Middle East and Islamic Studies Library Resources

  Romanization

• Romanization refers to the process of representing non-Latin or vernacular scripts into Roman (Latin) Alphabet.
• Transliteration, on the other hand, literally refers to converting one script into another.
• Harvard Library uses the American Library Association and Library of Congress Romanization tables for the bibliographic description of non-Latin resources.
• Links to ALA-LC Romanization tables are available at the Library of Congress Website: ALA-LC Romanization Tables

ARABIC: Quick suggestions for searching Arabic resources in HOLLIS:

• Diacritics are not needed for searching
• Initial definite article (al-) is omitted
• Note middle definite articles are retained: For example: Isharat wa-al-tanbihat
• Taa marbutah - ends with an "h" and not an "a": For example: Mutasawwifah
• Pre-fixes and preposition are followed by a hyphen

PERSIAN: Quick suggestions for searching Persian resources in HOLLIS:

• The above points on Arabic script apply to Persian.
• Keyboard: When searching for Persian resources pay attention to two forms of final ي vs. ی. The UNICODE of the Persian keyboard vs. the UNICODE of the Arabic keyboard provide different results. For example: فردوسي and  فردوسی
• Different transliteration systems may produce different results on HOLLIS. Specifically, those transliteration systems (like Iranica) that are closer to modern standard Persian, produce less accurate results. Example: Ferdowsi and Firdausi
• Materials published after 2009 may not exist in Romanized. Instead they may only be accessible through the vernacular script. (Try both)

HEBREW: Quick suggestions for searching Hebrew resources in HOLLIS (adapted from Ornan and Leket-Mor, 2016; Biella, Fryser, and Lerner 2014)

• The letter ה is always represented by h whether they indicating a consonant or a vowel 

• The definite article ה, the conjunction ו, and the prepositions ל ,מ ,כ and ב written as prefixes in Hebrew script, are separated by hyphenation from the words to which they are prefixed in Romanization.

• However, multiple prefixed articles conjunctions, and prepositions are clustered together such that they are separated by ONLY one hyphen EXCEPT when one of the prefixes is the first word of a title.
• Every sheva in an initial syllables are sheva na' and are Romanized as an "e" regardless of their pronunciation. This includes instances in which sheva na' results from vowel reduction.
• Diacritics are used differently than in some transliteration systems and are restricted to the following: ṿ, ṭ, ḳ, ḥ, and ś.
• For the Romanization conventions of Geresh, Gershayim, and Miagkĭi Znak see Biella, Fryser, and Lerner 2014 (link below).
• In Romanization there is no distinction between dagesh ḥazaḳ (a.k.a "forte") and dagesh ḳal (a.k.a. "lene") and dagesh is noted to distinguish between /b/ and /v/, /k/ or /kh/, and /p/ or /f/ for כ ,ב, and פ respectively.

• When א is word-initial or syllable-final (including word-final), it is disregarded in Romanization. It is also omitted when used to indicate the presence of a vowel. When the Alef carries its own vowel, the character (’) is used to Romanize the letter, whereas (‘) is used for ע.  

Works Cited and Further Reading:

Biella,  Joan,  Benjamin  Fryser,  and  Heidi  Lerner.  2014.  Hebraica Cataloging, RDA, A Guide to ALA/LC Romanization and Descriptive Cataloging, Draft, June 2014.  Israel/Judai-ca Section Library of Congress, accessed January 1, 2015, http://rascat.pbworks.com/w/page/144076554/Documentation.

Molavi, Fereshteh. “Main Issues in Cataloging Persian Language Materials in North America.” Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 43, no. 2 (December 8, 2006): 77–82.

Ornan, Uzzi, and Rachel Leket-Mor. “Phonemic Conversion as the Ideal Romanization Scheme for Hebrew: Implications for Hebrew Cataloging.” Judaica Librarianship 19, no. 1 (2016): 43–72.

For a history of Romanization practices outside of library cataloging see (e.g.):

Ayturk, Ilker. “Script Charisma in Hebrew and Turkish: A Comparative Framework for Explaining Success and Failure of Romanization.” Journal of World History 21, no. 1 (2010): 97–130. https://doi.org/10.1353/jwh.0.0106.