Arabs need to teach their children formal Arabic-to-English transliteration

It will help improve the new generation’s deteriorating Arabic language skills

Transliteration is the process of transferring a word from the alphabet of one language to another while maintaining its pronunciation, such as when my name “عمر” is written “Omar”. Arabs with even a basic knowledge of the English language regularly transliterate from Arabic to English, though it almost always violates the formal rules of transliteration. We are in an age where children’s Arabic language skills are deteriorating in a manner that threatens Arabs’ sense of personal identity. Learning formal methods for transliterating from Arabic to English can paradoxically improve children’s command of the Arabic language, helping restore their sense of identity.

The Arabic language has several phonemes (sounds) that do not exist in the English language, such as “ع” and “ض”. Moreover, the length of vowels that are common to the two languages also differs, most notably the first letter of the Arabic alphabet, “ا”, when it is in long form. An additional problem is ambiguity: some Arabic letters can plausibly correspond to more than one English letter; for example, the long vowel form of the Arabic letter “و” can in principle correspond to either “o” or “u” in English.

Putting these issues together, one cannot transliterate from Arabic to English using only English letters and words; attempting to do will result in sounds that are either absent, distorted, or ambiguous.

This is a common problem that linguists deal with. During the 19^th and 20^th centuries, orientalists specializing in the Arabic language developed a formal system for transliterating from Arabic to English. It involves two key principles.

First, for the common phonemes where there is some ambiguity, a unique letter (or combination of letters) from the English language is assigned, terminally eliminating that ambiguity. The most salient manifestation of this principle is in the total dropping of the English letters “o” and “e” when transliterating from Arabic to English. In the case of letters like “c” and “k” which can both correspond to the Arabic letter “ك”, only “k” is used.

Thus, the Arabic name “هِند”, which has a short vowel after the first letter, is sometimes transliterated “Hend” by those who have not been introduced to the formal rules of Arabic-to-English transliteration. The correct transliteration is “Hind”, as the short vowel “ِ” must always be transliterated with an “i”, even though the letter “e” sounds like it could convey the right sound.

Also under this principle’s umbrella is how to deal with the “ّ” (the “shadda”). In all cases, the associated letters are doubled; conversely, a doubled English letter can only correspond to such cases. Thus, the holy city of “مكّة” is transliterated “Makka”, not “Mekka” or other informal alternatives.

Second, for the phonemes that do not exist, special diacritical marks are used to convey the correct sound. I won’t list them all as there are many, but examples include: “ط” becoming “ṭ” and the long vowel “ي” becoming “ī”.

Putting all of these rules together can make some words that look very clunky to those unfamiliar with formal transliteration methods. For example, the word “ضفادع” (meaning “frogs”) is correctly transliterated into “ḍafadiʿ”, and the late Libyan leader “معمر قذافي” – who has had his name transliterated in more than 20 ways – is correctly transliterated “Muʿammar Qadhdhāfi”.

Since almost all Arabs are unfamiliar with these methods, various informal alternatives have spontaneously emerged, especially ones that are compatible with the basic letter and number set of the English language. Important drivers were the internet relay chat (IRC) and text messaging revolutions of the 1990s and 2000s, respectively, where Arabs developed rules such as “6” to denote the “ط” and “3” to denote the “ع” by appealing to the partial visual congruence of the characters.

In parallel to this organic development of informal transliteration has been a deterioration in the Arabic language skills of Arabs who are presently under the age of 40. Many factors have contributed to this, including: decreased religiosity (and therefore diminished reading of the Quran); and elites pursuing higher education in the Anglosphere with higher frequency.

Yet, surely the most important factor has been the growing global dominance of English-language media, which has deeply penetrated the Arab mediascape. Prior to the internet, most Arabs had limited access to English TV stations, newspapers, books, and so on. By 2023, an Arab will have to try harder to find Arabic-language media to consume than they will to find English-language media.

Gaining proficiency in the English language confers many benefits upon Arab youth, but one of the downsides is a loss of their sense of identity. The fact that the Quran was revealed in the Arabic language means that there is an intimate relationship between the Arabic language, the religion of most Arabs (Islam), and the identity of those same Arabs.

When a young person’s command of the Arabic language weakens, their religiousness tends to weaken, too, and with it they unconsciously begin to feel lost in the world. They don’t look or sound like Westerners, so they don’t feel Western; but they also don’t feel Arab, creating an internal psychological crisis. While the oppression that many Arabs unfortunately suffer at the hands of corrupt and incompetent leaders is surely the primary reason for their sense of despair, the cultural dislocation caused by their weakening Arabic language skills is likely to be a contributor.

Rectifying this is a long process that ultimately depends on better education systems, and on parents making an active effort to instill a sense of reverence for the Arabic language in their children. Nevertheless, a small contribution can come from teaching Arab children the formal methods of Arabic-to-English transliteration, while simultaneously encouraging all governments and businesses to transliterate properly, too.

The reason for this is that Arab children’s over-exposure to the English language is somewhat inevitable. Ensuring that the English transliteration of Arabic words is done correctly will help them unconsciously improve their Arabic spelling and pronunciation, because it establishes a one-to-one relationship between any English transliterated word they see and the original Arabic word.

For example, when an Arab child with limited Arabic language skills sees the name “Abdulrahman”, they will not know what the original Arabic word is, as there is a lot of ambiguity in that informal transliteration. However, if they see the correct transliteration “ʿAbd-ul-raḥmān”, they will know that the correct Arabic word is “عبدالرحمن”.

In my own case, I have spent my entire life writing my name in English as “Omar”, when the correct transliteration of my name is “ʿUmar”. It would be highly inconvenient for me to officially correct my name, but I would be willing to bite the bullet if it were in response to a pan-Arab call for universally correct transliteration. Until that time comes, I will certainly be teaching my young children correct transliteration so that they are well prepared for that change, and to help them maintain their sense of identity.