Bikdash Arabic Transliteration Rules are a set of rules for the

romanization of Arabic The romanization of Arabic is the systematic rendering of written and spoken Arabic in the Latin script. Romanized Arabic is used for various purposes, among them transcription of names and titles, cataloging Arabic language works, language ed ...

that is highly phonetic, almost one-to-one, and uses only two special characters, namely the hyphen and the apostrophe as modifiers. This standard also includes rules for diacritization, including tanwiin. This

transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one writing system, script to another that involves swapping Letter (alphabet), letters (thus ''wikt:trans-#Prefix, trans-'' + ''wikt:littera#Latin, liter-'') in predictable ways, such as ...

scheme can be thought of as a compromise between the

Qalam A qalam ( ar, قلم) is a type of pen made from a cut, dried reed, used for Islamic calligraphy. The pen is seen as an important symbol of wisdom in Islam, and references the emphasis on knowledge and education within the Islamic tradition. E ...

transliteration and the Buckwalter Transliteration. It represents

consonants In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...

with one letter and possibly the apostrophe (or single quotation mark) as a modifier, and uses one or several Latin vowels to represent short and long Arabic vowels. It strives for minimality as well as phonetic expressiveness. It does not distinguish between the different shapes of the

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 ...

since it assumes that a software implementation can resolve the differences through the standard rules of spelling in Arabic :ar:إملاء. Note: The Arabic words in this article are written using the Bikdash Arabic Transliteration Rules.

Guiding Principles

The rules were designed with the following principles in min

* Capital and small symbols of the same English letter represent in general different sounds or different Arabic letters. In general, capital letters are emphatic versions of small letters whether vowels or consonants. * The Arabic script should be deducible from its transliteration unambiguously and without necessarily understanding the meaning of the Arabic text. The reverse should also be possible when the Arabic script is fully diacritic, diacritized or vowelled (i.e. with , and other .). BATR must be high-quality to allow writing the qureaan or Arabic poetry exactly. * BATR should be highly

phonetic Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...

in the sense that a person with no knowledge of Arabic should be able to read and pronounce the Arabic text with "reasonable" accuracy. When the principles of BATR are explained, this person should be able to approximate the sound of the Arabic text with high accuracy. * Long vowels of

Classical Arabic Classical Arabic ( ar, links=no, ٱلْعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ, al-ʿarabīyah al-fuṣḥā) or Quranic Arabic is the standardized literary form of Arabic used from the 7th century and throughout the Middle Ages, most notab ...

are represented by doubled symbols: ''ii'', ''aa'', and ''uu'', and ''i'', ''a'', and ''u'' represent short versions (, ). In general, combinations of vowels are allowed to express different vowels or intonations including

vernacular A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...

colloquial Colloquialism (), also called colloquial language, everyday language or general parlance, is the linguistic style used for casual (informal) communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom normally employed in conver ...

or other nonstandard vowels. For instance, ''ai'' represents the Egyptian-dialect vowel in ? (meaning "where?"). * When a vernacular Arabic word can be said, pronounced, or written in several forms, one of which agrees with Classical Arabic, then this latter form is adopted.

Transliteration tables

is always represented by ''e''. The correct spelling form is deducible from standard rules of spelling when the word is fully voweled. This is in contrast to Buckwalter Transliteration where several symbols are needed; e.g., on is represented by > while on is represented by &. : ealif: In general, is represented by ''aa'' or ''A''. The is represented by ''eo'' while is represented by ''aaa''. : Harakaat :* :* :* :* :* :* :* or is represented by the letter repeated :*: ''o'' or ''-o-'' :* :*_

Notes

{{reflist

External links

On-line transliteration and downloadable stand-alone transliteration pad according to BATR

Romanization of Arabic