LINGUIST List 13.935

Fri Apr 5 2002

Qs: Arabic Transliteration Rules, Apostrophe Rules

Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karenlinguistlist.org>



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Directory

  • Kurt S. Godden, Arabic Transliteration Rules
  • Daniel Buncic, Apostrophe rules

    Message 1: Arabic Transliteration Rules

     Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2002 15:37:53 -0500
    From: Kurt S. Godden <kgoddenatl.lmco.com>
    Subject: Arabic Transliteration Rules


    Does anyone know of a website or other easily accessible source of info for transliteration rules for Arabic into Roman (mainly English) alphabets? I am primarily interested in personal names and organization names. Thanks.

    - Kurt Godden, Ph.D. Principal Member of the Engineering Staff Advanced Technology Labs Lockheed Martin Corporation 1 Federal Street, AE 3W Camden, NJ 08102 USA

    Message 2: Apostrophe rules

     Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2002 08:26:58 +0200
    From: Daniel Buncic <dbuncicweb.de>
    Subject: Apostrophe rules


    Dear Linguist List,

    The apostrophe is often neglected in graphemic descriptions (it is regarded neither a proper punctuation mark nor a letter). At the same time it is the object of a fervent battle against popular misspellings in several languages (e.g. English _thank's_, _is'nt_, German _Peter's Kneipe_, _gib'_). This and other observations have given me the idea that the true function of the apostrophe is misunderstood if it is defined as a mark of omission. Instead, in my opinion it should be defined exclusively as a marker of morpheme-boundaries (probably in all languages!). I am writing a comparative paper about this, so I would be happy if you could help me with the following questions:

    1. Where are apostrophes placed in your language?

    2. Do the rules define it as a mark of omission, as a marker of boundaries, or as something else?

    3. Are there frequent deviations from the rules?

    4. Do you know any historical data about the origin of the apostrophe? Why does it look the way it looks (')?

    Thank you very much in advance. Please send your answers to dbuncicweb.de, and I will post a summary to the list.

    Daniel Buncic ================================================= Bonn University Seminar of Slavonic Philology Lenn�str. 1, D-53113 Bonn Phone: + 49 228 73-7203 E-mail: dbuncicweb.de Homepage: http://www.uni-bonn.de/~dbuncic/ =================================================