The Declining Standards of Arabic-to-Roman Transliteration in Academic Writing, Editing, and Publishing

摘要

AbstractAcademic publications in Islamic and Near Eastern studies make use of transliteration systems to render words from the Arabic script into the Roman script; this process is also called Romanization (from Arabic). Accuracy in the application of these transliteration systems has long been an essential characteristic of rigorous scholarship. However, the standards of transliteration in academic writing, editing, and publishing have been gradually declining, to the extent that some of the?relatively recent scholarly monographs in Islamic and Near Eastern Studies, that have been considered to be ground-breaking and trend-setting, have featured fundamental and embarrassing errors in transliteration—errors that cannot be attributed to typographical carelessness alone. This decline has now seeped into the world of journalism as well. This paper will address issues in Arabic-to-Roman transliteration. It will also document some prominent cases that demonstrate the decline in standards. It will end with recommendations for authors, editors, and publishers, in whose interest it is to ensure the quality of transliteration.]]>