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The table at WP:Manual of Style/Arabic#Examples gives “Qur'an” as the standard transliteration, but the article itself is at Quran, the link in the title above being a redirect. (I notice that the {{Cite quran}} template lacks the apostrophe as well.) But titles are sometimes subject to special policies. What is the consensus for the spelling in articles, where current practice seems to be mixed? Should the example be changed, leaving the apostrophe only in the “strict” column?— Odysseus1479 ( talk) 23:02, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
For some reason I hadn't come across these guidelines before, but I'm finding them very helpful. I'm working on several articles about the history and architecture of southeast Anatolia and al-Jazirah between the time of the Muslim conquest of this area (638) and when it was added to the Ottoman Empire (around 1515). A lot of my sources for this period are historians writing in English, who themselves rely primarily on Arab sources. These accounts tend to have quite a lot of references to historical figures who don't currently have Wikipedia articles (and may never). As I don't read Arabic, I am taking personal and geographic names from these secondary sources, where they are typically rendered in a strict transliteration (e.g. al-Muwaḥḥid ʿAbd Allāh), rather than making my own transliterations from Arabic.
These MOS guidelines are pretty clear when dealing with the subject of an article, but I can't find a clear statement of how to handle transliteration of other names and terms that don't merit their own articles. My interpretation is as follows, but please correct it if I have misunderstood.
Assuming that my understanding above is correct, I will need to fix a number of articles to use standard transliteration in place of strict transliteration.
Would it be possible for someone to rewrite this MOS guideline to clarify this aspect? I think what's needed is to add a subsection for "Preferred form" within the "Proposed standard" section. It could be as simple as stating that where an Arabic name or term does not meet the criteria for its own article, it should still appear in other Wikipedia articles using the approach laid out in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Arabic).
That does raise another question for me: A lot of the relevant historical figures during this period have pretty long names with chains of nasabs (e.g. Amir Saif al-Dīn Shīrbārīk Maudūd bin ʿAlī (bin Alp-Yaruq) bin Artuq). Where the person has their own article, it seems fine that I just refer (and link) to that form . Where there is no article for that individual, it would seem best to use the full name on first reference, and then use the most common form for subsequent references. Is there an MOS guideline that covers this area? Rupert Clayton ( talk) 19:44, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
I have another transliteration question related to the one above. A lot of the historical figures who appear in the articles I'm working on are non-Arabs who operated in an Arabic-dominated culture, or whom we know about primarily from Arab historians. They seem to break into three main groups:
It seems clear to me that people in group 1 should follow the guidelines for Arabic names, and people in group 3 should follow separate guidelines. Is there any guidance for people in group 2? Rupert Clayton ( talk) 20:22, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
Dynasty | Court/official language | Lingua franca | Military language | Scholarly and literary language |
---|---|---|---|---|
Great Seljuks | Persian | Persian | Oghuz Turkish | Arabic |
Artuqids | Arabic? | An oghuz language similar to Azeri? | ? | Arabic |
Rum Seljuks | Persian | Old Anatolian Turkish | ? | Persian |
Aq Qoyunlu | Azerbaijani | Azerbaijani | Azerbaijani | Arabic and Azerbaijani |
Ilkhanids | Persian | Mongolian? | Mongolian? | Persian? |
The lead of the article on the topic of the Arabic definite article states:
Unlike most other particles in Arabic, al- is always prefixed to another word and it never stands alone. Consequently, most dictionaries will not list it as a separate word, and it is almost invariably ignored in collation." I am curious to know the implications of this especially as it applies to the representation of Arabic titles in English.
This comes in a context in which has a very clear policy / guideline on WP:THE and a content at WP:CRITERIA that presents:
In many cases, unless the "al-" is familiar, it will just get in the way and further problems are raised in situations as when a name for the article is used "to link to the article from other articles
". It may often be nonsensical for an article to present something like "... of the al-Link ....
" and, in these cases, the problems of
WP:THE seem to me to be exacerbated.
I am no great fan of WP:THE but I think that, if anything, there tendency has been to edit Arabic titles in a way that is quite contrary to this policy / guideline and am curious as to why this might be.
There is currently a discussion at Talk:Masjid al-Haram#Requested move 1 May 2015 in which I have presented quotes such as from the Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Religion: G-P which presents:
(I mention this because I think there may be a perhaps related issue in regard to the presentation of the most commonly used name for a subject as it is used in English).
I would be grateful for any thoughts in regard to issues mentioned and on ways in which any potential issues might best be addressed.
I will also present content on other inappropriate or possibly inappropriate uses of related titling in a sub-thread below and, at editors discretion, suggest that any related discussion/response may continue in a "related discussion" section after that. Thanks. Greg Kaye 08:58, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
ADAB AL-KABĪR"
The MoS has a statement in the section on definite articles "For this manual of style, assimilated letters will be used, as it aids readers in the correct pronunciation." This seems a bit strange. Is it stating that assimilated letters must be used? If so, it seems an unusually strict requirement which opens up quarrels and confusion. ALA-LC does not use assimilated letters, and the preponderance of ALA-LC transcription in English texts (certainly in the US) mean that most academic and other source material will not be using them. Are we requiring Wikipedia editors to know that the transcriptions they are coming across and using in articles are "wrong" by that policy statement? Most Wikipedia editors are not Arabic-speakers, and have no idea about assimilated letters or pronunciation, and will transcribe names as they read them (e.g. "Harun al-Rashid" rather than "Harun ar-Rashid"). This seems a very strange demand to make upon them. Particularly as it opens up quarrels between editors, between the few who insist on assimilated letters (unusual in the literature) and the bulk who insist on keeping it unassimilated (as they commonly read it). It will also likely introduce inconsistencies across articles, e.g. the main article being forcibly named "Harun ar-Rashid", but other editors continue to innocently write "Harun al-Rashid" in other articles, not imagining it might be inconsitent. It seems to me WP:MOSAR statement is being unproductive here, and imposing a rule that contradicts common usage, and will likely lead to quarrels between editors. I would like to propose a modification in the MoS which states that assimilated letters can be used, if shown to be the preponderant transcription, and eliminate the statement that "it will be used", which seems an anomalous imposition. Walrasiad ( talk) 23:48, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
assimilated letters will be used. I strongly disagree with your proposed modification. Thousands of article titles on Wikipedia, about place names, people, etc, use the assimilated letters per WP:MOSAR. Some of the titles (only where the assimilated definite articles occur at the start of the title) can be found in these lists: All pages with prefix at-, All pages with prefix ad-, All pages with prefix adh-, All pages with prefix ar-, All pages with prefix az-, All pages with prefix as-, All pages with prefix ash-, All pages with prefix an-. Khestwol ( talk) 08:18, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
As discussed above, "Al" when not the article means "family", not "dynasty" - even if dynasties take their family's name. Whenever the name of the ancestor is well-known, its descendant may be know as "Al ...". See for example Al ash-Sheikh. Naming it "dynastic" may let people think these are a reigning familyn which is not necessarily true.
Also, this section should also be part of Al (disambiguation) and arabic names - I copied it there-- Df ( talk) 20:56, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
Some articles require the use of the original word in Arabic script. It could be me, but I am coming across an increasing use of the big template for enlarging Arabic words. Personally, I don't like this since it increases the whitespace between lines, adds to a sometimes already complex syntax code, and I can't see much difference anyway (could be my browser settings). Is this the new standard for Arabic or does a normal font size suffice? - HyperGaruda ( talk) 11:19, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
Not sure if anyone's still watching this page, but there is some discussion going on about the standard transcription of ayin and alif. At least concerning the title. The Arabic naming convention only says to use the standard transcription method, but then there's also the convention to limit apostrophe usage to ' (straight apostrophe), so that ayin and alif would be transcribed identically instead of with ` and '. Any comments on that?
If we're going to use a straight apostrophe for both letters in the title, perhaps it's also an idea to extrapolate that to the standard transcription rules. It would not be completely absurd, considering that we're also writing ض/د and ص/س with the same letters. - HyperGaruda ( talk) 14:24, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
So far it looks like we are heading towards ayin&hamza='. I propose to update the MOS on October 1st, unless someone objects in the meantime. - HyperGaruda ( talk) 15:58, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
Point taken, so back to the issue at hand: the initial apostrophe for ayin. So far there have been three opinions on that:
I still stand behind the third option, not (only) because it is my own, but because primary transcriptions (i.e. common names used in the media) tend to do it that way. For example, names like Abdullah and Ali or nouns like Eid (as in Eid al-Fitr) tend to be written without initial apostrophes despite beginning with ayin. - HyperGaruda ( talk) 08:55, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
The reason why none of these proposals are still going anywhere is imho very simple: they try to impose a rule across all articles and are still unsuccessful in dealing with the consensus that may arise around some article titles. These consensuses are real and won't be overthrown by would-be guidance. That's why the WP:TSC policy contains "If, exceptionally, other variants are used a redirect with the apostrophe variant should be created (e.g. 'Abdu'l-Bahá redirects to `Abdu'l-Bahá)." I don't think `Abdu'l-Bahá is going to change anywhere soon, so deal with it.
Another reason why these discussions progress so difficultly is that contributors don't pay much attention to what others write, they add something, apparently only half understanding what someone else wrote. E.g. above I read "...options 2 and 3 (using apostrophes)..." while "option 3" reads "Leave the initial apostrophe out altogether". So please stay focussed, and avoid fuzziness in the comments. How is someone supposed to be interested in your comment, if that comment is only paying half attention to the comments by others? -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 08:24, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
And additionally made changes to the wording of some phrases. - HyperGaruda ( talk) 14:46, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
Perhaps we should rename the current standard transcription into something like basic transcription. I often get the feeling on other talk pages that people confuse standard transcription with strict transliteration. Although this might give problems with primary transcription, so maybe we should change that into common transcription Any better naming suggestions? - HyperGaruda ( talk) 19:20, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
Article titles are written preferentially using a common English translation. If unavailable the common transcription is used. If neither is available, the basic transcription is used. The strict transliteration should never be used in article titles.This brevity does not really warrant a complete article of its own imho. The current common and basic transcription rules are MoS-compatible, so I am not sure what other rules you want to add for article titles; care to explain? - HyperGaruda ( talk) 15:21, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
Since the guideline is being updated, what is your opinion on using the <big> and <large> tags, presumably to make the Arabic script more legible? I'm in favor of avoiding them since I'm hoping that, in the future, more browsers will support choosing an appropriate font. These tags are visually distracting and are a cheap fix for a temporary problem. Abjiklɐm ( tɐlk) 15:44, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
Should the definite article be capitalized in navigation templates where Arabic words are listed in horizontal and alphabetical order? I ask because I've been discussing the Template:Mosques in Palestine with another user who is arguing that because each article stands alone, the definite article should be capitalized. I believe, because the definite article is basically a formality, that it should not be emphasized and thus should be lowercase while only the main word should be capitalized. I think capitalizing the definite article for each item in the list muddies the alphabetical order because the emphasis becomes shifted to the definite article instead of the main word getting prioritized. For example: I think "Ibrahimi Mosque • al-Jawali Mosque • Nabi Yahya Mosque an-Nasr Mosque" is preferable to "Ibrahimi Mosque • Al-Jawali Mosque • Nabi Yahya Mosque • An-Nasr Mosque". The only time I think the definite article should be capitalized is for the first item in the list. I could not find a specific guideline in MoS Arabic for templates so I wonder what the policy should be here. -- Al Ameer ( talk) 05:24, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
Pinging Francis Schonken, Abjiklam and Khestwol for some more input. - HyperGaruda ( talk) 06:00, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
I have tried to find templates related to Arabic, excluding navigation and message templates. It is probably a good idea to include these in the MoS, but I would like to hear your comments about them and if there are more which may need a mention in the MoS. - HyperGaruda ( talk) 08:51, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
Already mentioned in MoS. - HyperGaruda ( talk) 08:51, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
In combination with |ar
. Already mentioned in MoS. -
HyperGaruda (
talk)
08:51, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
In combination with |ar
. Same effect as {{
lang}}, but used for entire paragraphs that need to be right-aligned.
Gives IPA pronunciation.
For use after external links to indicate that the linked site is written in Arabic.
Infobox with all the possible renderings of an Arabic term.
Infobox analysing the different parts of an Arabic name.
I understand that for the purposes of article titles at least, transliteration guidelines are always trumped by WP:UCN, on a case-by-case basis. A notorious case is Muammar Gaddafi -- it doesn't matter how you would transliterate the name in theory, choice of article name is guided entirely by how the relevant English-language sources tend to render it. Similarly, Quran vs. Qur'an. The second variant is more "correct", but the first is simply the more common in English-language sources.
It is perfectly fine, also, that the "basic transliteration" brings information loss, mostly losing vowel length and "emphatic" markers (ẓ vs z). These are phonological features in Arabic and it is fair enough to not preserve them in "basic transliteration", we can always give close transliteration for clarification.
But I am unhappy with the accident of collapsing hamza and ayin. These are two entirely different phonemes, and they are collapsed not because they are phonologically similar but because their romanization symbols happen to look similar.
In names with common anglicization, neither ayin or hamza will be rendered, e.g. Amman, Iraq, Quran, etc. But in technical topics, or specialist terminology with no familiar anglicization, I would suggest it is advisable to recommend use of a distinct transliteration of ayin, e.g. Muʿtazila, Muqattaʿat, vs. the corresponding DIN symbol ʾ, or simple apostrophe, Al Wala' Wal Bara'. -- dab (𒁳) 09:02, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
ʿ
or ʾ
instead of '
, as long as the alternatives redirect there; e.g., we do this with various Hawaiian names that contain an
okina (but not for those assimilated so deeply into English they're rarely encountered in English with them, as with
Hawaii itself). For rendering
ayin, we should use whatever is most recommended by reliable sources on how to transliterate Arabic (not what is most frequently done in sources that are not reliable for language matters, like newspapers, which probably just omit any symbol at all). This is in keeping with our handling of diacritics, too. It doesn't matter one whit whether American and British newspapers and even sport governing bodies regularly misspell a sportsperson's name as "Gratic"; if RS tell us it is properly spelled Gratič, then we use that. (Unless the subject him/herself has pointedly abandoned use of the diacritic, entirely or in English, e.g. by omitting it in their official English-language website; then it becomes a
WP:ABOUTSELF policy matter. Same goes for Asian name order;
Utada Hikaru remains family-name first because she uses that name order on the majority of her albums, even in English;
Hajime Sorayama is given-name first because he uses that name order in Western media.) —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<
03:29, 16 November 2017 (UTC)Very well. It looks like we may be gravitating towards consensus. I think we could start with Dbachmann's objection to mandating the use of apostrophe for ayin in the basic transcription. I had assumed that this practice was rooted in a strongly held community consensus, but it certainly doesn't seem to be the case judging from this discussion. We now have a nice discussion at Ayin#Transliteration courtesy of Dbachmann, which indicates that the LOC maybe a holdout in the broader trend of adopting the raised semi-circles for ayin and hamza in the academic publishing industry. This symbol is available in the WP editor under the Arabic tab. I have just done a bit of further research and I see that while specialist Oxford encyclopedias in Islamic studies use strict transliteration, the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World and MacMillan Reference (Gale Thompson) encyclopedias in Islamic studies use a scheme that seems to match our basic transcription, but with the raised semi-circles for ayin and hamza. In view of this, I start with the following proposals:
1) List the raised semi-circles as alternatives for ayin and hamza under strict transliteration.
2) List the raised semi-circles and raised commas as alternatives for ayin and hamza under basic transcription.
3) Recommend not using the apostrophe for ayin and hamza unless it is part of a common transcription.
Eperoton ( talk) 02:42, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
According to that table, the semi-circle for ayin is also part of the BS and ISO schemes, but I don't think counting distinct transliteration schemes is an appropriate methodology to use here, as it takes no account of how widely these schemes are actually adopted. Also, the table is not accurate on this point: most notably, contrary to what it states for "EI", all editions of the Encyclopedia of Islam have used the semi-circles, as one can verify on its website.
I've checked the character used for ayin in the major reference works in Islamic studies that I can quickly consult:
- Raised semi-circle: EI1,2,3; Brill's Encyclopedia of the Qur'an, The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World and other OUP encyclopedias, MacMillan/Gale Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World
- Raised inverted comma: Routledge Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia,
- Different characters used in different entries: Oxford Handbooks, The New Cambridge History of Islam, The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought
So, while I don't see a rationale for discouraging raised commas, which are used in influential sources, I see even less rationale for discouraging raised semi-circles, which seem to be the most widely adopted convention in current academic publications. Eperoton ( talk) 02:27, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
From MOS:
"Al-" and its variants (ash-, ad-, ar-, etc.) are always written in lower case (unless beginning a sentence), and a hyphen separates it from the following word.
I think it should always be written in lowercase even when beginning a sentence. I'm sorry if you discussed this before but I couldn't find any direct mentions to this.
From Wikipedia Romanization of Arabic:
/info/en/?search=Romanization_of_Arabic#endnote_10
The UN system and ALA-LC prefer lowercase a and hyphens.
References cited by the Wikipedia article:
ALA-LC Romanization Tables, Rule 18(a)
https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/arabic.pdf
the definite article al is given in lower case in all positions
UNGEGN Romanization Tables, Other systems of romanization
http://www.eki.ee/wgrs/rom1_ar.pdf
The original transliteration table, published in vol. II of the report on the Second UN Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names, contains examples (but not explicit rules) where the definite article is always written with a small initial
What do you think? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zeromido ( talk • contribs) 09:53, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
This page is like a mind field.
Only people with perfect knowledge of the Quran (the holy book of Muslim) and its meanings and perfect knowledge of the English language, should venture in editing it or be participant in it.
Why ? Because the only origin of the Arabic language is the Quran.
A statistic issued by the United Nations claimed that the most three difficult languages worldwide are the American Native Indians languages, which has no rules, the Chinese language which underwent a massive simplification in the last decades and third the Arabic language which cannot be simplified by any means because the Quran cannot be changed in any way.
Just two examples 1- The word : ALLAH (which means the only name of God in Arabic) does not change pronunciation, in most, may be all of the languages spoken worldwide. 2- Any other word changes from country to another - example : house (English) - maison (French) - haus (German) - casa (Spanish and Italian) - (بيث - العربية). Try to read them all and see if you get the same sound.
Now, any word that is Arabic and has an established noun in a foreign language, should be used ( for the picky people like me both should be used for example Cairo - Alqaheera - القاهرة).
For any word (also in Arabic) that has not an established noun in the foreign language should be written as it is pronounced in the Arabic language. The last point is a logic thinking.
@Pathawi
Abdelhamidelsayed (
talk)
22:48, 10 November 2020 (UTC)abdelhamidelsayed
Excuse me, @ Apaugasma:, but are you familiar with the Arabic phonology topic? Have Arabic names passed on to you before?
-- Mahmudmasri ( talk) 17:43, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus trans- + liter-) in predictable ways [...] Transliteration is not primarily concerned with representing the sounds of the original but rather with representing the characters, ideally accurately and unambiguously.In other words, phonology is in principle irrelevant for transliteration. Although the characters chosen will often represent similar phonemes in both scripts, what is important about transliteration is that it should be strictly consistent. The common and even the basic transcription may well be made more phonologically correct, but strict transliteration not.
"various apostrophe(-like) variants (’ ʻ ʾ ʿ ᾿ ῾ ‘ ’), should generally not be used in page titles. A common exception is the simple apostrophe character (', same glyph as the single quotation mark) itself (e.g. Anthony d'Offay), which should, however, be used sparingly".The result has been that hamza and ayn are both represented with straight apostrophe in article titles. From there on, Wikipedia editors started to use the same convention throughout articles. This is now an official part of MOS:ISLAM:
The characters representing the ayin (ع) and the hamza (ء) are not omitted (except when at the start of a word) in the basic form, both represented by the straight apostrophe (').Do note, however, that this only holds for basic transcription: if there is a common transcription, such as in the examples you link to (mostly personal names, and some place names), that should always be used instead of basic transcription.
qamar, not
'amar. Anyway, it may be a good idea to create a separate basic transcription system for Egyptian Arabic. In the future, we may also create separate basic transcription systems for a number of other major variants such as Maghrebi, Levantine, Mesopotamian, Peninsular Arabic.
Hello Apaugasma, now let me take your notes one by one to tell you what needs to be changed in the guide.
partial rv: strict transliteration is Jamāl (strict means strict, i.e. always the same Latin letter for the same Arabic one). Unfortunately, that's not what common romanization schemes want, and it is unambiguously understood that ⟨G⟩ and ⟨J⟩ are used for ⟨ج⟩.
From the Library of Congress, DIN, and the UN (page 4 mentioned explicitly "Egypt" and ⟨G⟩), it's obvious that they have contextual variations for transliterating the same Arabic letter. Accordingly, Egypt-related topics should use ⟨G⟩.
Is it really transliteration or transcription? Or just an aid to pronounce words as correct as possible?
Anyone who can read Arabic knows that those transliterations are actually not transliterations in the strict sense. E.g. ⟨السلف الصالح⟩ would have been ⟨al-Slf al-Ṣālḥ⟩.While the Library of Congress would transcribe it al-salaf al-ṣāliḥ.
It seemed that users of the English Wikipedia prefer that Library of Congress romanization since it has less characters with diacritics. It is a bad practice to be picky in choosing parts and pieces of many romanization schemes combined together, e.g. to romanize / ʕ/ and / ʔ/ as ⟨ʿ⟩ and ⟨ʾ⟩ (the DIN scheme) while "mostly" using the scheme of the Library of Congress which uses ⟨‘⟩ and ⟨’⟩ instead, + ignoring the final ⟨h⟩ for ⟨ة⟩, but also forgetting the context.
Currently, the article of Gamal Abdel Nasser has the ⟨J⟩ spelling (Jamāl ʻAbdu n-Nāṣir Ḥusayn) as a strict transliteration due to the mistake of this guide, even though he is not an ancient personality. Similarly, Saddam Hussein's surname was clearly pronounced in formal Iraqi newscasts in Literary Arabic, [sˤɐdˈdaː.meħ.seːn rather than Ṣaddām Ḥusayn in the Wikipedia article. Such additional transliteration is actually not needed at all in such cases. Now to the "very concrete proposals":
I can do all of the aforementioned edits. Thanks. -- Mahmudmasri ( talk) 07:31, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
@ Atitarev, Nableezy, KarimKoueider, and Lockesdonkey: Dear users. You are requested to join the discussion about Arabic romanization summarized in the previous 6 points. -- Mahmudmasri ( talk) 08:06, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
In Egypt-related topics /g/ can be used instead of /j/, if applied consistently throughout the article. I oppose saying that /g/
shouldbe used: we need to be less rigid, not more.
This discussion was moved from Talk:Al-Shunah al-Shamalyah, with some parts specific to that page omitted.
I have brought this up on many pages, with little result. A standard system, not to be applied blindly, but as a source of reference, is needed. There are Jordanian lists of toponyms, I have once seen partial ones prepared by the Department of Antiquities, but they're not online – and I don't know if they've been worked through to a final form. Here a few options.
Ritter also mentions three other widely used standards, but I lack the time to search for those too. They have been established and are used by:
Concrete example for this article: see the US gazetteer entries from p. 237. I have grouped together all variants leading to the same recommended spelling:
It's clear that we have two main places, North and South Shuna. Not clear to me where the gazetteer's Sh. Power Station, Bridge, and Tell are, nor if Shūnat Ibn 'Adwān coincides with one of the two, but this is secondary for now. Anyway, getamap.net states that "Shuneh Power Station is also known as Jisr ash Shunah, ... Shuna Bridge", in Irbid Province (so connected to North Shuna). I guess Shuna Bridge is over the King Abdallah Channel and the power station somewhere nearby - unless they are both actually relating to Rutenberg's power station (there are several bridges there), which would require for Baqura to be in the N Shuna District & Irbid Province, which is perfectly possible.
"The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (Archaeological Map) 1:250k, April 1978" (from here on JAM), Sheet 1, has a Kh[irbet] esh-Shuneh at North Shuneh. Maybe it's identical with our Tell esh-Shuneh.
geographic.org 's page on Jordan (see here) looks mildly useful. Some of the pins are not very accurate, but can help in broad terms. Shuna Refugee Camp is shown at/just outside South Shuna. Shūnat Ibn 'Adwān has a pin in the middle of nowhere, next to some agricultural terraces near Hisban/Husban. Sh. Power Station has its pin in an agricultural field, but it's close to N. Shuna, in Irbid Province. Tall ash Shūnah is totally misplaced, downhill from Pella, but maybe it's not by chance that it's closer to N Shuna than to S Shuna.
EcoPeace Middle East. There is also a New Shuneh near S Shuna (see p. 62, left col.). They call Tell esh-Shuneh "Tell North Shuna", but "they" aren't focused on names, they're into really moving things in the real world ("Regional NGO Master Plan for Sustainable Development in the Jordan Valley. Final Report – June 2015").
The long-standing standard for reproducing long i sounds at the end of place-names is -iyeh or -iyyeh, which looks a bit over the top. The tendency (see OGS) is to now use a for e, so we get -iya(h).
CONCLUSION: I would suggest
both with the equally valid alternative version without an article (ash-) at the beginning, so
I would personally have preferred the old forms, with -iyeh, but that seems to be sooo 1999. We can consider when to use which form for the article's title, and create redirects for those left out. Arminden ( talk) 01:35, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
References
North Shunais in (very) wide use, use that and only transliterate once in the lead and once in the etymology section, strictly:
al-Shūna al-Shamāliyya. If North Shuna is not in wide use, use the basic transcription
al-Shuna al-Shamaliyya, with the strict transliteration at first mention in the lead. ☿ Apaugasma ( talk ☉) 11:05, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
Thanks to Loew now we have an article on South Shuna, too. There the article used is ash, here it's al – shouldn't we decide for one? There is an article (DAB, but with explanation in the lead) for ash-shamaliyah and I have updated the one on al-janubiyah. Arminden ( talk) 11:25, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
I agree that the manual of style should be followed. I even amended it since it was confusing or had multiple styles mixed without labeling.
I've always supported the following practice:
Thanks. ---- Mahmudmasri ( talk) 15:18, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
@ Apaugasma:@ Mahmudmasri:@ Arminden: In the interest of focusing the discussion about setting a manual, or manuals, of style for Arabic place names on Wikipedia, I have moved the original thread here. Mahmud you have been active with this page in the past, what is the best approach to setting this up? Organizing the discussion here or going further by opening an RFC (also here)? Either way, the relevant wikiprojects and active users who have frequently edited this topic (i.e. places in the Arabic-speaking world) will be notified. Before we continue discussion about the substance though, we should decide the best mechanism. Al Ameer ( talk) 21:35, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
Hello @ Apaugasma, @ Mahmudmasri, @ Tavix, @ HiddenFace101, @ Nehme1499, @ HistoryofIran, @ Fayenatic london, @ WPEditor42, @ BlankpopsiclesilviaASHs4, @ Mandarax, @ SYSS Mouse, @ PamD there is ongoing discussion on 2023 AFC U-20 Asian Cup qualification regarding how Arabic surnames should be indexed/alphabetized.
As it stands both the versions differ from each other, and thus due to this there has been some problems regarding the same on the 2023 AFC U-20 Asian Cup qualification where argument has been made in favour and against of indexing the Arabic surnames using 'Al' as the part of the name and without it. Thus, can it be clarified which of these two manuals does indeed follow the correct policy and the same be used for all the pages in the future so that this discussion can be used as a reference? Anbans 586 ( talk) 14:57, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
This is a bit tricky. For transliterated words (those converted from Arabic to Latin letters in an ad hoc fashion and according to a rigorous and fixed system), the common practice in reliable sources is to discard the al- in alphabetical sorting. So for example, al-jazira and al-qa'ida (both 'basic transcriptions' according to this guideline's fixed transliteration system) would be sorted under 'j' and 'q'. However, in words that have a common English spelling (what we in this guideline call a 'common transcription', i.e., where the transcription is established by common usage rather than by rigorously following one fixed system) the al- or el- part is often treated as a full part of the word. So for example, Al Jazeera and Al-Qaeda would be sorted under 'a', and El-Bizri under 'e'. This dual approach is what most reliable sources do, in my experience, for example in the alphabetical sorting of bibliographies.
However, this may be thought of as complicated rule for Wikipedia, which might want to decide to either disregard all usage of al-/el- or never to disregard it. But in that case, disregarding the Al- in Al-Qaeda and sorting it under 'Q' sounds like a bad idea (most people not familiar with Arabic might find that unnatural or difficult to comprehend), so never disregarding it may be the preferred simple solution.
Whatever is decided, this guideline and WP:MCSTJR should be harmonized. ☿ Apaugasma ( talk ☉) 16:16, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
The manual of style guideline should be followed in article lists, and WP:MCSTJR should be followed in category pages. WPEditor42 ( talk • contribs) 16:43, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
Modern names with Abu, Abd, Abdel, Abdul, Ben, Bin and Bent are considered compound names and particles are integral to the name. "Abu Al-Heija" should be sorted as "Abu Heija". Nehme 1499 21:48, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
Modern names with
Abu,
Abd, Abdel, Abdul, Ben, Bin and Bent are considered compound names and particles are integral to the name.
Osama bin Laden is sorted {{DEFAULTSORT:Bin Laden, Osama}}
, and our guideline here , saying For indexing, the family name designators ibn (or colloquial bin) and bint should be ignored, unless the common transliteration makes it a part of the name (as in the Saudi Binladin Group).Any chance we might resolve that too? Probably better to also adjust this guideline to be in line with WP:SUR. ☿ Apaugasma ( talk ☉) 13:06, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
surname, given name
. In medieval names Abu, Abd, ibn, etc. also are integral to the name, but that doesn't come in to play, e.g., in
Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya, which is always sorted under 'Muhammad' rather than either under 'Ibn al-Hanafiyya' or 'Hanafiyya'. ☿
Apaugasma (
talk
☉)
19:43, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
The current strict transliteration recommends ʾ for ayin and ʿ for hamza. Just kidding! It's actually ʿ for ayin and ʾ for hamza. On my system these characters look identical at the default body text size. While I'm all for following standards, standards that depend on distinguishing different apostrophes are not suitable for use on the web where we cannot control how text is rendered (font, size, rasterisation, etc).
While I can accept that for basic transcription, conflating ayin and hamza is acceptable, the purpose of the strict transliteration is explicitly to be able to distinguish each letter. Everybody should be able to distinguish it, not just people with 20/20 vision with their nose pressed against the screen.
I propose that one of apostrophes should be changed to a different glyph. It is better to change ayin, as using apostrophe for glottal stop is a stronger convention.
Here's some potential non-apostrophe options for ayin:
I like using "3" the best as it's a de facto standard and many people are already used to reading it.
Here's what the difference looks like:
أعرف → ʾaʿraf → ʾa3raf
رائعة → rāʾiʿa → rāʾi3a
عائلة → ʿāʾila → 3āʾila
To my eyes, that's a big improvement. I can actually read the 2nd transliteration. Alextgordon ( talk) 13:04, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
The guideline seems to be rather ambiguous about this. In the capitalization section, it mentions the definite article as an exception, but there is no real exposition of or examples of when this is the case. As it is, there seems to be a lot of cross-Wiki variation ATM, e.g. Al-Qaeda/ al-Ghazali. But, IMO, articles such as al-Ghazali look pretty funky and non-standard with a lower-case initial definite article. Iskandar323 ( talk) 07:53, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
Should these be capitalized or lowercase? (This matters because it affects whether {{ Lowercase title}} is placed in the article.) Also should they have a dash or no dash? They appear to be randomly mixed at the moment. Examples:
Folks are reverting me for capitalizing one of these, so was wondering if there's a standard. Thanks. cc GnocchiFan. – Novem Linguae ( talk) 20:41, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
I curate the Timeline of the 2023 Israel-Hamas war, and I'm puzzled by the distinction (if any) between "Houthi" and "Houthis". I've done some digging, and in the citations at least "Houthi" predominates. But what's the proper style? Should we go orthographically by citation? Write etymologically "Drones from the tribe of Houth"? What? What? Figured that I, monoglot, would hand you this abstruse issue. Details matter. Thx. kencf0618 ( talk) 14:29, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
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|||||
The table at WP:Manual of Style/Arabic#Examples gives “Qur'an” as the standard transliteration, but the article itself is at Quran, the link in the title above being a redirect. (I notice that the {{Cite quran}} template lacks the apostrophe as well.) But titles are sometimes subject to special policies. What is the consensus for the spelling in articles, where current practice seems to be mixed? Should the example be changed, leaving the apostrophe only in the “strict” column?— Odysseus1479 ( talk) 23:02, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
For some reason I hadn't come across these guidelines before, but I'm finding them very helpful. I'm working on several articles about the history and architecture of southeast Anatolia and al-Jazirah between the time of the Muslim conquest of this area (638) and when it was added to the Ottoman Empire (around 1515). A lot of my sources for this period are historians writing in English, who themselves rely primarily on Arab sources. These accounts tend to have quite a lot of references to historical figures who don't currently have Wikipedia articles (and may never). As I don't read Arabic, I am taking personal and geographic names from these secondary sources, where they are typically rendered in a strict transliteration (e.g. al-Muwaḥḥid ʿAbd Allāh), rather than making my own transliterations from Arabic.
These MOS guidelines are pretty clear when dealing with the subject of an article, but I can't find a clear statement of how to handle transliteration of other names and terms that don't merit their own articles. My interpretation is as follows, but please correct it if I have misunderstood.
Assuming that my understanding above is correct, I will need to fix a number of articles to use standard transliteration in place of strict transliteration.
Would it be possible for someone to rewrite this MOS guideline to clarify this aspect? I think what's needed is to add a subsection for "Preferred form" within the "Proposed standard" section. It could be as simple as stating that where an Arabic name or term does not meet the criteria for its own article, it should still appear in other Wikipedia articles using the approach laid out in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Arabic).
That does raise another question for me: A lot of the relevant historical figures during this period have pretty long names with chains of nasabs (e.g. Amir Saif al-Dīn Shīrbārīk Maudūd bin ʿAlī (bin Alp-Yaruq) bin Artuq). Where the person has their own article, it seems fine that I just refer (and link) to that form . Where there is no article for that individual, it would seem best to use the full name on first reference, and then use the most common form for subsequent references. Is there an MOS guideline that covers this area? Rupert Clayton ( talk) 19:44, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
I have another transliteration question related to the one above. A lot of the historical figures who appear in the articles I'm working on are non-Arabs who operated in an Arabic-dominated culture, or whom we know about primarily from Arab historians. They seem to break into three main groups:
It seems clear to me that people in group 1 should follow the guidelines for Arabic names, and people in group 3 should follow separate guidelines. Is there any guidance for people in group 2? Rupert Clayton ( talk) 20:22, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
Dynasty | Court/official language | Lingua franca | Military language | Scholarly and literary language |
---|---|---|---|---|
Great Seljuks | Persian | Persian | Oghuz Turkish | Arabic |
Artuqids | Arabic? | An oghuz language similar to Azeri? | ? | Arabic |
Rum Seljuks | Persian | Old Anatolian Turkish | ? | Persian |
Aq Qoyunlu | Azerbaijani | Azerbaijani | Azerbaijani | Arabic and Azerbaijani |
Ilkhanids | Persian | Mongolian? | Mongolian? | Persian? |
The lead of the article on the topic of the Arabic definite article states:
Unlike most other particles in Arabic, al- is always prefixed to another word and it never stands alone. Consequently, most dictionaries will not list it as a separate word, and it is almost invariably ignored in collation." I am curious to know the implications of this especially as it applies to the representation of Arabic titles in English.
This comes in a context in which has a very clear policy / guideline on WP:THE and a content at WP:CRITERIA that presents:
In many cases, unless the "al-" is familiar, it will just get in the way and further problems are raised in situations as when a name for the article is used "to link to the article from other articles
". It may often be nonsensical for an article to present something like "... of the al-Link ....
" and, in these cases, the problems of
WP:THE seem to me to be exacerbated.
I am no great fan of WP:THE but I think that, if anything, there tendency has been to edit Arabic titles in a way that is quite contrary to this policy / guideline and am curious as to why this might be.
There is currently a discussion at Talk:Masjid al-Haram#Requested move 1 May 2015 in which I have presented quotes such as from the Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Religion: G-P which presents:
(I mention this because I think there may be a perhaps related issue in regard to the presentation of the most commonly used name for a subject as it is used in English).
I would be grateful for any thoughts in regard to issues mentioned and on ways in which any potential issues might best be addressed.
I will also present content on other inappropriate or possibly inappropriate uses of related titling in a sub-thread below and, at editors discretion, suggest that any related discussion/response may continue in a "related discussion" section after that. Thanks. Greg Kaye 08:58, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
ADAB AL-KABĪR"
The MoS has a statement in the section on definite articles "For this manual of style, assimilated letters will be used, as it aids readers in the correct pronunciation." This seems a bit strange. Is it stating that assimilated letters must be used? If so, it seems an unusually strict requirement which opens up quarrels and confusion. ALA-LC does not use assimilated letters, and the preponderance of ALA-LC transcription in English texts (certainly in the US) mean that most academic and other source material will not be using them. Are we requiring Wikipedia editors to know that the transcriptions they are coming across and using in articles are "wrong" by that policy statement? Most Wikipedia editors are not Arabic-speakers, and have no idea about assimilated letters or pronunciation, and will transcribe names as they read them (e.g. "Harun al-Rashid" rather than "Harun ar-Rashid"). This seems a very strange demand to make upon them. Particularly as it opens up quarrels between editors, between the few who insist on assimilated letters (unusual in the literature) and the bulk who insist on keeping it unassimilated (as they commonly read it). It will also likely introduce inconsistencies across articles, e.g. the main article being forcibly named "Harun ar-Rashid", but other editors continue to innocently write "Harun al-Rashid" in other articles, not imagining it might be inconsitent. It seems to me WP:MOSAR statement is being unproductive here, and imposing a rule that contradicts common usage, and will likely lead to quarrels between editors. I would like to propose a modification in the MoS which states that assimilated letters can be used, if shown to be the preponderant transcription, and eliminate the statement that "it will be used", which seems an anomalous imposition. Walrasiad ( talk) 23:48, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
assimilated letters will be used. I strongly disagree with your proposed modification. Thousands of article titles on Wikipedia, about place names, people, etc, use the assimilated letters per WP:MOSAR. Some of the titles (only where the assimilated definite articles occur at the start of the title) can be found in these lists: All pages with prefix at-, All pages with prefix ad-, All pages with prefix adh-, All pages with prefix ar-, All pages with prefix az-, All pages with prefix as-, All pages with prefix ash-, All pages with prefix an-. Khestwol ( talk) 08:18, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
As discussed above, "Al" when not the article means "family", not "dynasty" - even if dynasties take their family's name. Whenever the name of the ancestor is well-known, its descendant may be know as "Al ...". See for example Al ash-Sheikh. Naming it "dynastic" may let people think these are a reigning familyn which is not necessarily true.
Also, this section should also be part of Al (disambiguation) and arabic names - I copied it there-- Df ( talk) 20:56, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
Some articles require the use of the original word in Arabic script. It could be me, but I am coming across an increasing use of the big template for enlarging Arabic words. Personally, I don't like this since it increases the whitespace between lines, adds to a sometimes already complex syntax code, and I can't see much difference anyway (could be my browser settings). Is this the new standard for Arabic or does a normal font size suffice? - HyperGaruda ( talk) 11:19, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
Not sure if anyone's still watching this page, but there is some discussion going on about the standard transcription of ayin and alif. At least concerning the title. The Arabic naming convention only says to use the standard transcription method, but then there's also the convention to limit apostrophe usage to ' (straight apostrophe), so that ayin and alif would be transcribed identically instead of with ` and '. Any comments on that?
If we're going to use a straight apostrophe for both letters in the title, perhaps it's also an idea to extrapolate that to the standard transcription rules. It would not be completely absurd, considering that we're also writing ض/د and ص/س with the same letters. - HyperGaruda ( talk) 14:24, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
So far it looks like we are heading towards ayin&hamza='. I propose to update the MOS on October 1st, unless someone objects in the meantime. - HyperGaruda ( talk) 15:58, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
Point taken, so back to the issue at hand: the initial apostrophe for ayin. So far there have been three opinions on that:
I still stand behind the third option, not (only) because it is my own, but because primary transcriptions (i.e. common names used in the media) tend to do it that way. For example, names like Abdullah and Ali or nouns like Eid (as in Eid al-Fitr) tend to be written without initial apostrophes despite beginning with ayin. - HyperGaruda ( talk) 08:55, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
The reason why none of these proposals are still going anywhere is imho very simple: they try to impose a rule across all articles and are still unsuccessful in dealing with the consensus that may arise around some article titles. These consensuses are real and won't be overthrown by would-be guidance. That's why the WP:TSC policy contains "If, exceptionally, other variants are used a redirect with the apostrophe variant should be created (e.g. 'Abdu'l-Bahá redirects to `Abdu'l-Bahá)." I don't think `Abdu'l-Bahá is going to change anywhere soon, so deal with it.
Another reason why these discussions progress so difficultly is that contributors don't pay much attention to what others write, they add something, apparently only half understanding what someone else wrote. E.g. above I read "...options 2 and 3 (using apostrophes)..." while "option 3" reads "Leave the initial apostrophe out altogether". So please stay focussed, and avoid fuzziness in the comments. How is someone supposed to be interested in your comment, if that comment is only paying half attention to the comments by others? -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 08:24, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
And additionally made changes to the wording of some phrases. - HyperGaruda ( talk) 14:46, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
Perhaps we should rename the current standard transcription into something like basic transcription. I often get the feeling on other talk pages that people confuse standard transcription with strict transliteration. Although this might give problems with primary transcription, so maybe we should change that into common transcription Any better naming suggestions? - HyperGaruda ( talk) 19:20, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
Article titles are written preferentially using a common English translation. If unavailable the common transcription is used. If neither is available, the basic transcription is used. The strict transliteration should never be used in article titles.This brevity does not really warrant a complete article of its own imho. The current common and basic transcription rules are MoS-compatible, so I am not sure what other rules you want to add for article titles; care to explain? - HyperGaruda ( talk) 15:21, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
Since the guideline is being updated, what is your opinion on using the <big> and <large> tags, presumably to make the Arabic script more legible? I'm in favor of avoiding them since I'm hoping that, in the future, more browsers will support choosing an appropriate font. These tags are visually distracting and are a cheap fix for a temporary problem. Abjiklɐm ( tɐlk) 15:44, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
Should the definite article be capitalized in navigation templates where Arabic words are listed in horizontal and alphabetical order? I ask because I've been discussing the Template:Mosques in Palestine with another user who is arguing that because each article stands alone, the definite article should be capitalized. I believe, because the definite article is basically a formality, that it should not be emphasized and thus should be lowercase while only the main word should be capitalized. I think capitalizing the definite article for each item in the list muddies the alphabetical order because the emphasis becomes shifted to the definite article instead of the main word getting prioritized. For example: I think "Ibrahimi Mosque • al-Jawali Mosque • Nabi Yahya Mosque an-Nasr Mosque" is preferable to "Ibrahimi Mosque • Al-Jawali Mosque • Nabi Yahya Mosque • An-Nasr Mosque". The only time I think the definite article should be capitalized is for the first item in the list. I could not find a specific guideline in MoS Arabic for templates so I wonder what the policy should be here. -- Al Ameer ( talk) 05:24, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
Pinging Francis Schonken, Abjiklam and Khestwol for some more input. - HyperGaruda ( talk) 06:00, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
I have tried to find templates related to Arabic, excluding navigation and message templates. It is probably a good idea to include these in the MoS, but I would like to hear your comments about them and if there are more which may need a mention in the MoS. - HyperGaruda ( talk) 08:51, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
Already mentioned in MoS. - HyperGaruda ( talk) 08:51, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
In combination with |ar
. Already mentioned in MoS. -
HyperGaruda (
talk)
08:51, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
In combination with |ar
. Same effect as {{
lang}}, but used for entire paragraphs that need to be right-aligned.
Gives IPA pronunciation.
For use after external links to indicate that the linked site is written in Arabic.
Infobox with all the possible renderings of an Arabic term.
Infobox analysing the different parts of an Arabic name.
I understand that for the purposes of article titles at least, transliteration guidelines are always trumped by WP:UCN, on a case-by-case basis. A notorious case is Muammar Gaddafi -- it doesn't matter how you would transliterate the name in theory, choice of article name is guided entirely by how the relevant English-language sources tend to render it. Similarly, Quran vs. Qur'an. The second variant is more "correct", but the first is simply the more common in English-language sources.
It is perfectly fine, also, that the "basic transliteration" brings information loss, mostly losing vowel length and "emphatic" markers (ẓ vs z). These are phonological features in Arabic and it is fair enough to not preserve them in "basic transliteration", we can always give close transliteration for clarification.
But I am unhappy with the accident of collapsing hamza and ayin. These are two entirely different phonemes, and they are collapsed not because they are phonologically similar but because their romanization symbols happen to look similar.
In names with common anglicization, neither ayin or hamza will be rendered, e.g. Amman, Iraq, Quran, etc. But in technical topics, or specialist terminology with no familiar anglicization, I would suggest it is advisable to recommend use of a distinct transliteration of ayin, e.g. Muʿtazila, Muqattaʿat, vs. the corresponding DIN symbol ʾ, or simple apostrophe, Al Wala' Wal Bara'. -- dab (𒁳) 09:02, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
ʿ
or ʾ
instead of '
, as long as the alternatives redirect there; e.g., we do this with various Hawaiian names that contain an
okina (but not for those assimilated so deeply into English they're rarely encountered in English with them, as with
Hawaii itself). For rendering
ayin, we should use whatever is most recommended by reliable sources on how to transliterate Arabic (not what is most frequently done in sources that are not reliable for language matters, like newspapers, which probably just omit any symbol at all). This is in keeping with our handling of diacritics, too. It doesn't matter one whit whether American and British newspapers and even sport governing bodies regularly misspell a sportsperson's name as "Gratic"; if RS tell us it is properly spelled Gratič, then we use that. (Unless the subject him/herself has pointedly abandoned use of the diacritic, entirely or in English, e.g. by omitting it in their official English-language website; then it becomes a
WP:ABOUTSELF policy matter. Same goes for Asian name order;
Utada Hikaru remains family-name first because she uses that name order on the majority of her albums, even in English;
Hajime Sorayama is given-name first because he uses that name order in Western media.) —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<
03:29, 16 November 2017 (UTC)Very well. It looks like we may be gravitating towards consensus. I think we could start with Dbachmann's objection to mandating the use of apostrophe for ayin in the basic transcription. I had assumed that this practice was rooted in a strongly held community consensus, but it certainly doesn't seem to be the case judging from this discussion. We now have a nice discussion at Ayin#Transliteration courtesy of Dbachmann, which indicates that the LOC maybe a holdout in the broader trend of adopting the raised semi-circles for ayin and hamza in the academic publishing industry. This symbol is available in the WP editor under the Arabic tab. I have just done a bit of further research and I see that while specialist Oxford encyclopedias in Islamic studies use strict transliteration, the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World and MacMillan Reference (Gale Thompson) encyclopedias in Islamic studies use a scheme that seems to match our basic transcription, but with the raised semi-circles for ayin and hamza. In view of this, I start with the following proposals:
1) List the raised semi-circles as alternatives for ayin and hamza under strict transliteration.
2) List the raised semi-circles and raised commas as alternatives for ayin and hamza under basic transcription.
3) Recommend not using the apostrophe for ayin and hamza unless it is part of a common transcription.
Eperoton ( talk) 02:42, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
According to that table, the semi-circle for ayin is also part of the BS and ISO schemes, but I don't think counting distinct transliteration schemes is an appropriate methodology to use here, as it takes no account of how widely these schemes are actually adopted. Also, the table is not accurate on this point: most notably, contrary to what it states for "EI", all editions of the Encyclopedia of Islam have used the semi-circles, as one can verify on its website.
I've checked the character used for ayin in the major reference works in Islamic studies that I can quickly consult:
- Raised semi-circle: EI1,2,3; Brill's Encyclopedia of the Qur'an, The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World and other OUP encyclopedias, MacMillan/Gale Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World
- Raised inverted comma: Routledge Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia,
- Different characters used in different entries: Oxford Handbooks, The New Cambridge History of Islam, The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought
So, while I don't see a rationale for discouraging raised commas, which are used in influential sources, I see even less rationale for discouraging raised semi-circles, which seem to be the most widely adopted convention in current academic publications. Eperoton ( talk) 02:27, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
From MOS:
"Al-" and its variants (ash-, ad-, ar-, etc.) are always written in lower case (unless beginning a sentence), and a hyphen separates it from the following word.
I think it should always be written in lowercase even when beginning a sentence. I'm sorry if you discussed this before but I couldn't find any direct mentions to this.
From Wikipedia Romanization of Arabic:
/info/en/?search=Romanization_of_Arabic#endnote_10
The UN system and ALA-LC prefer lowercase a and hyphens.
References cited by the Wikipedia article:
ALA-LC Romanization Tables, Rule 18(a)
https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/arabic.pdf
the definite article al is given in lower case in all positions
UNGEGN Romanization Tables, Other systems of romanization
http://www.eki.ee/wgrs/rom1_ar.pdf
The original transliteration table, published in vol. II of the report on the Second UN Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names, contains examples (but not explicit rules) where the definite article is always written with a small initial
What do you think? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zeromido ( talk • contribs) 09:53, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
This page is like a mind field.
Only people with perfect knowledge of the Quran (the holy book of Muslim) and its meanings and perfect knowledge of the English language, should venture in editing it or be participant in it.
Why ? Because the only origin of the Arabic language is the Quran.
A statistic issued by the United Nations claimed that the most three difficult languages worldwide are the American Native Indians languages, which has no rules, the Chinese language which underwent a massive simplification in the last decades and third the Arabic language which cannot be simplified by any means because the Quran cannot be changed in any way.
Just two examples 1- The word : ALLAH (which means the only name of God in Arabic) does not change pronunciation, in most, may be all of the languages spoken worldwide. 2- Any other word changes from country to another - example : house (English) - maison (French) - haus (German) - casa (Spanish and Italian) - (بيث - العربية). Try to read them all and see if you get the same sound.
Now, any word that is Arabic and has an established noun in a foreign language, should be used ( for the picky people like me both should be used for example Cairo - Alqaheera - القاهرة).
For any word (also in Arabic) that has not an established noun in the foreign language should be written as it is pronounced in the Arabic language. The last point is a logic thinking.
@Pathawi
Abdelhamidelsayed (
talk)
22:48, 10 November 2020 (UTC)abdelhamidelsayed
Excuse me, @ Apaugasma:, but are you familiar with the Arabic phonology topic? Have Arabic names passed on to you before?
-- Mahmudmasri ( talk) 17:43, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus trans- + liter-) in predictable ways [...] Transliteration is not primarily concerned with representing the sounds of the original but rather with representing the characters, ideally accurately and unambiguously.In other words, phonology is in principle irrelevant for transliteration. Although the characters chosen will often represent similar phonemes in both scripts, what is important about transliteration is that it should be strictly consistent. The common and even the basic transcription may well be made more phonologically correct, but strict transliteration not.
"various apostrophe(-like) variants (’ ʻ ʾ ʿ ᾿ ῾ ‘ ’), should generally not be used in page titles. A common exception is the simple apostrophe character (', same glyph as the single quotation mark) itself (e.g. Anthony d'Offay), which should, however, be used sparingly".The result has been that hamza and ayn are both represented with straight apostrophe in article titles. From there on, Wikipedia editors started to use the same convention throughout articles. This is now an official part of MOS:ISLAM:
The characters representing the ayin (ع) and the hamza (ء) are not omitted (except when at the start of a word) in the basic form, both represented by the straight apostrophe (').Do note, however, that this only holds for basic transcription: if there is a common transcription, such as in the examples you link to (mostly personal names, and some place names), that should always be used instead of basic transcription.
qamar, not
'amar. Anyway, it may be a good idea to create a separate basic transcription system for Egyptian Arabic. In the future, we may also create separate basic transcription systems for a number of other major variants such as Maghrebi, Levantine, Mesopotamian, Peninsular Arabic.
Hello Apaugasma, now let me take your notes one by one to tell you what needs to be changed in the guide.
partial rv: strict transliteration is Jamāl (strict means strict, i.e. always the same Latin letter for the same Arabic one). Unfortunately, that's not what common romanization schemes want, and it is unambiguously understood that ⟨G⟩ and ⟨J⟩ are used for ⟨ج⟩.
From the Library of Congress, DIN, and the UN (page 4 mentioned explicitly "Egypt" and ⟨G⟩), it's obvious that they have contextual variations for transliterating the same Arabic letter. Accordingly, Egypt-related topics should use ⟨G⟩.
Is it really transliteration or transcription? Or just an aid to pronounce words as correct as possible?
Anyone who can read Arabic knows that those transliterations are actually not transliterations in the strict sense. E.g. ⟨السلف الصالح⟩ would have been ⟨al-Slf al-Ṣālḥ⟩.While the Library of Congress would transcribe it al-salaf al-ṣāliḥ.
It seemed that users of the English Wikipedia prefer that Library of Congress romanization since it has less characters with diacritics. It is a bad practice to be picky in choosing parts and pieces of many romanization schemes combined together, e.g. to romanize / ʕ/ and / ʔ/ as ⟨ʿ⟩ and ⟨ʾ⟩ (the DIN scheme) while "mostly" using the scheme of the Library of Congress which uses ⟨‘⟩ and ⟨’⟩ instead, + ignoring the final ⟨h⟩ for ⟨ة⟩, but also forgetting the context.
Currently, the article of Gamal Abdel Nasser has the ⟨J⟩ spelling (Jamāl ʻAbdu n-Nāṣir Ḥusayn) as a strict transliteration due to the mistake of this guide, even though he is not an ancient personality. Similarly, Saddam Hussein's surname was clearly pronounced in formal Iraqi newscasts in Literary Arabic, [sˤɐdˈdaː.meħ.seːn rather than Ṣaddām Ḥusayn in the Wikipedia article. Such additional transliteration is actually not needed at all in such cases. Now to the "very concrete proposals":
I can do all of the aforementioned edits. Thanks. -- Mahmudmasri ( talk) 07:31, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
@ Atitarev, Nableezy, KarimKoueider, and Lockesdonkey: Dear users. You are requested to join the discussion about Arabic romanization summarized in the previous 6 points. -- Mahmudmasri ( talk) 08:06, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
In Egypt-related topics /g/ can be used instead of /j/, if applied consistently throughout the article. I oppose saying that /g/
shouldbe used: we need to be less rigid, not more.
This discussion was moved from Talk:Al-Shunah al-Shamalyah, with some parts specific to that page omitted.
I have brought this up on many pages, with little result. A standard system, not to be applied blindly, but as a source of reference, is needed. There are Jordanian lists of toponyms, I have once seen partial ones prepared by the Department of Antiquities, but they're not online – and I don't know if they've been worked through to a final form. Here a few options.
Ritter also mentions three other widely used standards, but I lack the time to search for those too. They have been established and are used by:
Concrete example for this article: see the US gazetteer entries from p. 237. I have grouped together all variants leading to the same recommended spelling:
It's clear that we have two main places, North and South Shuna. Not clear to me where the gazetteer's Sh. Power Station, Bridge, and Tell are, nor if Shūnat Ibn 'Adwān coincides with one of the two, but this is secondary for now. Anyway, getamap.net states that "Shuneh Power Station is also known as Jisr ash Shunah, ... Shuna Bridge", in Irbid Province (so connected to North Shuna). I guess Shuna Bridge is over the King Abdallah Channel and the power station somewhere nearby - unless they are both actually relating to Rutenberg's power station (there are several bridges there), which would require for Baqura to be in the N Shuna District & Irbid Province, which is perfectly possible.
"The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (Archaeological Map) 1:250k, April 1978" (from here on JAM), Sheet 1, has a Kh[irbet] esh-Shuneh at North Shuneh. Maybe it's identical with our Tell esh-Shuneh.
geographic.org 's page on Jordan (see here) looks mildly useful. Some of the pins are not very accurate, but can help in broad terms. Shuna Refugee Camp is shown at/just outside South Shuna. Shūnat Ibn 'Adwān has a pin in the middle of nowhere, next to some agricultural terraces near Hisban/Husban. Sh. Power Station has its pin in an agricultural field, but it's close to N. Shuna, in Irbid Province. Tall ash Shūnah is totally misplaced, downhill from Pella, but maybe it's not by chance that it's closer to N Shuna than to S Shuna.
EcoPeace Middle East. There is also a New Shuneh near S Shuna (see p. 62, left col.). They call Tell esh-Shuneh "Tell North Shuna", but "they" aren't focused on names, they're into really moving things in the real world ("Regional NGO Master Plan for Sustainable Development in the Jordan Valley. Final Report – June 2015").
The long-standing standard for reproducing long i sounds at the end of place-names is -iyeh or -iyyeh, which looks a bit over the top. The tendency (see OGS) is to now use a for e, so we get -iya(h).
CONCLUSION: I would suggest
both with the equally valid alternative version without an article (ash-) at the beginning, so
I would personally have preferred the old forms, with -iyeh, but that seems to be sooo 1999. We can consider when to use which form for the article's title, and create redirects for those left out. Arminden ( talk) 01:35, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
References
North Shunais in (very) wide use, use that and only transliterate once in the lead and once in the etymology section, strictly:
al-Shūna al-Shamāliyya. If North Shuna is not in wide use, use the basic transcription
al-Shuna al-Shamaliyya, with the strict transliteration at first mention in the lead. ☿ Apaugasma ( talk ☉) 11:05, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
Thanks to Loew now we have an article on South Shuna, too. There the article used is ash, here it's al – shouldn't we decide for one? There is an article (DAB, but with explanation in the lead) for ash-shamaliyah and I have updated the one on al-janubiyah. Arminden ( talk) 11:25, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
I agree that the manual of style should be followed. I even amended it since it was confusing or had multiple styles mixed without labeling.
I've always supported the following practice:
Thanks. ---- Mahmudmasri ( talk) 15:18, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
@ Apaugasma:@ Mahmudmasri:@ Arminden: In the interest of focusing the discussion about setting a manual, or manuals, of style for Arabic place names on Wikipedia, I have moved the original thread here. Mahmud you have been active with this page in the past, what is the best approach to setting this up? Organizing the discussion here or going further by opening an RFC (also here)? Either way, the relevant wikiprojects and active users who have frequently edited this topic (i.e. places in the Arabic-speaking world) will be notified. Before we continue discussion about the substance though, we should decide the best mechanism. Al Ameer ( talk) 21:35, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
Hello @ Apaugasma, @ Mahmudmasri, @ Tavix, @ HiddenFace101, @ Nehme1499, @ HistoryofIran, @ Fayenatic london, @ WPEditor42, @ BlankpopsiclesilviaASHs4, @ Mandarax, @ SYSS Mouse, @ PamD there is ongoing discussion on 2023 AFC U-20 Asian Cup qualification regarding how Arabic surnames should be indexed/alphabetized.
As it stands both the versions differ from each other, and thus due to this there has been some problems regarding the same on the 2023 AFC U-20 Asian Cup qualification where argument has been made in favour and against of indexing the Arabic surnames using 'Al' as the part of the name and without it. Thus, can it be clarified which of these two manuals does indeed follow the correct policy and the same be used for all the pages in the future so that this discussion can be used as a reference? Anbans 586 ( talk) 14:57, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
This is a bit tricky. For transliterated words (those converted from Arabic to Latin letters in an ad hoc fashion and according to a rigorous and fixed system), the common practice in reliable sources is to discard the al- in alphabetical sorting. So for example, al-jazira and al-qa'ida (both 'basic transcriptions' according to this guideline's fixed transliteration system) would be sorted under 'j' and 'q'. However, in words that have a common English spelling (what we in this guideline call a 'common transcription', i.e., where the transcription is established by common usage rather than by rigorously following one fixed system) the al- or el- part is often treated as a full part of the word. So for example, Al Jazeera and Al-Qaeda would be sorted under 'a', and El-Bizri under 'e'. This dual approach is what most reliable sources do, in my experience, for example in the alphabetical sorting of bibliographies.
However, this may be thought of as complicated rule for Wikipedia, which might want to decide to either disregard all usage of al-/el- or never to disregard it. But in that case, disregarding the Al- in Al-Qaeda and sorting it under 'Q' sounds like a bad idea (most people not familiar with Arabic might find that unnatural or difficult to comprehend), so never disregarding it may be the preferred simple solution.
Whatever is decided, this guideline and WP:MCSTJR should be harmonized. ☿ Apaugasma ( talk ☉) 16:16, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
The manual of style guideline should be followed in article lists, and WP:MCSTJR should be followed in category pages. WPEditor42 ( talk • contribs) 16:43, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
Modern names with Abu, Abd, Abdel, Abdul, Ben, Bin and Bent are considered compound names and particles are integral to the name. "Abu Al-Heija" should be sorted as "Abu Heija". Nehme 1499 21:48, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
Modern names with
Abu,
Abd, Abdel, Abdul, Ben, Bin and Bent are considered compound names and particles are integral to the name.
Osama bin Laden is sorted {{DEFAULTSORT:Bin Laden, Osama}}
, and our guideline here , saying For indexing, the family name designators ibn (or colloquial bin) and bint should be ignored, unless the common transliteration makes it a part of the name (as in the Saudi Binladin Group).Any chance we might resolve that too? Probably better to also adjust this guideline to be in line with WP:SUR. ☿ Apaugasma ( talk ☉) 13:06, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
surname, given name
. In medieval names Abu, Abd, ibn, etc. also are integral to the name, but that doesn't come in to play, e.g., in
Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya, which is always sorted under 'Muhammad' rather than either under 'Ibn al-Hanafiyya' or 'Hanafiyya'. ☿
Apaugasma (
talk
☉)
19:43, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
The current strict transliteration recommends ʾ for ayin and ʿ for hamza. Just kidding! It's actually ʿ for ayin and ʾ for hamza. On my system these characters look identical at the default body text size. While I'm all for following standards, standards that depend on distinguishing different apostrophes are not suitable for use on the web where we cannot control how text is rendered (font, size, rasterisation, etc).
While I can accept that for basic transcription, conflating ayin and hamza is acceptable, the purpose of the strict transliteration is explicitly to be able to distinguish each letter. Everybody should be able to distinguish it, not just people with 20/20 vision with their nose pressed against the screen.
I propose that one of apostrophes should be changed to a different glyph. It is better to change ayin, as using apostrophe for glottal stop is a stronger convention.
Here's some potential non-apostrophe options for ayin:
I like using "3" the best as it's a de facto standard and many people are already used to reading it.
Here's what the difference looks like:
أعرف → ʾaʿraf → ʾa3raf
رائعة → rāʾiʿa → rāʾi3a
عائلة → ʿāʾila → 3āʾila
To my eyes, that's a big improvement. I can actually read the 2nd transliteration. Alextgordon ( talk) 13:04, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
The guideline seems to be rather ambiguous about this. In the capitalization section, it mentions the definite article as an exception, but there is no real exposition of or examples of when this is the case. As it is, there seems to be a lot of cross-Wiki variation ATM, e.g. Al-Qaeda/ al-Ghazali. But, IMO, articles such as al-Ghazali look pretty funky and non-standard with a lower-case initial definite article. Iskandar323 ( talk) 07:53, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
Should these be capitalized or lowercase? (This matters because it affects whether {{ Lowercase title}} is placed in the article.) Also should they have a dash or no dash? They appear to be randomly mixed at the moment. Examples:
Folks are reverting me for capitalizing one of these, so was wondering if there's a standard. Thanks. cc GnocchiFan. – Novem Linguae ( talk) 20:41, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
I curate the Timeline of the 2023 Israel-Hamas war, and I'm puzzled by the distinction (if any) between "Houthi" and "Houthis". I've done some digging, and in the citations at least "Houthi" predominates. But what's the proper style? Should we go orthographically by citation? Write etymologically "Drones from the tribe of Houth"? What? What? Figured that I, monoglot, would hand you this abstruse issue. Details matter. Thx. kencf0618 ( talk) 14:29, 17 December 2023 (UTC)