Subject: Re: Transliteration [and transcription]

From: Jonathan Rosenne <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 1997 07:19:29 +0200

At 15:07 19/11/97 GMT, John Clews wrote:
>Transliteration and transcription should be distinguished in this
>discussion on language codes and script codes. Most people initially
>confuse the two.
> - Transliteration is representing characters from one script by the
>   characters of another script.
> - Transcription is representing the sounds of one language by the
>   characters associated with those sounds in another language.
>   The source language and target language might or might not use the
>   same script.

To my knowledge, transliteration is representing the sounds. Anyway, this
is the meaning I use.

I don't think that this day and age there is much need for "representing
characters from one script by the characters of another script", not after
we have ISO 10646. Even if there are such local needs, I cannot see why
they should be standardized.

Jonathan