | dh | dh |
| ر | r | r |
| ز | z | z |
| س | s | s |
| ش | sh | sh |
| ص | s | ṣ |
| ض | d | ḍ |
| ط | t | ṭ |
| ظ | z | ẓ |
| ن | n | n |
Arabic has only one definite article, "ال" ("al-"). However, if it is followed by a solar letter (listed in the table right), the "L" is assimilated in pronunciation with this solar letter and the solar letter is doubled.
- Examples: تقي الدي (Taqi al-Din) is pronounced and transliterated as "Taqi ad-Din"
Both the non-assimilated ("al-") or the assimilated ("ad-") form appear in various standards of transliteration, and both allow to recreate the original Arabic. For this manual of style, assimilated letters will be used, as it helps readers pronounce correctly.
The definite article "al-" or its variants (ash-, ad-, ar-,etc.) is always written in lower case (unless beginning a sentence), and a hyphen separates it from the following word.
- Examples: "al-Qaeda"
[edit] Names
The standard transliteration of Arabic names uses a single "ibn" or "bint" father's name when known and appropriate, and a family name at the end. Note that North African speakers use "bin" instead of "ibn".
- Example: "Bandar ibn Sultan as-Sa`ud"
- Counter-example: "Bandar ibn Sultan", "Bandar as-Saud", or "Bandar bin Sultan bin `Abd al-Aziz as-Sa`ud".
- Example: "Turki ibn Faisal as-Sa`ud"
- Counter-example: "Turki al-Faisal".
- Example: "Saddam Hussein at-Tikrit"
- Counter-example: "Saddam bin Hussein at-Tikrit" (bin is not typically used in Iraq)
- Example: "Waleed ash-Shehri"
- Counter-example: "Waleed ibn Ahmed ash-Shehri" (he was not known to use his father's name)
If the word Abū is preceded by ibn, the correct grammatical format is ibn Abī, and not ibn Abū.[1]
- Example: "`Ali ibn Abi Talib"
- Counter-example: "`Ali ibn Abu Talib"
[edit] Persian
When the Arabic script was adopted for the Persian language, there were letters pronounced in Persian which did not have a representation in the Arabic alphabet, and vice versa. The Persian alphabet adds letters to the Arabic alphabet, and changes the pronunciation of some Arabic letters which are not pronounced in Persian. In addition, Persian does not use a definite article (AL). All vowels, long or short, remain transliterated the same as in Arabic.
To keep the integrity and reversibility of the original script, the strict transliteration should use the normal Arabic strict transliteration, and the standard transliteration should follow the pronunciation.
Example:
| Script |
(standard translit.) |
|
|---|---|---|
| رضوان |
|
|
| Script | Name | Standard translit. | Strict translit. | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| پ | p | p | as in paper | |
| چ | ch | ch | as in chair, the sequence c′h does not exist | |
| ژ | zh | zh | as in measure, sequence written as z′h | |
| گ | g | g | as in goal | |
| ض | z | ḍ | ||
| ظ | z | ẓ | ||
| و | v | w | Pronounced "v" as a consonant. As a long vowel it remains a "ū". |
[edit] Urdu
Urdu adds additional letters, including retroflex consonants.
| Sound | Shape | Unicode name | IAST romanization | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [ʈ] | ٹ | ttay | ṭ | IAST transcription conflicts with ط |
| [ɖ] | ڈ | ddaal | ḍ | IAST transcription conflicts with ض |
| [ɽ] | ڑ | arr | ṛ | |
| [eː] | ے | badee yay | e, ai | can represent e or ai |
| [~] | ں | noon gunna | ṁ, ~ | nasalised syllable at the end of a word |
[edit] Ottoman Turkish
The Ottoman Turkish language differs from the above languages in that, since 1928, words that were once written with a Persian-influenced version of the Arabic abjad have been written using the Latin alphabet. As such, there is a long established set of standards for writing the language in a standard transliteration; however, in a strict transliteration, the language adheres closely to the standards for strict transliteration described above.
Guidelines for writing Ottoman Turkish words according to the standard transliteration can be found at the website of the Turkish Language Association (Türk Dil Kurumu): here for the majority of words, and here for names of people.
In the following table, only those letters which differ in either their strict or their standard transliteration from the Arabic-oriented table above are shown; all others are transliterated according to that table.
| Script | Standard translit. | Strict translit. | IPA | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ا | a, â, e | ā, e | [ɑ:], [e] | This represents a, â, or e in initial position, and â in medial or final position. |
| آ | a, â | ā | [ɑ:] | This is only written in initial position. |
| ﺙ | s | s | [s] | |
| ج | c, ç | c | [dʒ], [tʃ] | When choosing between c and ç in the standard transliteration, modern Turkish orthography should be followed. |
| ﭺ | ç | ç | [tʃ] | |
| خ | h | ḫ | [h] | |
| ذ | z | z | [z] | |
| ﮊ | j | j | [ʒ] | |
| ش | ş | ş | [ʃ] | |
| ض | z, d | ż, ḍ | [z], [d] | When choosing between ż and ḍ in the strict transliteration, and z and d in the standard transliteration, modern Turkish orthography should be followed. |
| ع | a, 'a, ', â | `a, `ā, ‘ | [ɑ], [ɑ:], ø | |
| غ | g, ğ | ġ | [ɣ], [g], [k], [h] | When choosing between g and ğ in the the standard transliteration, modern Turkish orthography should be followed. |
| ق | k | ḳ | [k] | |
| ك | k, g, ğ, n | k, g, ñ | [k], [ɲ] | When choosing between k, g, ğ, and n in the standard transliteration, modern Turkish orthography should be followed. |
| ﮒ | g, ğ | g | [g], [k] | When choosing between g and ğ in the standard transliteration, modern Turkish orthography should be followed. |
| ﯓ | n | ñ | [ɲ] | |
| ه | h, e, a, i | h, e, a, i | [h], [ɑ], [e], [i] | When choosing between e and a in the transliteration, the Turkish rules of vowel harmony should be followed. This is only transliterated as h at the end of a word in proper nouns. |
| ء | ', ø | ’ | ø | |
| و | v, o, ö, u, ü | v, o, ō, ö, u, ū, ü | [v], [o], [o:], [œ], [u], [u:], [y] | When making the transliteration, modern Turkish orthography should be followed. |
| ي | y, i, ı, a | y, i, ī, ı, ā | [j], [i], [i:], [ɯ], [ej], [ɑ:] | When making the transliteration, modern Turkish orthography should be followed. |
| ﻻ | la, lâ | lā | [lɑ:] | |
| ة | et | et | [et] |
[edit] Definite article
In words that use the Arabic definite article ال, the article always follows the assimilation of solar letters. However, the vowel ا can be transliterated in a number of ways.
- For a definite article in initial position, the definite article is written as el- in both the standard and the strict transliterations; e.g. الوهاب el-Vehhāb, الرمضان er-Ramażān.
- For a definite article in medial position, such as is found in many names of Arabic origin, the vowel in the strict transliteration can be written in a variety of ways; e.g. u’l, ü’l, i’l, ’l, etc. In such cases, the diacritic representing the hamza or `ayin (e.g. ’) is always used, and the choice of vowel should follow modern Turkish orthography; e.g. عبد الله `Abdu’llah, عبد العزيز `Abdü’l-`Azīz, بالخاصه bi’l-ḫaṣṣa.
- For a definite article in medial position in the standard transliteration, ’ is not used, and the choice of vowel and spelling should follow modern Turkish orthography; e.g. عبد الله Abdullah, عبد العزيز Abdülâziz, بالخاصه bilhassa.
[edit] External links
- Arabic - Sheet comparing 6 major transliteration standards.
- Arabic Romanization at the Library of Congress - Fact sheet for the ALA-LC standard
- Arabic - Report on the status of United Nations romanization systems for geographical names. January 2003
