Transliteration facts for kids

Transliteration is a way to change words from one writing system to another. Think of it like swapping letters! It helps us read words written in a different alphabet by using letters we already know.

For example, if you see the name for Russia written in the Cyrillic alphabet (which is used in Russia) as "Россия", transliteration helps us write it as "Rossiya" using the Latin alphabet (the one English uses).

Transliteration focuses on the written letters themselves, not how the words sound. It's like a direct letter-for-letter swap. Most of the time, if you know the system, you can even change the word back to its original spelling!

What is Transliteration?

Transliteration is the process of converting text from one script (or alphabet) into another. It's like having a special code that tells you which letter in one alphabet matches a letter in another. This helps people who don't know a certain alphabet still be able to read and write names or words from that language.

For instance, the Greek letter α becomes 'a', the Cyrillic letter д becomes 'd', and the Greek letter χ becomes 'ch'. These changes are usually very predictable.

Letters, Not Sounds

It's important to remember that transliteration is all about the letters on the page, not the sounds the words make. Even if two letters make the same sound, they might be transliterated differently if they are different letters in the original alphabet.

For example, in the word "Rossiya", the 'сс' is transliterated as 'ss'. But in English, 'ss' often makes an /s/ sound, which is how it's pronounced in Russian too. However, the main point of transliteration is to show the original spelling, not just the sound.

Transliteration vs. Transcription

Transliteration is different from transcription.

• Transliteration changes text from one writing system to another, focusing on keeping the original spelling as close as possible, letter by letter.
• Transcription tries to write down the sounds of a language using a different writing system. It's more about how words are spoken than how they are spelled.

So, if you want to know how to spell a foreign name using your alphabet, you use transliteration. If you want to know how to pronounce it, you might look at a transcription.

Related Topics

• Romanization: This is a common type of transliteration where text from any non-Latin script is converted into the Latin alphabet.
• Diacritic: These are small marks added to letters (like accents or dots) that can change their sound or meaning. Sometimes, transliteration systems use diacritics to show specific letters from the original script.
• Romanization of Bulgarian: This is a specific system for changing Bulgarian text (which uses the Cyrillic alphabet) into the Latin alphabet.

In Spanish: Transliteración para niños