International Standard 233

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR STANDARDIZATIDN~MEXAYHAPOAHAR OPrAHH3Al&lR fl0 CTAH&W’TH3Al&4H.ORGANlSATlON INTERNATIONALE DE NORMALlSATlGN

Documentation - Transliteration of Arabic characters

into Latin characters
Documentation - Translitt&ation des caractkes arabes en caractkes latins

First edition - 1994-12-15

UDC 003.035 : 003.332.5 Ref. No. IS0 233-1994 (E)

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8 Descriptors : documentation, transliteration, Arabic characters, Latin characters.

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ii Price based on 7 pages
Foreword
IS0 (the International Organization for Standardization) is a worldwide federation of
national standards bodies (IS0 member bodies). The work of preparing international
Standards is normally carried out through IS0 technical committees. Each member
body interested in a subject for which a technical committee has been established has
the right to be represented on that committee. International organizations, govern-
mental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO, also take part in the work.

Draft International Standards adopted by the technical committees are circulated to

the member bodies for approval before their acceptance as International Standards by
the IS0 Council. They are approved in accordance with IS0 procedures requiring at
least 75 % approval by the member bodies voting.

International Standard IS0 233 was prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC 46,
Documentation.

It cancels and replaces IS0 Recommendation R 233-1961, of which it constitutes a

technical revision.

0 International Organization for Standardization, 1994 l

Printed in Switzerland
INTERNATIONAL STANDARD 1s0 2x3-1994 (El

Documentation - Transliteration of Arabic characters

into Latin characters

0 Introduction 0.2 General principles of conversion of writing

systems
0.1 Standards on conversion of systems of
writing
0.2.1 Definitions and methods
This International Standard is one of a series of International
Standards dealing with the conversion of systems of writing. 0.2.1 .I The words in a language, which are written according
The aim of this International Standard and others in the series is to a given script (the converted system), sometimes have to be
to provide a means for international communication of written rendered according to a different system (the conversion
messages in a form which permits the automatic transmission system), normally used for a different language. This operation
and reconstitution of these by men or machines. The system is often followed for historical or geographical texts, car-
of conversion, in this case, must be univocal and entirely rever- tographical documents and in particular for bibliographical
sible. work in every case where it is necessary to write words supplied
in various alphabets in a manner that allows intercalation with
This means that abstraction should be composed of all other words in a single alphabet so as to enable a uniform
phonetic and esthetic considerations, as well as certain national alphabetization to be made in bibliographies, catalogues,
customs; all these considerations are, however, ignored by the indices, toponymic lists, etc.
machine performing the function.
It is indispensable in that it permits the univocal transmission of
The adoption of this International Standard for international a written message between two countries using different
cdmmunication leaves every country free to adopt for its own writing systems or exchanging a message the writing of which
use a national standard which may be different, on condition
is different fiom their own.
that it be compatible with this International Standard. The
system proposed herein should make this possible; and be
acceptable for international use if the graphisms it creates are It thereby permits transmission by manual, mechanical, as well
such that they may be converted automatically into the as electronic means.
graphisms used in any strict national system.
The two basic methods of conversion of a system of writing are
This International Standard may be used by anyone who has a transliteration and transcription.
clear understanding of the system and is certain that it can be
applied without ambiguity. The result obtained will not give a
0.2.1.2 Transliteration is the operation which consists of
correct pronunciation of the original text in a person’s own
representing the characters11 of an entirely alphabetical system
language; but it will serve as a means of finding automatically
of writing by the characters of the conversion alphabet.
the original graphism and thus allow any one who has a
knowledge of the original language to pronounce it correctly.
Similarly one can only pronounce correctly a text written in for In principle, this conversion should be made character by
example, English or Polish, if one has a knowledge of English or character: each character of the alphabet converted is
Polish. rendered by one character, and one only, of the conversion
alphabet, this being the easiest way to ensure the complete and
The adoption of national standards compatible with this Inter- unambiguous reversibility of the conversion alphabet in the
national Standard will permit the representation, in an interna- converted alphabet.
tional publication, of the morphemes of each language accord-
ing to the customs of the country where it is spoken. It will be When the number of characters used in the conversion system
possible to simplify this representation in order to take into is smaller than the number of characters of the converted
account the number of the character sets available on different system, it is necessary to use digraph or diacritical marks. In
kinds of machines. this case one must avoid as far as possible arbitrary choice and

1) A character is an element of a system of writing, whether or not alphabetical, that represents a phoneme, a syllable, the word or even prosodical
characteristics of the language by using graphical symbols (letters, diacritical marks, syllabic signs, punctuation marks, prosodical accents, etc.) or a
combination of these signs (a letter having an accent or a diacritical mark, for example d, 6, 6, is therefore a character in the same way as a basic
letter).

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IS0 233-1994 (EI

the use of purely conventional marks, and try to maintain a cer- characters that make up the text, for example the direction of
tain phonetic logic in order to give the system a wide accep- the script, and specify the way of distinguishing words and of
tance. using separation signs and capital letters, following as closely
as possible the customs of the language(s) which use the con-
However, it must be accepted that the graphism obtained may verted writing system.
not always be correctly pronounced according to the phonetic
habits of the language (or of all the languages) which usually
use(s) the conversion alphabet. On the other hand this
graphism must be such that the reader who has a knowledge of 0.3 Principles of conversion for alphabetical
the converted language may mentally restore unequivocally the writing systems
original graphism and thus pronounce it correctly.
0.3.1. The conversion may be made at various levels.

0.2.1.3 Retransliteration is the operation which consists of The first level is that of completely reversible stringent con-
converting the characters of an alphabet of conversion to those version which is necessary to attain in full the aims given in
of the alphabet converted. This operation is the exact opposite clause 1. This conversion applies all principles of conversion
of transliteration; it is carried out by applying the rules of a without exception. It does not permit variants. The conven-
system of transliteration in reverse order so as to reconstitute tional systems of stringent conversion should be applied as
the transliterated word to its original form. such without any change to meet national or regional customs
as regards pronunciation or orthography. They are the only
ones permitting the univocal international transmission of
0.2.1.4 Transcription is the operation which consists of
messages by mechanical or electronic means.
representing the characters of a language, whatever the
original system of writing, by the phonetic system of letters or
signs of the conversion language. The second level is that of simplified conversion. This
simplification may be made necessary, for example, by the use
of machines that do not accept all the alphabet characters
A transcription system is of necessity based on the ortho-
required for stringent conversion. This method of conversion
graphical conventions of a conversion language and its
may allow national or regional variants, which may not permit
alphabet. The users of a transcription system must therefore
complete reversibility. The simplified conversion may be the
have a knowledge of the conversion language to be able to pro-
subject of international agreements.
nounce the characters correctly. Transcription is not strictly
reversible.
The third level is that of popular conversion which, for exam-
ple, should enable the same foreign names to be written in a
Transcription may be used for the conversion of all writing
uniform manner in the newspapers of a given country. It is
systems. It is the only method that can be used for systems that
obliged to take into account, for example, phonetic practice,
are not entirely alphabetical and for all ideophonographical
and therefore can only be national.
systems of writing (Chinese, Japanese, etc.).

To permit an internationally unequivocal communication, Inter-

0.2.1.5 To carry out romanization (the conversion of non- national Standards on transliteration must apply the principles
Latin writing systems to the Latin alphabet) it is possible to use of stringent conversion. They, then, can be used as a basis for
either transliteration or transcription or a combination of these the establishment of rules for simplified conversion and for
two methods, according to the nature of the system converted. preparation of national standards.

0.2.2 A conversion system proposed for international use 0.3.2 In cases where the same characters are used in different
may call for compromise and the sacrifice of certain national languages, these characters should be transliterated in the
customs. It is therefore necessary for each community of users same way, irrespective of the language they belong to.
to accept concessions, fully abstaining in every case from im-
posing as a matter of course solutions that are actually justified
0.3.3 If the converted alphabet gives a different form to the
only by national practice (for example as regards pronuncia-
same character according to its place in the word (as is the case
tion, orthography, etc.).
for example in the Arabic, Hebrew and Greek alphabets), the
conversion alphabet will use only one character of constant
When a country uses two systems univocally convertible one form.
into the other to write its own language, the system of
transliteration .thus implemented must be taken a priori as a
basis for the international standardized system, as far as it is
compatible with the other principles exposed hereafter.
1 Scope and field of application
0.2.3 Where necesary, the conversion systems should specify This International Standard establishes a system for the
an equivalent for each character, not only the letters but also transliteration of Arabic characters into Latin characters follow-
the punctuation marks, numbers, etc. They should similarly ing the principles of stringent conversion in order to permit in-
take into account the arrangement of the sequence of ternational information exchange.

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 IS0 233-1994 (E)

2 Transliteration table c) a modification may nevertheless be necessary: in some

cases the words and especially the names of authors (in
2.1 Preliminary notice library catalogues, bibliographic reference lists etc.) shall be
reproduced. In such cases, the vowels and diphthongs sup-
The proposed transliteration system is a stringent one specify- plied in table 2 (characters 30 to 32) shall be reproduced, ex-
ing an equivalent for each character, pronounced or not. It en- cept those which have only a flexional function in nominal
sures a complete reversibility of Latin characters in the Arabic forms.
alphabet.
It should be remembered that, as a general principle of
As Arabic is usually written in an incomplete way (i.e. without transliteration, the phonetic value of encountered characters is
vowels), the following three methods are to be considered: not principally taken into account.

a) the Arabic text supplies vowels: it will be entirely The concrete application of the modification mentioned in cl
transliterated; will be subsequently detailed on the basis of the tables in this
International Standard, which are valid for cases where only
b) the Arabic text does not supply vowels: only those written characters are considered and therefore where rever-
characters appearing in the text are transliterated; sibility may be complete.

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IS0 233-1994 (E)

2.2 Tables
(The notes referred to in the tables are given in 2.3.)

Table 1 - Consonants

No. Arabic Transliteration into Arabic Transliteration into

character Latin character No. character Latin character

’
1 I - (See Nos3Oand35) 16 & d.
-

la T ‘a (See note 2) 17 Js t
.

b I
2 - or - (See notes la and 18 Js z
I .
lb)
<
3 9 b 19
t -

4 u t m k ti

6 & t 21 d(q)* f

6 b 22 s” (9)” q
c

7 h 23 crf k
c .

8 h 24 3 I
t

9 3 d 25
f m

10 i !! 26 3 n

11 J r 27 0 h

.. ..
12 2 Z 27a 0 t (See note41

13 P S 28 W (See also No. 31)

3

14 d i 29 Y (See also No. 32)

4f

15 S 29a 45 v
Lf” .
” -a . . . . .. __ . . . -
= I ne letters In IxaCKets are the Maghrepi tOrmS.

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 IS0 233-1994 (El

Table 2 - Vowels and diphthongs

No.
Arabic
Character
Latin
r Arabic
Char;acter
Latin
T
Arabic
Character
Latin
T
Arabic
Character
Latin
1
30
0
a I’- a)
/ //
r-- ci’, d

30a I a

30b 3 / air e(f

A- av
.i
5
31 U uw ii awe

i i
o/
32 t5-
-.
iy a- w”

Table 3 - Other conventional signs

No. Arabic designation Arabic character Transliteration Examples

0 0
33 sukuwn l

(sukijn)

34

35 ham%ai’ ‘al”wa~ol
“alif ‘alOwa~Ol
(hamzat al-wa$)
(alif wa+lah)

The ancient transliteration is in brackets.

Table 4 - Punctuation

1 Arabic character 1 Designation 1 Latin character ‘1

e comma

c.
semi-colon

T interrogation mark ?

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ISO‘233-1664 (E)

2.3 Notes to tables 1 to 4

Note Prablc character Position Transliteration Examples

‘i,;,
la hamod With bearer biS”r6 (biq”r)
‘r
(hamzahl

% 6 I Qi-2 &ala
‘3Ls
5 as
CtyI); ruw’usb (ruw’us)

lb Without bearer sa’,ala

I

2 madai XJ- ‘Sda’bb (‘dda’b)

.
(maddah) 3-a
r-
>T$ qur”lnir (qur”Sn)

; “, ; ]f
3 Definite article always (See No, 35) “alZam’su PalZam”s)
joined to next word
JI
without hyphen.
dL, bi’liay’li (bi’liay”l)
,

5 .
4 Ta’, mar“bowfai Rendered by ‘i in all ; : , .( madiyna’t’ti (madiyna’i)
.
(TB’ marb$ah) positions.

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 IS0 233-1964 (El

Annex

Diacritical signs used

(This annex does not form part of this standard.)

The diacritical signs used in this International Standard are taken from the code table of IS0 5426.

The following table indicates their position in the code table.

Table

No.. 1 Position in the code table t No. 1 Position in the code table

1 3/l 19 3/o
la 3/l and 413 20 417
2 216 or 5110 27a 418
5 518 29a 4/l
6 4115 30 412 and 3/l
7 516 30a 415
a 518 30b 4/l, 412 and 415
10 518 31 412, 4110
14 4116 32 412, 4110
15 516 33 4110
16 516 34 416
17 516 35 3/l and 415
ia 516