Hans Wehr transliteration - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Hans Wehr transliteration system is a methodology for transliteration

Transliteration

Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...

of the Arabic alphabet

Arabic alphabet

The Arabic alphabet or Arabic abjad is the Arabic script as it is codified for writing the Arabic language. It is written from right to left, in a cursive style, and includes 28 letters. Because letters usually stand for consonants, it is classified as an abjad.-Consonants:The Arabic alphabet has...

, used in the Hans Wehr dictionary

Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic

The Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic is an Arabic-English dictionary compiled by Hans Wehr and edited by J Milton Cowan.First published in 1961 by Otto Harrassowitz in Wiesbaden, Germany, it was an enlarged and revised English version of Wehr's German Arabisches Wörterbuch für die Schriftsprache...

, with some changes enacted to the system between two editions of the dictionary. The transliteration system uses no digraphs. It is always displayed in the italic style of Latin-alphabet font. It uses two types of diacritics. It uses a dot underneath or upside for some letters. It also uses a line underneath for other letters. For long vowels a macron is used (a line on top of the letter). No capital letters are used (they were in previous editions).

The transliteration of the Arabic alphabet:

Letter	Name	Transliteration	4th English Edition
ا	Alif	ā or
ب		b
ت		t
ث
ج	Ǧīm	ǧ	j
ح
خ
د	Dāl	d
ذ
ر		r
ز	Zāy	z
س	Sīn	s
ش	Šīn	š
ص
ض
ط
ظ
ع
غ	Ġain	ġ
ف		f
ق	Qāf	q
ك	Kāf	k
ل	Lām	l
م	Mīm	m
ن	Nūn	n
ه		h
و	Wāw	w or ū
ي		y or ī

Hamza (ء): Transliterated as . Never transliterated at the beginning of a word.
No special letter for the (ة). Either the letter "t" or the letter "h" depending on context. When a word with a is written alone a normal letter "h" (or just as an "a") is used to transcribe it. This depends on pronunciation.
Native Arabic long vowels: ā ī ū
Long vowels in borrowed words: ē ō
Diphthongs: ai, au
Short vowels: should be transcribed as "a", kasra as "i" and as "u".
Non-Standard Arabic consonants: p (پ), ž (ژ), g (گ)
Alif maqsūra (ى): ā
Madda (آ):
Words that end in a letter (يّ) that could be written with a šadda (consonant gemination symbol): This nisba ending is transliterated as īy.
Capitalization: in the current Hans Wehr transliteration system (the fourth edition) no capital letters are used whatsoever, even in proper nouns; the reason given for this is that the upper-case /lower-case contrast does not exist in Arabic writing, so deciding whether a word should begin with a capital letter would be pointless guess work (it is pointless because the definition of the word given beside the word in the dictionary).
Arabic definite Article: The Arabic definite article ال is always rendered as "al-" except where assimilation occurs (al + šams BECOMES aš-šams). Never does the "a" in "al-" change.

See also