tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22261571.post3213289533436186315..comments2024-03-20T01:06:12.181-04:00Comments on MEI Editor's Blog: "She was a Splendid Beast": The Arabic Transliteration ProblemUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22261571.post-39621454166819718462010-03-03T12:04:03.323-05:002010-03-03T12:04:03.323-05:00"Bulghur wheat I know. Burghul I cannot judg..."Bulghur wheat I know. Burghul I cannot judge", even if it is the Arabic form.<br /><br /><a href="http://authorities.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?AuthRecID=60188&v1=1&HC=1&SEQ=20100303115816&PID=4NZ1077E_0uO18CmZXEO3OEInkhN" rel="nofollow">Here</a> is the Library of Congress name authority record for That Guy, listing 63 versions of his name that have been used in catalog cards as author, title, or subject. The canonical form chosen by the library is on the 100 line, the 62 variants are on the 400 lines.John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22261571.post-8805449867457809872009-07-29T08:04:55.499-04:002009-07-29T08:04:55.499-04:00It is a good practice to always represent shaddah ...It is a good practice to always represent shaddah as a double letter. Omitting the shaddah may result in confusion. <br /><br />Have you heard of the BATR scheme?<br />http://www.eiktub.com<br /><br />The advantage of using BATR is the wealth of online tools which have been built around this scheme... mainly to efficiently type and search the web or Arabic content.Samhttp://www.eiktub.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22261571.post-18729363409626250402009-06-26T14:04:19.847-04:002009-06-26T14:04:19.847-04:00Loved this post. Even before leaving the U.S. Fo...Loved this post. Even before leaving the U.S. Foreign Service, I found the CIA's transliteration system impossibly cumbersome. I knew why it was important -- for information retrieval -- but it interfered with my efforts to communicate with the my readers outside the intelligence community, most of whom were blissfully unaware of the CIA transliteration guide. As a 29 year old Second Secretary and interpreter for the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, I decided that I would stop referring the Captain Mu'ammar as al-Qadhdhafi. Most of those reading my reporting had never heard of the Arabic shadda in any case and probably thought it was a typo to repeat dh. I insisted on the double m, however, in an often futile effort to avoid people calling him Momer. My partial simplification took hold with most folks in the USG, although one senior official expressed indignation to me that Libyan leaders did not even know how to spell their own names, along with other shortcomings.David Macknoreply@blogger.com