Transcription (linguistics) facts for kids

Transcription is like changing information from one form to another. Imagine you have a recording of someone speaking. Transcription is when you write down exactly what they said. It can also mean turning a physical book into a digital file you can read on a computer.

A transcriber is the person who does this work. They listen to sounds or look at old documents and turn them into written text.

It's important to know the difference between transcription and transliteration. Transcription tries to capture the sound of words. Transliteration, on the other hand, tries to change words from one writing system to another, keeping the letters as close as possible.

For example, the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a special system used to write down sounds. It helps people from different languages understand how words are pronounced. SAMPA is a similar system that uses regular computer characters.

What is Transcription?

Transcription is about capturing sounds or images and turning them into written words. This is useful for many things, like making speeches into text or turning old handwritten notes into digital files.

Sound to Text

When we talk about transcription in language, it often means changing spoken words into written ones. This is how subtitles for videos are made, or how interviews are turned into articles.

Different Ways to Write Names

Sometimes, names or words from one language are written in another. This can be tricky because different languages have different sounds and writing rules.

Here's an example with the name of a former Russian president, Boris Yeltsin. You can see how his name, which is Борис Николаевич Ельцин in Russian, is written differently in other languages.

How Words Change

Words can be written differently depending on the system used. For example, the capital of China is Beijing today. But in an older system called Wade-Giles, it was written Pei-Ching. Both are ways to write the same name, but they look different.

Transcription can also happen when a word from one language is borrowed by another. For instance, in a Hong Kong newspaper, George W. Bush's name was written using Chinese characters that sound like "Bou-sū" (布殊). In Japanese, many English words are written using Katakana, which is a special Japanese writing system for foreign words.

What Happens After Transcription?

When a word is transcribed from one language to another, interesting things can happen:

• Languages Change: Both the original language and the language that borrowed the word can change over time. This means the way the transcribed word is pronounced might become different from the original word's pronunciation.
• Borrowed Words: A transcribed word might become a "loan word" in another language. This often leads to new spellings and pronunciations that are different from a direct transcription.

The Journey of Words

This is very clear with old Greek words and names. Greek words were often first transcribed into Latin. Then, these Latin versions were borrowed into other languages. Finally, these borrowed words changed according to the rules of their new language.

For example, the philosopher's name Aristotle is the English version. In Greek, his name was Aριστoτέλης (Aristotélēs). This was transcribed into Latin as Aristóteles. From Latin, it was borrowed into English and other languages, changing along the way.

Sometimes, when a word goes through many languages, its original pronunciation can get lost. A good example is the Sanskrit word dhyāna. This word was transcribed into the Chinese word Ch'an through old Buddhist texts. Then, Ch'an was transcribed from Japanese (ゼン zen) to Zen in English. So, dhyāna became Zen, which is a big change!

Changing Preferred Spellings

Sometimes, the "best" way to transcribe a word changes over time. For example, a Chinese philosophy was first known in English as Tao and the religion as Taoism. This used the Wade-Giles system. Later, a newer system called Pinyin became popular. Now, you might see it written as Dao and Daoism.

Related Topics

• Romanization
• Transliteration

See also

In Spanish: Transcripción (lingüística) para niños