V? '■.fy.iii-' THE BRITISH ACADEMY RANSLITERATION OF ARABIC AND PERSIAN eport of the Committee appointed to [raw up a practical scheme for the trans- literation into English of words and ames belonging to the Languages of the Nearer East l^From the Proceedings of the British Academy, VoL VI 11] London Published for the British Academy By Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press Amen Corner, E.G. Price One Shilling net THE BRITISH ACADEMY TRANSLITERATION OF ARABIC AND PERSIAN Report of the Committee appointed to draw up a practical scheme for the trans- literation into English of words and names belonging to the Languages of the Nearer East [From the Proceedings of the British Academy, Vol, VIII] London Published for the British Academy By Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press Amen Corner, E.G. PREFACE In July 1916 the Council of the British Academy decided to appoint a Committee — * To consider and draw up a practical scheme for the transliteration into English of words and names belonging to (a) Russian and other Slavonic languages, and (6) the languages of the Nearer East'. The members of the Committee were authorized to invite other persons, not being Fellows of the Academy, to co-operate ; and the work was divided between Sub- Committees consisting of persons acquainted with the languages to be dealt with. Schemes have now been prepared (a) for Slavonic languages and (b) for Arabic and Persian. It is hoped shortly to add one dealing with Turkish. The Slavonic Sub-Committee consisted of Sir Frederick Pollock, F.B.A. Sir Paul Vinogradov, F.B.A. Dr. Hagberg Wright. Mr. Minns. Dr. Seton-Watson. Mr. Nevill Forbes. Mr. Hinks, Secretary to the Royal Geographical Society. The Sub-Committee dealing with Arabic and Persian included Sir Charles Lyall, F.B.A. Prof. A. A. Bevan, F.B.A. Prof. T. Rhys Davids, F.B.A. Prof. D. S. Margoliouth, F.B.A. Sir Frederick Pollock, F.B.A. with the addition of Mr. Hinks, representing the Royal Geographical Society. The principles which have been followed are explained in the introduction to the Slavonic scheme, and, more briefly, in that to the scheme for Arabic and Persian. In the case of the latter the system recommended presents no novelty, but is the result of experience extending over many years. It practically agrees with that adopted more than fifty years ago by the Government of India for place-names in official use, and for the names of soldiers in the Indian Army, with such minor modifications as experience from time to time showed to be desirable. C. J. L. THE BRITISH ACADEMY SCHEME FOR TRANSLITERATION FROM ARABIC The objects to be aimed at in a scheme of transliteration foi* Arabic are the same as those in the scheme proposed for the Slavonic languages, viz. : — (1) Uniformity of rendering, so that it may at once be known on inspection of a Romanized name what its Arabic form is; (2) Avoidance as far as possible of diacritical marks and signs ; (3) Subject to these requirements, we should approximate as far as possible to English usage. As regards pronunciation, this varies so much, in respect both of vowels and consonants, throughout the region where Arabic is spoken, that it would be extremely difficult to indicate local varieties of pronunciation, and at the same time adhere to the first of the canons set forth above. Notwithstanding this variety, there is a common standard of literary Arabic which is reasonably uniform throughout the Arabic-speaking area, and this it is proposed to take as our guide. It has the advantage that the forms adopted in it are (with the exception of certain modifications of particular consonants) those in which Arabic words are taken over into Persian, Hindostani, and Turkish, so that it will suit these languages also in respect of their borrowed vocabulary. It is quite impossible to represent Arabic words without diacritical marks : to attempt this would lead to the utmost confusion. It is also absolutely necessary to distinguish between long and short vowels. If these marks are inconvenient for mapping purposes (as of course they are), so much the worse for the maps. In any case they should be supplied in the lists given in the indexes to atlases, or appended to single maps. It is probable that in common use (as in newspapers) they would generally be omitted ; but in serious literature it might be expected that an effort would be made, at any rate on 3316 A 2 3S4470 Vowels. Diphthongs. t a J 1 au (ou in house) c^n til ai (ai in aisle) 4 ARABIC TRANSLITERATION the first appearance of a name in the text, to give them as a guide to the pronunciation. No possible arrangement of Roman type, without such diacritical marks, would suffice to render sounds which have no equivalent in English : a convention is indispensable. With these remarks we pass on to the table of equivalents — a — u y u Observations. In the case of long final ct it is desirable, for the purpose of distinguishing different terminations in the original language, to have different forms for AH/ mamdudah and Alif magsurah. E. W. Lane uses a for the first, a, with the grave accent, for the second. It is suggested that this should be adopted. Consonants. I hamzah very rarely requires to be marked : when it does, use ', the Greek soft breathing. ^ t \i> th (as in thin). - 3 (in a large part of the Arabic-speaking area — in Egypt and the southern half of the Arabian peninsula — this letter is pro- nounced as a hard g, which was its original sound). ^ h (a thick h, pronounced somewhat less strongly than ch in loch [Scottish or German] ). ^ kh, the same sound pronounced with greater force and roughness. ^ d i dh (like the th in then), J r (always distinctly sounded, never slurred as in English). J 2 iji sh ^ 8 (this sound represents a lateral emission of the breath with the tip of the tongue pressed against the roots of the upper teeth : it is the s of ts, and in loun-words represents a Persian or Indian ch). ARABIC TRANSLITERATION 5 j_^ d (a sound formed with the tongue in the same position, but making a sonant stop instead of a hiss. It is one of the most difficult sounds in the language). Jo t (a ^ formed in the same relative positions of tongue and teeth as the s and d above. In words borrowed by Arabic from European languages i> is generally used for t, not t^). Jo The proper sound of this letter is to ^^ d as dh j is to c? ^ ; but it is very widely pronounced as a modified z, and to avoid a cumbrous expression such as dh we may perhaps use z. c This characteristic Semitic guttural can only be rendered by the convention ' (Greek hard or rough breathing). Its omission would lead to great confusion in the identification of words. c. gh (as in French r grasseye, Mod. Greek y before hard vowels) has long been accepted as the best means of expressing this letter. uJ f ^J q This is a distinctive hard A:-sound, pronounced by compressing the lower fauces : the alternative to q is dotted k, which is objectionable as adding to the number of dotted letters. Moreover, European g is the direct descendant of the Phoenician letter represented by j. e) k (palatal k, in many parts of Arabia pronounced as ch). Jl j.m u n 5 h This is the ordinary English h : it should be sounded after as well as before vowels. At the end of a word (when written i) it is sounded as t when the following noun is in the genitive case. It is often left out by modern transliterators at the end of a word, when silent in pronunciation : but it is submitted that it had better be retained, to exhibit clearly the difference between final -a, -a, -a and -ah (examples, anta * thou ' ; khadrd ' green ' (f .) ; al-kubra ' the greatest ' (f .) ; ^Antarah, a proper name). Though now silent it was formerly sounded, as is proved by rhymes in which it occurs. 3 w ^ y All the above are consonants, and all of them can on occasion be doubled ; they can all follow as well as precede a vowel. Strictly speaking, each single letter in Arabic should be represented a3 6 ARABIC TRANSLITERATION by a single letter in Roman, and therefore such digraphs as th, kh, dh, sh, gh are objectionable, especially when it is necessary to double them. Moreover, we may have cases where in these combinations the h is sounded separately from the accompanying letter : e.g. amit- hu, audid-ku, mus-hir : in such cases (which are not very common) a hyphen between the two letters will make matters clear. This scheme gives the minimum of dotted letters, viz. five : h, s. t, dj z ; nothing less is possible. It is suggested that the Arabian article, al-, may without objection be omitted in many cases where the name should, according to classical usage, have it. Thus Basrah, Kufah, Yaman, Hijaz, Ta'if, Riyad, instead of al-Basrah, al-Kufah, al- Yaman, al-Hijaz, at-Ta'if, ar-Riyad. When the / of the article is assimilated to the following consonant, it is proposed to substitute for it the latter ; *Abd ar-Rahman, not * Abd al-Rahman ; 'Abd ad-Dar, not ' Abd al-Dar ; Dhu-r-Rummah, not Dhu-1-Rummah. It is also proposed to adopt for masculine sound plurals and for duals the oblique forms in -In and -ain, in accordance with modern usage, thus : Bahrain for Bahrani, Kazimain for Kazimani, Muslimin for Muslimuna, Banin for Bantina (and similarly Bani for Banti). The form of a word selected for transliteration is that which it bears in pause : this involves, except in certain pronominal forms, the dropping of final short vowels. SCHEME FOR TRANSLITERATION FROM PERSIAN The objects in view in regard to Persian are the same as those in the case of Arabic, and the same alphabet is used for both languages ; but the difficulty which arises is that in Persian certain letters have different values from those which they bear in Arabic, and that many letters are pronounced alike in Persian which have different sounds in Arabic. Thus in Persian Cj (Arabic th) ^j£> { „ s) 1-are all pronounced as s u- ( » s) PERSIAN TRANSLITERATION are all pronounced as z j (Arabic dh) J ( " ^) (> ( » 4) Jo ( „ dhor z), The Persian alphabet adds the letters V P -. ch (of Church) J zh (the s in pleasure) ^ % (hard) In order that the spelling in the original character may be gathered from the transliteration in Roman, it is desirable that the three forms of s and four of z should be distinguished, although for most practical purposes it will be unnecessary to use the diacritical marks: the following equivalents are suggested : — o (Arabic th) s i> ( « ^) z i ( ,, dh) z The scheme for Persian will then be as follows : — Vowels and Diphthongs (as in Arabic). (In addition to the Arabic vowels Old Persian had the long o and the long e (as in roz, sher) : but in Iran these are now replaced by it and l. In India, Afghanistan and Turkistan the old vowels still survive, and should be retained in Persian names belonging to those regions.) Consonants. \ Use ' as in Arabic in the rare cases where it is necessary to mark the hiatus ; e.g. cClUj mu «/. i_> b ^ h V P ^ kh i:y t J d OS i z 2,3 J r ch J z PERSIAN TRANSLITERATION J zh e) k u- sh J 1 • ^ ^ ^ m c^ n L t » h (may be dropped when ^ ? silent at the end of a ^ word after short a) t_ ^ J w (or V, to which the sound ^ f . - approximates in Persian) Below are given specimen lists for Arabic and Persian names of places and persons, transliterated according to the proposed system. The asterisk against a name indicates that the spelling is already fixed by usage, though not strictly in accordance with the prescribed scheme. ARABIC NAMES ♦Aden ('Adan) Aflaj Ahwaz •Ain Tab 'Ain at-Tamr *Aleppo (Halab) 'AmSrab Ambar 'Ammurlyah 'Anah 'Aqabah 'Aqarquf 'Asir Places. s-ye. dilc ♦Baghdad ♦Bahrain ♦Beyrout (Bairut) Ba'quba ♦Basrah al-Batlhah al-Batinah Buraidah Busr^ Daba Dar as-Salam Darlyah ARABIC NAMES 9 ad-Dar'iyah (also Dir' lyah) ilC;Ill Hudaidah iJoxU Dhamar jUij Dijlah (Tigris) Ibb Dinawar J}^-i 'Iraq jl^l Diyal^ Jte *l3mailia (Isma illyah) M . O Diyarbakr P^i 'Dongola Jauf V^Il Dujailah w Jazirah Jibal Faid o - Falj I Karbala -€} Kazimah i;b\s- Fallujah Aa^ ■Fao '> al-Kazimain ^^!a!5JI al-Fayyum fj^' Khabur > ■Fez 1 Khaniqin cr^^ Filastln (c^JA?) c^^: Kufah al-Furat (Euphrates) ^]p\ ^ Kut al-Amarah S^L^l e:,/ Kuwait e*j^.> ^Gaza (Ghazzah) ijS. al-Ghaur >' Lahaj (properly Lahj) al-Lajah Hadramaut 1 *Lebanon Hail ^y Hajar jStJb Ma'an (J^ al-Has^ («l15i) Ui Ma'arrat an-Nu'man ^l«JtI]l s^ (properly al-Ahsa) Mambij o ^ Hijaz JWM *Mascat (Masqat) .VlB^I Hillah .-IJJ Matrah ^>11 Hindlyali ioSXjt, *Mecca (Makkab) i^: Hufhuf, Hufuf 1 — sjsjiii ^j^ *Medina (al-Madlnah) Aj;jjJi.l ^ So written in the Indian Foreign Office name lists, while Amarah is spelt i,Uc ; but in the Encyclopaedia of Islam and Le Strange's Lajids of the Eastern Caliphate the latter spelling, with c, is given for both names. Le Strange also writes qut for kut : it is the Indian word kot. 10 ARABIC NAMES *Mocha lii Sa'Id (Upper Egypt) Xoc>Ill *Mosul (al-Mausil) J^P> San'a 'IxLS Muhamnmrali B^^SsLJl Shaikh 'Uthman Shihr Nafud iJ'.W Suhar Najaf l_ASO Suq ash-Shuyukh Najd Nasiriyah AJ^lj Ta'izz *'Oman ('Uman) u^ Tharmada Tihamah 1 '°» Qal'at Ayyub (Spanish Calatayud) l_Jjil Axis Tur > Qalhat al-Qantarah 'Unaizah Qasim ^\ Wadi-r-Rummah ilp\ (JjIj Qatar > Wasit JaMla Qurnah «0« Yaman c^l ar-Eass j_,u,Jl Eiyad ^ipl Zabid •i^ Rustaq Zafar j\i^ Arabic Personal and Tribal Names. 'Abbas ^Zs. 'Amir 'Abdallah 4Ul JujC 'Anazah 'Abd al-Halim (^ J^^ Asaf 'Abd al-Karim l^^l J>*C 'Abd ar-Rahman t^^l A^ Badr Afdal jiil Baqir Ahmad J«3.1 Barakah Akbar ^ Burhau •All c> Amir w^*' Dabbah ^-^ >J^. ARABIC NAMES 11 Darim CJ^' Kalb ^ Daud Kamal JuT Dhubl >i Kamil d-^ Dbu-1-Qarnain Kazim ^^ Khalaf k_fi.i» Fadl-allab Alll J-li Khalid jJU. Faisal Jl^i Khaulah ^> Faqir J^f' Khazraj J^ Gbaffar Khidr (also Khadir) Khindif Gbadanfar *• o •* *• Khazaah Ghautb ^> Kindah ix4 Gbulam Ahmad J^^l j»^ Kulaib Hakim ^^ Kulthiim ^ Hakim ^ Labid ^ Hamid Hamid Hasan Hashim Husain J.* la. O 'f Lailk Lakhm Laqit Libyan al-Husain c;ii Mahbiib ^y^St^ Mahmud i^^&Ji Ibrahim Ihsan Maimun Malik 'Imad ^U Malik dDU Imam 'Imran Ismail Mansur Manzur Masih Masud e - Mazhar >^ Ja'far ^^ Mirdas u-'j^ Jauhar ^*J^ Mis'ar >^ 12 al-Miswar Mu'azzam Mubarak Mubamraad Mu'ia Mu'izz JMukhtar Muslim Mustafa Muzaffar Na'im Najib Najm Nasir Nasir Nazir Nazir Na'um Nizam ARABIC NAMES 'B Qaim |JJ»*» Qasim d;L* Qutb o - # Rahim Ramadan j^ }-%:. Sad • Sadiq p n^*> Said Jl^ . Tahir Tamlm Tayyi' 'Utaibah 'Utbah 'Uzair Walid Uai Yazld ■M oi' 'J* _ 0,t Qadir Qadir Zubaid Zuhair PERSIAN NAMES Places. Ablvard ^jy^y Amul Aiwan-i-Kisrii, KS^ ^yy Andarab Alaraut ^^\ Ardabll Alburz '> Arzinjan Alvand j^ijil Ashurada PERSIAN NAMES 13 Astarabad .jbKi-l Ganja .^•r Atrak Azarba'Tjan Garmsir Gilan Badakhshan Bakharz Bakhtyarl Bam Bandar 'Abbas Girishk Gulistan Gurgan Gurjistan Guwain Barfarush Bihbihan Hamadan Harl E.ud Blijand Bisitun *Bokhara Burujird *Helmand (Hirmand) (xLyi) J.:»U *Herat luI^a Hurmuz j^a *Bushire jT'y- Iran Shahr /r* cjU' Chach Chihil Situn Isfahan Isfarayin Istakhr (Persepolis) Damavand jjjUi Damghan ^jUob Jalk elJU. DarSbjird Darband Jam Jashk Dasht-i-Lut i.J v..to Jiruft ""^y^ Dastagird JjAi-ji Julfa SaJi». Dizftil Jij-i *Kandahar .IajjlS *Enzeli (Anzall) Fahraj Kangavar Karun Kashan Farghana »jlc^ Kavir y.f *Fars (Faris) y-,U Kazirun o^j/ Firuzabad ^^■W Khaulan u^> Firuzkuh (Ferozkoh) »i5),/<^ Khoi Jjh 14 PERSIAN NAMES Khurasan KhurramSbad Panjdih Plshlu ^.^^H o^^^. Khwaf U-sLa. Pul-i-Khatun uy^ Ji Khwarizm p}i^ Kirman Kirmanshah Kuhistan (Kohistan) Qasr-i-Shlrin Qazvlu Qumis Kurdistan u^V Qumm Lahijan Lar Linga Luristan Rai Ramhurmuz Rayln *Resht (Rasht) Rudbar J^-^X> Maiwand jj^** Makran (properly Mukrau) ^j\fl Rustaq ■■[■■ ' MarBgha Mai'uchak Sabzavar jbj^ (properly Marv-i-kuchak) Samnau u^- Marv J;* Sarakhs ? " " Masbbad * o - Sarhadd Ml Mazandaran ul;-^> Shiraz .1 « Minab V_>ljU« Shiz >i Murghab v_jIc^ Shustar (also Shush tar jJ:^^) j^y^ Nabrawau Narmasblr Nimruz Sistan Sultanabad Surkhab Niriz Nishapur (formerly Nesbapur) Tabaristan Tabas u^/4» Nusratabad iblcy/^ Tabriz >H/^" *Teheran (Tiluan) uJ/% Pamir ^/ft*V Urmlya Van Wakhau PERSIAN NAMES IJ -i Yazd ^J> u'j Zanda Rud ^JU '^j Zarafshan U^\)) u^'^ Zinjan u^^; Persian Personal Names. (Most Persian proper names are Arabic and occur in the Arabic list ; but Persian [and also Hindostani and Turkish] usage differs from that of Arabic in regard to one point — the retention of the short u of the nominative case in compound names of which the second element begins with the article al-. In Arabic the u is dropped and the a of al- retained ; in Persian the u is retained and supersedes the a of the article ; thus Arabic 'Abdallah, 'Abd al-Karim, become Persian 'Abdullah, 'Abdul-Karim.) Afsar j^\ Bu 'AH Qalandar ^ Xdj Ji:^. Ahmad-yai j\i X^\ Bunyad ^W'> Akhtar ^^\ 'Alamdar jtjjb Chiragh e'^ 'Alam Shir (Sher) J^ (J^ Dad ob 'All-dad .b J. Daraz 'h^ 'All Mardan uV (> Dargahl Amanat lO^jlol Didar Anwarl ^jy^ Dilawar Azad .\j\ Dildar Dlwan uIj-P Bahadur y^u,^. Dust (DOst) Muhammad ^♦s:"Ou«,i Bahram ^w. ^ Bakhshish u^- Fafzl ^ Banda-i-'AlI Jc ts:i. Faqlr Shah slw t-fl.9 Barkhurdar }br-J- Farldun (Fareduu) uj-V Basharat t^Li.i Farman u^-y Baz 'k Farzand Jj'u9 16 PERSIAN NAMES Fayyaz 'Ali J^ u^^ Mahtab Fazl-dad jljJuii Mastan Firuz (Feroz) jiJ^ Mihrban Mihrdad Gauhar yf Mir Akhuiid Ghaus Muhammad S^ ^jC. Mirza Ghulam Murtazi i^> r^ Miyan Jan Gulshah »li jT GulzSr ,\jLr Namdar Haqq-nawaz j\yo=- Naqshband Hushyar ,u Nau-nihal Naurang Imam-bakhsh Uii! |.U Nawaz Irach 5/-' Nawazish Isfandiyar j ^liAii-l Niyaz 'Izzat ->e Jahanglr j^^ Padshah Jamshid (Jamshed) XJU* Pahlvan Jang-baz jb lii^ Pirdad Jan-i 'Alam Pulad Jum'ah Purdil Kalb-i-'AlI J-v^ Qalandar Kamal JuT Qubad Ka'us L^-J*^ Qurban 'All Kazim 'Ali ^^'^ Khuda-bakhsli (jii*. Ui. Khuda-yar >lj^ Kabb-nawaz Khwaja »a.l^ 'Razk'AlI JJ La'l-baz >. ^ (or juL) ^ttj) >U>jLp.> i> uV Roshan (Raushan) cr'J; RuBtam * So pronounced in Persian. The correct vocalization is Riza (Rida). Sabit Safdar Sahibdad Salar Sarafraz Sarbaz Sarbuland Shahsawar Shamshad Shir (Sher) Sblrln PERSIAN NAMES ooU Sikandar jSsu> Suhrab jIa.o.1^ 1 Tawangar Timur ;V Turab 'All Umid (Umed) A d'-j^ Zaman J 17 u4; 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due oq the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subjea to immediate recall. 3Jun'6IJC ^"^m ^■^'' Print figNTONtLL NOV 3 Z001 U. C. BbHKELEV SEf^'TOr>IILL FEB 2 2002 U. C. BL::rav.;.JxY LD 21A-50m-12,'60 (B6221sl0)476B General Library University of California Berkeley Gaylamount Pamphlet Binder Oaylord Bros., Inc. Stockton, Calif. T.M. Reg. U.S. Pat. Off. 38-i470 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES i ,