Baháʼí orthography
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Baháʼí Faith The Baháʼí Faith is a religion founded in the 19th century that teaches the Baháʼí Faith and the unity of religion, essential worth of all religions and Baháʼí Faith and the unity of humanity, the unity of all people. Established by ...
use a standard system of
orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mos ...
to romanize
Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
and
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
script. The system used in Baháʼí literature was set in 1923, and although it was based on a commonly used standard of the time, it has its own embellishments that make it unique. Shoghi Effendi, head of the religion from 1921 to 1957, created the system of Baháʼí orthography and shared a list of examples of common terms with Baháʼís around the world in several letters in 1923. The stated need for standardized transliteration was to "avoid confusion in future, and insure in this matter a uniformity which is greatly needed at present in all Baháʼí literature." According to the standard, the most common terms are "Baháʼí," "Baháʼís," "Báb," "Baháʼu'lláh," and "ʻAbdu'l-Bahá," using accent marks to distinguish long vowels, and raised turned versus raised commas to distinguish ayin and
hamza Hamza ( ar, همزة ') () is a letter in the Arabic alphabet, representing the glottal stop . Hamza is not one of the 28 "full" letters and owes its existence to historical inconsistencies in the standard writing system. It is derived from ...
, respectively. Since the Baháʼís adopted their system, Middle Eastern scholars have modified the standard academic system adopted in 1894 in various ways, and have created a separate, related system for writing Persian (a principal change being use of e and o). The Baháʼí system, however, has now been used to print thousands of books and pamphlets in many languages, hence modifying it would create confusion and force authors to use two different spelling systems (one in passages being quoted exactly, the other in the rest of the text).


Background

Western Baháʼís in the lifetime of
ʻAbdu'l-Bahá ʻAbdu'l-Bahá (; Persian language, Persian: ‎, 23 May 1844 – 28 November 1921), born ʻAbbás ( fa, عباس), was the eldest son of Baháʼu'lláh and served as head of the Baháʼí Faith from 1892 until 1921. ʻAbdu'l-Bahá was later C ...
used a variety of transliterations from Arabic. For example,
Baháʼu'lláh Baháʼu'lláh (born Ḥusayn-ʻAlí; 12 November 1817 – 29 May 1892) was the founder of the Baháʼí Faith. He was born to an aristocratic family in Persia, and was exiled due to his adherence to the messianic Bábí Faith. In 1863, in I ...
– the Faith's founder, was written in a variety of spellings. ʻAbdu'l-Bahá in 1906 instructed to write the term ''Bahaʼo'llah'', and later in 1921 requested that it be written ''Baha ʼUllah''. The Baháʼí transliteration scheme that Shoghi Effendi adopted was based on a standard adopted by the Tenth
International Congress of Orientalists The International Congress of Orientalists, initiated in Paris in 1873, was an international conference of Orientalists (initially mostly scholars from Europe and the USA). The first thirteen meetings were held in Europe; the fourteenth congress ...
which took place in
Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...
in September 1894. Shoghi Effendi changed some details of the Congress's system, most notably in the use of digraphs in certain cases (e.g. instead of ), and in incorporating the
solar letters In Modern Standard Arabic, Arabic and Maltese language, Maltese, the consonants are divided into two groups, called the sun letters or solar letters ( ar, حروف شمسية ', mt, konsonanti xemxin) and moon letters or lunar letters (Arabic: ...
when writing the definite article ''al-'' ( ar, ال) according to pronunciation (e.g. ''ar-Raḥím'', ''aṣ-Ṣaddíq'', instead of ''al-Raḥím'', ''al-Ṣaddíq''). He also introduced certain spelling variations that reflect Persian pronunciation (e.g. instead of ), specifically an
Isfahan Isfahan ( fa, اصفهان, Esfahân ), from its Achaemenid empire, ancient designation ''Aspadana'' and, later, ''Spahan'' in Sassanian Empire, middle Persian, rendered in English as ''Ispahan'', is a major city in the Greater Isfahan Regio ...
i accent (e.g. instead of ). A list of frequently used words using the new system was first shared in 1923 and later published in ''The Baháʼí Yearbook'' of 1926. Minor updates were published in ''The Baháʼí World'' volumes III (1930) and VII (1939). The system has been widely adopted by Baháʼí publishers. The underdots, underscores, and sometimes the accents are frequently omitted online and in less formal writing due to the difficulty in rendering text.Jonah Winters, 2002
Diacritics and transliteration
/ref>


Perso-Arabic script

* Real phonetic values of
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
vary regionally and the table mostly demonstrates the abstract Arabic phonemes. * In Persian, the final form of the letter is written undotted. * The Unicode character for the underline, 'combining double macron below', is U+35F (decimal U+863). It can be written as hex ͟ or decimal ͟, or with the template . HTML underlining (i.e., ...) should not be used, as it's not copy-safe. * The Unicode character for the ʻayin, the 6-like 'combining letter turned comma', is U+2BB (decimal U+699), and the character for hamza, the 9-like 'combining letter apostrophe', is U+2BC (decimal U+700). They can be written as ʻ and ʼ (decimal ʻ and ʼ), or with the templates and .


Comparison to common Latinizations

The Baháʼí transliteration can often differ markedly from versions commonly in use in English. While the accent and phonemic diacritic marks in the word "Baháʼí" indicate a three syllable pronunciation as , the official pronunciation guide of the Baháʼí World News Service gives a two syllable pronunciation of "ba-HIGH" for English. The realization of the English pronunciation varies. The
Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...
has ,
Merriam-Webster Merriam-Webster, Inc. is an American company that publishes reference books and is especially known for its dictionaries. It is the oldest dictionary publisher in the United States. In 1831, George and Charles Merriam founded the company as ...
has (reflecting in the first syllable the difference between the UK and the US with the 'pasta' vowel), and the
Random House Dictionary ''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary'' is a large American dictionary, first published in 1966 as ''The Random House Dictionary of the English Language: The Unabridged Edition''. Edited by Editor-in-chief Jess Stein, it contained 315,0 ...
has , all with three syllables.See and – A Guide to Pronunciation part 1 and 2, for more pronunciation instructions.


Notes


References


Sources

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External links


Dying for God
contains an introductory summary of Baháʼí terminology and transliteration used in academic literature.
Arabic, Proper pronunciation of
by the Universal House of Justice.
All Words – Bahaʼi Glossary, a Spoken Dictionary of Bahaʼi Words and Phrases – BahaIQ
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baha'i orthography
Orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mos ...
Romanization of Arabic 1923 introductions 1923 in Iran Languages attested from the 1920s 1923 in religion Persian orthography