Transcription and transliteration examples. III

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The situation is more complicated with the rules of the lane. transcriptions when translating from Russian into English. If, when transmitting Russian sounds and And X Compliances are consistently applied zh, kh, then for the transmission of iotized vowels the rule is very conditional: Yuri is transmitted as Yuriy, Yury. When translating royal names and titles, there are general rules of interlingual transcription, usually designated as new, and the so-called tradition, that is, a form that came into use until the end of the 19th century. For example, the English king James I Stewart traditionally called Jacob 1 Stuart in Russian texts; V Lately in a number of publications the form Yakov 1 is found. When translating Russian royal and princely names, there are also discrepancies: for example, Ivan the Terrible is found in 2 forms: Ivan the Terrible, John the Terrible.

In addition to proper names in the group of units translated through translation transcription, most experts also include names of peoples and tribes, geographical names, names of business institutions, companies, firms, periodicals, names of hockey and other sports teams, stable groups of rock musicians, cultural objects and etc. Most of these names can easily be translated into translation or, less commonly, transliterated.

Bank of London – Bank of London

Beatles - The Beatles

The Capitol - Capitol

In its pure form, transliteration is rare and is associated with long-established forms of names:

Illinois - Illinois (not Illinois)

Michigan - Michigan (not Mishigan)

When transcribing geographical names, a shift in stress often occurs due to the phonetic preferences of the translating language:

Florida (emphasis on first syllable)

Florida (emphasis on second syllable)

Washington (emphasis on first syllable)

Washington (emphasis on last syllable

There is a rule according to which, if the name includes significant word, mixed translation is often used. That is, a combination of transcription and semantic translation:

Gulf of Mexico - Gulf of Mexico

River Thames - River Thames

The Pacific Ocean Pacific Ocean

Hilton Hotel - Hilton Hotel

No name Restaurant – restaurant No name

Transcription is used when translating the names of firms, companies, publishing houses, car brands, periodicals:

Ford Mustang – Ford Mustang

New Press Quarterly – New Press Quarterly

Novaya Gazeta

Titles educational institutions, as a rule, are subject to partial or complete semantic translation:

Western Michigan University

Cherry Hill High School

St. Petersburg State University

When filling out various types of international questionnaires, it is often proposed to provide 2 versions of the name of the educational institution: semantic and transcriptional:

Tobolsk Teachers Training College

Tobolsky Pedagogichesky Institute

Translation transcription may be associated with a specific area of intercultural correspondence: English transcription foreign cultural names may differ significantly from Russian; The traditional forms of presenting such names in Russian and English-speaking cultures turn out to be even more different. Thus, the correspondence of the Russian version is not immediately recognizable Genghis Khan and English Genghis Khan ( option: Jenghiz) with stress on the first syllable; Russian version of the name of the capital of China Beijing significantly different from English Beijing, and the king Belshazzar very little recognizable in English Bel-shaz-zar(also with stress on the second syllable); Thebes sounds different than Thebes, and Pharaoh Amenophis IV (Inkhnaton) in Russian tradition is known as Amenhotep, or Akhenaten. The list of such inconsistencies is quite long and requires the translator not only linguistic, but also general cultural training.

The names of Orthodox churches can be translated in several ways: translation transcription, semantic correspondence, mixed method. A simple transcription will introduce long, awkward-to-read elements into the English text, devoid of both meaning and the internal form of the word for the English recipient: Krestovozdvizhenskaya Tserkov. A simple semantic correspondence will deprive the name of their “home”, Orthodox origin, and will give the names of churches a certain neutral-international status of the Christian church. Perhaps the best solution is mixed type, in which the general Christian version of the name is combined with an exotic Orthodox one, reflecting the Russian tradition of naming churches. – The exaltation of the Cross Church.

A number of cultural names undergoing translation transcription are names, names of fantastic creatures mentioned in folklore and literary sources:

Baba Yaga - Baba-Yaga

Hobbit - Hobbit

Goblin - goblin

However, some of these names, especially those containing semantic components that reflect certain real properties of the object, are translated either in a mixed way or by tracing:

Koshchey the Deathless (Immortal)

Earthsea

Mirkwood – Mirkwood

A special type of linguistic units that are usually transcribed are terms. The source of transcription is Greek, Latin or English units, depending on which roots underlie the original term: cable - cable, etc.

CONCLUSION: transcription / transliteration can be used as a component of mixed translation, in parallel with tracing, semantic translation or commentary. Semantic translation consists of the most complete transfer of the contextual meaning of the elements of the source text in units of the target language.

Semantic translation is performed to convey source texts of high scientific or socio-cultural significance, the detailed content of which is intended for a wide range of specialists.

Tracing– reproduction not of the sound, but of the combinatorial composition of a word or phrase, when the constituent parts of a word (morphemes) or phrases (lexemes) are translated by the corresponding elements of the translating language. Tracing as a translation technique served as the basis for a large number of different types of borrowings in intercultural communication in those cases. When transliteration was unacceptable for aesthetic, semantic or other reasons.

Tracing is used to convey part of geographical names, names of historical and cultural events and objects, titles and ranks, names of educational institutions, art. Works, government agencies, museums, terms, etc.

Head of the government

Supreme Court

Mixed laws - mixed laws

Winter Palace – Winter palace

White house – White House

The White Guard

The Rocky Mountains – Rocky Mountains

The Salt Lake - salt lake

The Indian Ocean - Indian Ocean

In some cases, especially in relation to historical events or periods or religious objects, several parallel correspondences operate:

Troubled times – the period of unrest, the Time of Trouble

Raskolniki, Old Believers

A specific complication when using this translation method is the need to expand or collapse the original structure, that is, add to it additional elements or abbreviations of the original elements: posadnichestvo transmitted by mixed unfolded tracing paper office of posadnik, A Yuri Dolgoruky – Yury the Long Hands (not: Long-handed)

Transcription and transliteration

When learning a language and Everyday life we may find it necessary to convey foreign words and names through our own writing system, so that someone who does not know the foreign script will have some idea of what the words sound like. This process is called transliteration. Transliteration is a formal letter-by-letter reconstruction of the source lexical unit using the alphabet of the target language, a letter imitation of the form of the source word. In this case, the source word in the target text is presented in a form adapted to the pronunciation characteristics of the target language.

There are some generally accepted rules for recording individual characters. Since different languages have different sound systems, it is not just a matter of replacing every written symbol of one language with a symbol of another. Most often, a simple character must be replaced by a combination of characters or a character with special characters (dots or dashes), called diacritics. Diacritics are added to characters to indicate that they have a different phonetic meaning. Typically, transliteration represents only those characters that have sound; it does not cover silent characters used to clarify meaning. Transliteration rules are based, like all such rules, on convention. However, they have not received full acceptance and consistent worldwide dissemination. In the same way, Egyptian hieroglyphic writing can be transliterated.

A slightly different process is called transcription. Translation transcription is a formal phonemic reconstruction of the source lexical unit using phonemes of the target language, a phonetic imitation of the source word. In application to Egyptology, this term is used to denote a method that consists in transmitting the characters of non-hieroglyphic Egyptian writing by means of hieroglyphics. The process is similar to transliteration, except that both writing systems are Egyptian. The most common case of transcription is the translation of texts written in hieratic (Egyptian cursive script) into hieroglyphics.

The ancient Egyptian language contained a large number of sounds that are absent in Russian. Although the Egyptian script did not reflect vowel sounds, in terms of consonants it was, in some ways, more advanced than our alphabets. For example, the English alphabet does not have a letter for a plosive glottal (Glottal plosive or Glottal stop), although this sound is often found in speech. This sound is indicated by vowels, but when pronounced in the initial phase, an obstacle to the air flow is created by closed vocal cords. The air pressure is discharged as a result of a sharp divergence of the vocal cords, so the pronounced vowel sound has a sharp increase in volume (attack) with an aspiration at the beginning.

The plosive glottal is often found in English speech, for example, at the beginning of a word before a vigorously articulated vowel phoneme: apple, or as a separator between adjacent vowels when pronounced clearly (with a strong accent and a short pause before the stressed syllable) words like co-operate, geometry, reaction).

In German, vowels at the beginning of words are almost always pronounced with a distinct "hard attack". It is believed that there is no plosive glottal in the Russian language, but one German who lived in Russia caught an exception, probably the only one: the colloquial “Nope!”

Transliteration when translating into Russian is often used in cases where we are talking about the names of institutions and positions specific to a given country, i.e. about the sphere of socio-political life, about the names of objects and concepts of material life, about forms of addressing the interlocutor, etc.

There is no word that could not be translated into another language, at least descriptively, i.e. a common combination of words in a given language. But transliteration is necessary precisely when it is important to maintain the lexical brevity of the designation, corresponding to its familiarity in the original language, and at the same time emphasize the specificity of the named thing or concept, if there is no exact correspondence in the target language.

Often foreign words are transferred into the target language precisely to highlight the shade of specificity that is inherent in the reality they express - with the possibility of a lexical translation, more or less accurate.

When a transliterated word is rarely used or, especially, transferred to a Russian translated text for the first time, a commentary explanation and appropriate context are sometimes necessary. IN in this case The technique of transliteration is used in conjunction with the technique of translation commentary (see below).

Transliteration and transcription are used to translate proper names, names of peoples and tribes, geographical names, names of business institutions, companies, firms, periodicals, names of sports teams, stable groups of musicians, cultural objects, etc.

Most of these names are relatively easy to translate or, less commonly, transliterate:

Wall Street Journal

East Oregonian

Rosswell

"Telstar"

Hollywood

Bank of London

Wall Street Journal

- "East Oregonian" [trans. p.5]

Roswell [trans. With. 5]

- “Telstar” [trans. With. 13]

Minnesota

Beatles, etc.

The names and titles of fantastic creatures mentioned in folklore and literary sources are also transcribed:

Goblin, etc.

In relation to foreign proper names, the question of their sound design during translation and their spelling is of great importance. The more differences there are in the phonetic structure of two languages, in the composition and system of their phonemes, the more acute this question is:

Kent Astor

McCarthy

Kent Astor [trans. With. 13]

McCarthy [trans. With. 83]

When it comes to widespread names (big cities, rivers, famous historical figures) or common names, the translator is guided by tradition - regardless of the possibility of getting closer to the original sound. Sometimes traditional Russian spelling can be quite close to the exact phonetic form of a foreign name, for example: “Schiller”, “Byron”, “Dante”, “Brandenburg”, etc. In some cases, tradition will require different renderings of the same name in the same language for different texts: thus the English "George" is usually transcribed as "George", but when it is the name of a king, it is transliterated as " George".

The translator resorts to transliteration of the nickname of one of the main characters, while giving a footnote: beaver - English. beaver. Further from the work, the author’s choice of this nickname becomes clear: the hero had a habit of gnawing toothpicks, which he always had with him.

Some problems may arise when translating the names of educational institutions in the context of different educational traditions into different countries. Thus, in the American education system, the word school is widely applied to a number of educational institutions, completely different in level and type (for example, high school and university). Translation from Russian may also have some difficulties: for example, the word institute in Russia is used to designate a higher educational institution, as well as a research or even administrative institution, while in English-speaking countries the word institute is used only in the second meaning , and therefore is not always adequate as a correspondence, since it distorts the essence of the original concept.

Whooton School

Finally, a special type of linguistic units that are usually transcribed are terms. The source of transcriptions is usually Greek, Latin or English units, depending on which roots underlie the original term. Russian terms, marked by national flavor, also often become the object of transcription when translated into English:

Chernozem

Duma Duma Kazakova T.A. Practical fundamentals of translation. Tutorial. - St. Petersburg: Lenizdat; "Soyuz Publishing House", 2000, p. 75

/ Komissarov V.N. "Translation Theory (linguistic aspects)"

210. Transcription and transliteration are methods of translating a lexical unit of the original by recreating its form using the letters of the original language. When transcribing, the sound form of a foreign language word is reproduced, and when transliterating its graphic form (letter composition). The leading method in modern translation practice is transcription while preserving some elements of transliteration. Since the phonetic and graphic systems of languages differ significantly from each other, the transmission of the form of a foreign language word in the target language is always somewhat conditional and approximate: absur dist - absurdist (author of a work of absurdity), kleptocracy - kleptocracy (thieves' elite), skateboarding - skateboarding (roller skating board). For each pair of languages, rules for transmitting the sound composition of a foreign language word are developed, cases of preservation of transliteration elements and traditional exceptions to the currently accepted rules are indicated. In English-Russian translations, the most frequently encountered transliteration elements during transcription are mainly the transliteration of some unpronounceable consonants and reduced vowels (Dorset ["dasit] - Dorset, Campbell ["kaerabalj - Campbell), the transfer of double consonants between vowels and at the end words after vowels (Bonners Ferry, boss) and preserving some of the spelling features of the word, which make it possible to bring the sound of the word in translation closer to already known examples (Hercules missile, deescalation, Columbia). Traditional exceptions concern mainly customary translations of the names of historical figures and some geographical names (Charles I - Charles I, William III - William III, Edinborough - Edinburgh).

Igor. Update: October 1, 2018.

Hello, dear readers of the blog site! I decided to devote this post to the topic of transliteration, which, in a nutshell, is the rules for writing text using signs of another language (say, in Russian in Latin).

I think almost all users have encountered this phenomenon, and many have used transliteration, conveying their thoughts in Russian, but writing them in English letters, simply not having a Russian-language keyboard layout in the visual display.

Such texts (notes or messages), written in Latin characters, can still be found on some forums. Moreover, their users write, mostly without following any rules that exist and which we will talk about below. The main goal of such communication is to convey information to an audience that would adequately perceive it.

Some used (and still use) transliteration from Russian into English when sending SMS from a mobile phone, if there is no corresponding language option. However, these are not the only examples of the use of translit. Today we’ll talk about this.

Rules of transliteration and its difference from transcription

To begin with, let’s define the basic concepts for a more precise understanding of the subject, and also understand the fundamental difference between such terms as “transcription” and “transliteration.”

Transcription is a broad concept that means the most accurate representation of the sounds of a particular language through a certain system of symbols.

Transliteration provides the display of letters of one script using characters of another script, without placing emphasis on pronunciation.

Words written using special characters are extremely useful for mastering correct pronunciation when learning foreign languages. Here are some examples of transcription of Russian words in Latin in IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) format:

Address - ˈadrʲɪs Alexey - ɐlʲɪksʲˈej Almanac - ɐlʲmɐnˈax Gogol - ɡˈoɡəlʲ Dmitry - dmʲˈitrʲɪj Evgeniy - jɪvɡʲˈenʲɪj Ekaterinburg - jɪkətʲɪrʲ ɪnbˈurk Mikhail - mʲɪxɐˈil Dictionary - slɐvˈarʲ Tatyana - tɐtʲjˈænə Julia - jˈʉlʲɪjə Yuri - jˈʉrʲɪj

Most languages (including English and Russian) have their own rules of transcription, when each word has a corresponding phonetic analogue that describes its sound. Here are a couple of examples:

Smile - smile (Russian transcription) smile - (English transcription)

Moreover, letters and words in Cyrillic can be transcribed into English, and vice versa.

The task of transliteration, as we have already defined, is to simply display the symbols of one script using the signs of another. Then the Russian words given above as an example (including names) will be translated transliterated into the same English as follows:

Address - Addresses Alexey - Aleksej Almanac - Al"manah Gogol - Gogol" Dmitry - Dmitrij Evgeniy - Evgenij Ekaterinburg - Ekaterinburg Mikhail - Mihail Dictionary - Slovar" Tatyana - Tat"jana Julia - Julija Yuri - Jurij

I think now difference between transcription and transliteration in the general meaning of these terms is obvious. There are many transliteration standards, sometimes incompatible with each other. Historically, several state standards (GOST) have been adopted, including Soviet time regulated transliteration.

Today the international standard is in force ISO-9 regulating the general principles of translation from Russian to Latin. Its main advantage is that it eliminates ambiguity in interpretation.

In it, each letter of the Cyrillic alphabet corresponds to a specific letter of the Latin alphabet or its combination with a special symbol (diacrit). Diacritics- special superscript or subscript characters that are added to letters.

A striking example is the """ symbol present in some of the transliterated words presented above (say, Tat"jana), which denotes a softening of consonants (analogous soft sign"ь" in the Russian alphabet). As a result of this correspondence, reverse transliteration is possible even if the language is not recognized.

Despite the existence of the international standard ISO-9, which very clearly reflects the principles of translating characters of the Russian alphabet into Latin ones, it is not the only one, since alternative basic rules are applied in various areas.

If you are intrigued by this topic and want to take a closer look at it, then you can find a list of all the main standards for transliterating Cyrillic languages using the Latin alphabet on a special Wikipedia page.

Transliteration methods used in practice

After presenting the theoretical part, it’s time to dwell on the types of practical use of transliteration. Here they are:

1. Practical transcription- is based on a standard like ISO-9, which I mentioned above. It is necessary to maintain not only grammatical, but also phonetic correspondence between both languages. In other words, you need to find " golden mean" in the spelling and sound of a particular word based on both languages.

The advantage of this method is easier text entry. In this case, only Latin characters are used. True, slight difficulties may arise when reading some specific consonants that have the following correspondences: “zh-zh”, “ch-ch”, “sh-sh”, “shch-shch”.

It is also used when sending SMS, and also often in the addresses of Russian-language websites and when working with software that does not support the Cyrillic alphabet. Below is a table of the most commonly used rules for transliteration of the Russian alphabet in Latin:

Please note that some Russian letters correspond to several variants of Latin characters (v, d, e, e, zh, z, j, k, l, x, c, ch, sh, shch, ъ, ы, ь, е, yu, I). They are arranged in descending order of popularity of application.

2. Gamer language(alternative name “Volapuk encoding”) - Latin letters are used here along with numbers and punctuation marks. He received this name because such transliteration is popular among gamers (computer game players).

The fact is that in such games there are generally no options for using the Cyrillic alphabet in nicknames, so gamers create a set of English characters and numbers that look similar to Russian letters (for example, “Cuneiform” in the gamer version looks like “KJIuHonucb”).

This is even original for the formation of Russian nicknames, but for the purpose of sending SMS, and especially when communicating, this method is clearly not suitable. True, sometimes some webmasters use gamer translit for their website (for example, nouck.ru or kypc.ru).

3. Vulgar- the most popular transliteration option in communication between ordinary users. It is based on a mixture of transcription and gamer language. A compromise has been reached here, since this option is quite simple to enter and at the same time easy to read.

Let’s say it uses the number “4” to represent the letter “H”. Also, instead of “F” they put an asterisk “*”, instead of “W” - “W”, etc. In general, a regular translit allows almost any interpretation, the main thing is that the author feels comfortable writing the text, and it is easy for readers to perceive it correctly.

Transliteration of names, surnames and website addresses

And now we move on to the practical area where the relevant standards must be strictly adhered to. For example, very often you need to provide data (first name, last name, address) when registering on foreign sites, say, on the same Google Adsense () or payment system websites (for example, PayPal).

If you are registering from the territory Russian Federation, then strictly follow the rules applied when obtaining foreign passports, otherwise difficulties may arise.

Therefore, the correct spelling of the Russian name, surname, address (as well as other necessary data) in English can significantly help you.

For webmasters, clear and consistent adherence to the rules of transliteration of Russian words is also of utmost importance. After all, many owners of web resources on the Russian Internet use translit both in page addresses and in the names of their sites.

Why is this necessary? The fact is that URLs () of web pages containing keywords have a positive effect on SEO promotion of the site. You say this is a small thing? But the successful promotion of any project consists of continuous nuances.

An indirect proof of this can be the fact that, for example, Yandex, when ranking (in how search engines rank sites), recently even highlighted keywords in URLs in bold in the search results:

Thus, it is very important to maintain the correct translit from Russian to English for the addresses of all pages of your site. For this purpose, it is worth taking the table provided above as a basis.

You should also keep in mind that when composing a URL, it is best to limit the character set as follows: use only numbers (0-9), uppercase (A-Z) and lowercase (a-z) letters, as well as dashes (“-”) and underscores ("_")

For those who have web resources, there is a simple extension (however, this plugin has not been updated for a long time, so for people like me there is a more modern analogue) that provides automatic transliteration of Russian letters in the page address, while creating CNCs (human-readable URLs) .

Regarding search engine optimization, I would like to dwell on one more nuance (I remind you that there are no trifles in promotion). Despite the fact that ISO-9 is currently the main international standard, transliteration in Yandex and Google has its own characteristics.

For example, in the generally accepted standard, the Russian letter “x” (ha) corresponds to the Latin “x” (ix). However, Yandex does not highlight keywords with this option in the URL in the search results (only those keywords where “x” is transliterated into “h” are highlighted in bold):

A similar situation is observed with Google, although there are some differences in the transliteration rules of the “empire of good” with the Russian search engine.

Since many webmasters and owners of commercial resources are a little more focused on Yandex, last chapter I will provide one of the online services that makes it possible to correctly translate into transliteration any set of letters that complies with the rules of the “Runet mirror”.

In general, you can always manually enter the required letter when compiling the URL of any web page. Using the automatic option represented by the same RusToLat, we lose some time on editing, since in the settings of this plugin it is possible to set only the ISO-9 standard as the most suitable one. And it contains exactly the correspondence “x” - “x”.

Of course, you can find a way out here too. Namely, slightly change the plugin file, where the correspondence between the Russian and Latin alphabets is defined. To do this, open it for editing (I recommend using the Notepad++ editor in such cases) and replace the necessary characters:

Just don't forget to make sure that RusToLat is configured correctly (the ISO 9-95 encoding must be set there):

Naturally, everyone decides for themselves whether to perform such an operation or not. By the way, I would be glad to receive any comments from you regarding this aspect. Is the game worth the candle?

In order to achieve active participation of your site in image search, you can use translit keywords in the very names of the image files. For these purposes, it is convenient to use the Punto Switcher program. After activating the software, simply select the name of the graphic file and press the Alt+Scroll Lock combination on the keyboard (default hotkeys in Switcher).

Online transliterators

1. First of all, I would like to immediately fulfill my promise and provide a service that takes into account the rules of Yandex (I suspect that it will also be suitable for the Google search engine). This Translit-online.ru, where there are several options to choose from. On the main tab you can translate online any text for reading up to 50,000 characters long:

Below are the settings for some characters unique to the Cyrillic alphabet (е, й, х, ц, щ, е), which cause some difficulties when converting them to the Latin alphabet. Since this is a translation mode for reading, you can adjust the match to your liking:

But you can use the following page of the online translator to translate the page addresses of your CNC website into translit:

There is also such an interesting tool as a virtual keyboard. It allows you to type text in Russian, even if you do not have a Russian-language layout. By switching it to the English layout, you can type using Latin characters, which are as consonant as possible with their Russian counterparts. However, you must first set the virtual keyboard to “RU” mode using the “Esc” button:

For example, to get the word “transliteration”, after the steps described above, you need to type in English “t-r-a-n-s-l-i-t-e-r-a-c-i”, and to display the letter “I” in the text field, you must first press Ctrl, and then “a”.

Among the useful features of this service is also the ability to obtain a variant of the first and last name for a foreign passport; this option is extremely suitable for registering on important foreign resources, as I mentioned above in the article. An online multilingual translator from Russian and vice versa is provided on a separate tab.

2. Another online translit translator is a well-known resource Translit.net(formerly Translit.ru), which has its advantages. There is also a virtual keyboard right on the home page, which allows you to transliterate text.

A.S. Zhuravleva

National Research Irkutsk State Technical University

“In order to correctly write foreign names in Russian, it is necessary to know the relevant rules and principles,” it is difficult not to agree with this statement given in the reference book by R. S. Gilyarevsky and B. A. Starostin “Foreign names and titles in Russian text " Ignorance of these rules leads to severe distortion of names, especially Japanese and Chinese. But not only. Let's imagine that a certain journalist wrote that he interviewed the Dane Schaap, the Spaniard Juan, the Scot Sean, the American Stephen, the Chinese Xiong... And if these people became famous for something, then all these Seans and Xiongi. We call Nobel Prize winner Yang Renning only Yang; the French physicist Paul Villard, who discovered gamma rays in 1900, is often called Villard (fortunately, no one calls the chemist Victor Grignard Grignard). The examples can be continued.

The peculiarity of names and titles, unlike many borrowed foreign words, is that when they are translated into another language, they basically retain their original sound appearance. To convey proper names, the sound shell becomes of paramount importance. In fact, the Danish name Schaap should sound like Skop, the Spanish Juan - like Juan, the Scottish Sean - like Sean, the English Stephen - like Stephen, the Chinese Xiong - like Xiong. How to achieve correct spelling?

In order to ensure the preservation of the original soundographic shell of a borrowed proper name in a written language, three methods are possible: transcription, transliteration and direct inclusion of a foreign name in the text while preserving its graphics.

There are many ways to translate a lexical unit of the original text, especially if this unit does not have equivalents in the target language. The most interesting methods used by the translator in this case are transcription and transliteration.

So what are transcription and transliteration?

Transcription is the reproduction of the sound of a foreign word, and transliteration is the reproduction of the letter composition of a foreign word in the target language. In translation, a certain symbiosis of transcription and transliteration is most common.

Due to the fact that the phonetic and graphic structures of different languages are very different from each other, the process of transliteration and transcription of a language unit is very conditional.

During transliteration, the graphic form (letter composition) of a foreign language word is transmitted by means of the TL, and during transcription, its sound form is transmitted. These methods are used when transmitting foreign-language proper names, geographical names and names of various kinds of companies, firms, ships, newspapers, magazines, etc. They are widely used when transmitting realities; it is especially common in socio-political literature and journalism, both translated and original, but describing life and events abroad (for example, in newspaper correspondence). Thus, on the pages of our press, the following transcriptions of English words and phrases that have no equivalents in Russian vocabulary have recently begun to appear: tribalism - tribalism, brain drain - brain drain, public school - public school, drive-in - drive-in, teach-in - tech-in, drugstore - drugstore, know-how - know-how, impeachment - impeachment, etc. In English socio-political literature you can find such transliterations of Russian realities as agitprop, sovkhoz, technicum, etc.

The leading method in modern translation practice is transcription while preserving some elements of transliteration. For each pair of languages, rules for transmitting the sound composition of a foreign language word are developed, cases of preservation of transliteration elements and traditional exceptions to the currently accepted rules are indicated. In English-Russian translations, the most frequently encountered transliteration elements during transcription are mainly the transliteration of some unpronounceable consonants and reduced vowels (Dorset ["dasit] - Dorset, Campbell ["kaerabalj - Campbell), the transfer of double consonants between vowels and at the end words after vowels (Bonners Ferry, boss) and preserving some of the spelling features of the word, which make it possible to bring the sound of the word in translation closer to already known examples (Hercules missile, deescalation, Columbia). Traditional exceptions concern mainly customary translations of the names of historical figures and some geographical names (Charles I - Charles I, William III - William III, Edinborough - Edinburgh).

The application of transcription to the translation of names found in the text requires a preliminary cultural analysis of possible traditional forms of a given name that have already been established in the world or translating culture and require reproduction exactly in the form in which they exist. For example, the English king James I Stewart was traditionally called Jacob 1 Stewart in Russian texts; recently, the form Jacob 1 has been found in a number of publications. When translating Russian royal and princely names, there are also discrepancies: for example, Ivan the Terrible is found in two forms: Ivan the Terrible and John the Terrible.

The rule of applying translation transcription or transliteration to names that exists in translation practice often turns out to be insufficient if a proper name is burdened with a symbolic function, that is, it becomes the name of a unique object, or is used not as a name, but as, for example, a nickname, that is, it is a kind of name a common noun, as it reflects the individual characteristics and properties of the named object. In such cases, in addition to transcription, or instead of it, a combination of semantic translation and tracing is used. If we find the name Chief White Halfoat in an English text, then it can be transmitted in various ways: Chief White Halfoat (transcription), Chief White Oat (semantic translation), Chief White Halfoat (mixed translation: a combination of semantic translation and transcription).

In addition to proper names, the group of units translated through translation transcription also includes the names of peoples and tribes, geographical names, names of business institutions, companies, firms, periodicals, names of hockey and other sports teams, stable groups of rock musicians, cultural objects etc. Most of these names are relatively easy to translate or, less commonly, transliterate:

Bank of London - BankofLondon, Wall Street Journal - Wall Street Journal, the Capitol - Capitol.

When transcribing geographical names, a stress shift often occurs due to the phonetic preferences of the translating language: Florida (stress on the first syllable), Florida (stress on the second syllable), Washington (stress on the first syllable), Washington (stress on the last syllable).

There is a rule according to which, if the name includes a significant word, a mixed translation is often used, that is, a combination of transcription and semantic translation:

Gulf of Mexico - Gulf of Mexico;

River Thames - River Thames;

the Pacific Ocean - Pacific Ocean;

Hilton Hotel - Hilton hotel;

Mayflower Restaurant – restaurant Mayflower.

Transcription is used when translating the names of firms, companies, publishing houses, car brands, periodicals, for example:

Subaru - Subaru;

Ford Mustang - FordMustang;

Facts On File – FactsOnFile;

New Press Quarterly - NewPressQuarterly.

However, the names of educational institutions, as a rule, are subject to partial or complete semantic translation:

Western Michigan University - Western Michigan University;

Cherry Hill High School - Cherry Hill's highest school;

St.Petersburg State University - St. Petersburg State University.

1. Adhere to some system of international transcription or inter-alphabetic correspondence.

2. Almost all proper names are subject to transcription/transliteration, including names of people, geographical names, names of companies (when they are in the nature of a personal name), periodicals, folklore characters, names of countries and peoples, names of national and cultural realities, etc.

3. The application of transcription to the translation of names found in the text requires a preliminary cultural analysis of possible traditional forms of a given name that have already been established in the world or translating culture and require reproduction exactly in the form in which they exist.

4. Most newly introduced terms are subject to transcription/transliteration special areas. Here, however, it should be remembered that in many cases there is no need to transliterate a foreign word if this word in the target language has a one-to-one correspondence, which was either used previously in a similar meaning or is applicable as a newly introduced term. The introduction into use of parallel transliteration terms along with already existing terms from among the units of the target language is essentially equivalent to the creation of professional jargon, that is, it goes beyond the literary norm and introduces unnecessary “information noise” into the process of intercultural communication.

5. Transcription/transliteration can be used as a component of mixed translation, in parallel with tracing, semantic translation or commentary.

To analyze the methods of translating lexical units, we selected several chapters of the famous book by K. Eric Drexler “Machines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology”, and attempted to assess the role of transcription and transliteration in them.

Below is a small list of foreign words and phrases from these chapters, for which, in turn, transcription or transliteration was used when translating into Russian. Note that such a technique as transcription already takes place when translating the author of a work.

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