RE: Looking for transcription or transliteration standards latin->arabicMike Ayers wrote:
>> it would >> definitely be completely unacceptable to write e.g. HaÅek's name >> (a famous Czech satyrist) as Hasek. > > When transcribing to English, however, removal of the caron > (macron? Apologies, but I tend to forget the names of most accents) > would be most acceptable (for American English, at least). Caron, or more commonly hacek. A macron is a shortish overline. English-speaking classical music buffs quickly learn to associate the diacritic-free spelling "Dvorak" with the (approximate) pronunciation /'dvÉrÊÉk/. Whether "Dvorak" is an acceptable way to spell "DvoÅÃk" probably depends on who's doing the accepting. For the computer columnist and the keyboard layout inventor, whose names are apparently pronounced /'dvÉÉÃk/ anyway, it's fine. >> Once we got into this debate, let me quote an example where >> distinguishing between diacritics as "familiar" and "unfamiliar" may >> lead to undesirable results. > > <SNIP/> > Interesting case, and one reason why diacritic stripping, > although brutal, may be desireable - it doesn't pretend to be > accurate. Accuracy can be very hard to achieve when transcribing, > especially since diacritics can be used to indicate very different > things in different languages. "Desirable because it doesn't pretend to be accurate." That's a useful philosophy at times, but I have to admit I'm surprised to see it expressed on the Unicode list. -Doug Ewell Fullerton, California http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/
