An Evaluation of Arabic Transliteration Methods
David R. Lawson · Carolina Digital Repository (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) · 2019
The American Library Association and the Library of Congress currently use a cooperatively developed Arabic transliteration system that is not ASCII-compatible and that incorporates the use of diacritical marks native to neither Arabic nor English. This study seeks to investigate whether the adoption of an alternate Arabic transliteration system by ALA and LC can increase both user access to the materials as well as the ability of librarians to correctly catalog them. The various systems are evaluated based upon phonetic and spelling accuracy, as well as usability, the adherence to not using non-native diacritics, and their compatibility with ASCII standards. A parallel with the issues in Korean transliteration is made in order to show how another language written in a non-Roman script approached the issues. After the analysis, a recommendation is made and avenues for further study are explored.