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Mechanical Transliteration Of Arabic?
6-7 April 2001
This scribble is designed to illustrate about the least unpleasant purely automatic rendition of Arabic into pedantic transcription that I can manage. It presumes that you have the ElChipo "Dushizat" font. (N.B., plain "Dushizat" is the current standard transliteration font. "Dushizat New Roman" is older and obsolete because it turned out to conflict obscurely with Microsoft Word for Windows 9.0 when there is Arabic-script Arabic aroud in the same document.) The sort of Arabic it converts is "Windows Arabic," Codepage 1256.
Two radical ElChipoisms will be noted below at once:
(1) It looks better to render plain alif with the exclamation point always than to try to guess when it should be a smooth breathing and when a long . On the other hand, the alifs with hamza can be rendered as the smooth breathing with confidence. (A lot could be achieved if I started my code about Arabic grammar, but this is supposed to be a simplistic rendition, so I have taken account of nothing more sophisticated that what character comes before and what character comes after the one at hand.)
(2) There is also t marba(h). Writing /h/ is misleading, but then so is writing /t/. Hence the it-can't-be-anything-else /+/.
Hyphens are inserted after E.G. Browne's fashion when the letter /h/ might be part of a digraph but in context isn't. This rule means that every "sh" "th" "dh" (also "ch" and "zh," because we are Persian-enabled) without a hyphen in the middle must be a digraph. The result can be a bit puzzling. I took alarmingly long to realize that /thm/ couldn't possibly have anything to do with at-Tihma but was only my old friend thumma. (I do securely know a few Arabic words, you see.)
And now let us have a few goodies from Lisnu l-Arab. The following text is from a file of quadriliteral entries that seem to occur twice in the monster file available in the public domain at
<< http://mail.almuhaddith.org >>
Common words, ones you use every day ....
Keep in mind that there is far, far more vocalization here in a dictionary than there would be in a real text. Setting off the rubric roots in boldface and trying to make it plain what is verse was not done by machine.
rbth: !luthrubu w!lurbuthu, b!lm: nbt; wfy !lmkm: nab!t
suhliyyun; wqyl: l! yanbutu il! fy jaladin, whw aswd, wzahrt-h by!, whw
ytasaau qub!n!an; anshd !bn !lar!by:
gharraka minniy shaathiy wlabathiy,
wlimamun awlaka, mithlu !lurbuthi
q!l: shabbah limama !liby!ni fy saw!d-h! b!lurbuth. w!lurbuthu:
bql+ nw !layhuq!ni afr! ghabra! tujibu !lm!la, why mn nab!t
!lssahl; wq!l abw nyf+: !lurbuth nbt yanbasiu le !lar, lh waraq
w!lun, wbyn dhlk !luwa!l waraqun gh!run; wq!l abw zy!d: !lurbuthu
ushbun mn ar!r !lbaql; !laz-hry: !lurbuthu mn ayab !lmr!y; wyq!l:
ayabu !lghanm lbn!an m! akla !lurbuthu w!lssad!na.
(( Not in Hava. Call it "frogwort." ))
klbth: rjl kalbathun wkul!bithun: bkhyl munqabun. q!l !bn durayd: rjl
kulbuthun wkul!bithun, whw !lulbu !lshdydu.
(( Not in Hava. ))
qlth: taqathala fy mashyh, wtaqalatha, kl!hm! idh! marra kanh
yataqalla mn waalin, why !lqalath+u.
(( Not in Hava. ))
drbkh: darbakhati !lm!m+u ldhakrh!: khaat lh w!wt-h llssif!d, wkdhlk
!lrjlu idh! a rs-h wbs hrh; q!l:
wlw nqwlu: darbikhuw!, ldarbakhuw!
lfalin!, idh sarrah !lttanawwukhu
yqwl: iny syd !lshr!.
w!lddarbakha+: !ligh! ile !lshy w!ltdhll; q!l !bn dryd: asbh!
sry!ny+. wdarbakha: dhalla; n !bn !lar!by, wlm yatdhr lh; wkdhlk k!h
yqwb, w!l! !lmhml+ lgh+, wqd tqdm dhkrh. wdarbakha !lrjlu: ane hrh;
n !lly!ny.
(( Not in Hava, although drbj and drb are. Notice the problem about handling shadda of the assimilated article in both /llssif!d/ and /w!lddarbakha+/. I suppose if the doubled consonant is to go in, the assimilated lam ought to come out. But it really depends on how much circumambient vocalization there is, no? On the other hand, why on earth did anybody bother to stick that kind of perfectly predictable shadda in at all? Nevertheless, it is our duty to transliterate what they wrote and not try to write it better for them. ))
qfz: !laqfaza+u: an yjls !lrjlu jils+ !lmutabiy thm ym rkbtyh
wfkhdhyh k!ldhy yahmmu bamrin shhw+an lh; wanshd:
thm a!ba s!+an faaqfaza!,
thm al!h! fadaa! w!rtahaza!
(( Not in Hava. /yahhmu/ is another unhappy shadda event. ))
lhz: !lilhizu: wabarun ykhl bdm!i !lalami k!nt !lrb fy !lj!hly+
tklh fy !ljadb, wfy dyth ikrima+: k!n !m ahl !lj!hly+
!lilhiza. !laz-hry: !lilhizu !lwabaru m dami !lalami, winm! k!n dhlk fy
!lj!hly+ y!lj bh! !lwabaru m dm! !lalam yklwnh; wanshd !bn shmyl:
winna qirae qa!na qirfun wilhizun,
faqbi bhdh! waya nfsika mn fili
wq!l abw !lhythm: !lilhizu dm y!bsun yudaqqu bh awb!r !libl fy
!lmj!!t wywkl; wanshd:
n akliya !lilhiza akla !laysi
wfy !ldyth fy d!eh, lyh !lsl!m, le muara: !llhm !jlh! lyhm
siniyna kasiniy yuwsufa, f!btuluw! b!ljw te aklw! !lilhiza;
q!l !bn !lathyr: hw shyun ytkhdhwnh fy sny !lmj!+ ykhlwn !ldm bawb!r !libl thm
yashwuwnh b!ln!r wyklwnh, q!l: wqyl k!nw! ykhlwn fyh !lqird!na. wyq!l llqur!d !lkhm: ilhizun, wqyl: !lilhizu shyun ynbt bbl!d bny
sulaym lh al kal !lbardiyyi; wmnh dyth !l!stsq!:
wl! shya mm! yklu !ln!su ndn!,
siwae !lanali !l!my: w!lilhizi !lfasli
wlysa ln! il!!a ilyka fir!run!,
wayna fir!ru !ln!si il! ile !lrrusl?
!bn !lar!by: !lilhizu !lwfu yunfashu wyushrabu b!ldm!i wyushwae
wywkl, q!l: wn!bun ilhizun wdirdiun, q!l !bn shmyl: hy !lty fyh!
bqy+un wqd asannat.
q!l !bn syd-h: !lmualhazu !lasanu !lghidh!i k!lmuazhal. !ljwhry:
lm mualhazun idh! lm yanaj.
(( Not in Hava either. Batting 0 for 6, we are.... ))
stteaching abic grammar, but this is intend list of quadriliteral root articless, ones you use every day .... (( Not in Hava. /yahm(( Not in Hava either, despite all the attention it ets. Batting 0 for 6, the Jesuits / 4 * : @ Y \ Y
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I suppose I ought to post the original as well, but that will have to be a separate file, since
I'd much rather keep this part in Word 2.0. Look for UNVOC_XL.DOC, then, this file being UNVOC_XL.W20. (And actually both names will be all lower case to suit unix.)guit uNIX
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m e Times New Roman Symbol & Arial 5 Courier New Garamond Dushizat New Roman Dushizat
d 0 U [ y % Y Z ^ v | g . ^ & F & \ q! e E! r! o! " h D5T:T Y s 4 5 John H. McCloskeyJohn H. McCloskey