Pitfalls of Transliteration in Indexing and Searching M. HOSEH
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Chemical Abstracts, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.
Translations in systems of transliteration, which may be defined as the rendition of one alphabet in letters of another, hamper the work of the indexer and searcher. Transliteration from the Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet, particularly in connection with publications in the Russian language, may make it almost impos sible to locate the name of an author in an index. Special difficulties occur in connection with Russian names that come via French or German—the same name may be written as Shdanow in German, Jdanoff in French, and Zhdanov in English. There are now three main transliteration schemes in the United States: Board on Geographical Names, Chemical Abstracts, and Library of Congress and Government Printing Office. Renewed effort should be made to develop a generally acceptable uniform policy.
In a 1941 issue of the Doklady Akademii Ν auk SSSR appeared a paper b y A n t o n V . Chapek (transliteration) on colloidal gold. The paper was N o . 14. I n abstracting the paper, the Chemical Abstracts reference to paper 13 was wanted, but this name could not be found i n the author index. Some time later a paper b y V i k t o r A . Yankovskiï N o . 7 of a series, was abstracted. Again a search of the author index gave no trace of the pre ceding papers. Just about that time, i n a number of translations from Chemisches Zentralblatt and from Khimicheskiï Referativnyï Zhurnal, the complications began to multiply rapidly. I t was hard to believe that Chemical Abstracts had missed so many chemical papers. The ex planation for not finding these names i n the author index must therefore lie elsewhere. Pondering the original cases, i t was reasoned that Chapek is probably a Czech. I f so, then his name is spelled Capek. There it was i n the index. Yankovskiï assumed to be a Polish name and thus likely to be spelled Jankowski was found with published papers 1 to 6 on a germane topic i n a Polish chemical journal. H i s initials were given as W . J . Further analysis showed that the Russian V i k t o r would be W i k t o r i n Polish, but what about the J? I t turned out that his middle name was J f d r z e j , which during his sojourn in Moscow became Andreï! The distance between Capek and Chapek is 7 pages i n the 1951 index and 42 pages i n the last Decennial Index. The distance between Jankowski* and Yankovskiï is 304 pages i n 1951 and 1957 pages i n the Decennial Index. Although the names Capek and Jankowski i n the related cases are fictitious, the cases themselves are actual. Chemists with such names fled from Czechoslovakia and Poland to the Soviet Union before the invading Germans. They continued their work in the U S S R and pub lished i n Russian. Their names originally spelled i n the L a t i n alphabet were written i n Cyrillic. When their names were written i n the L a t i n alphabet b u t v i a another language, the complications arose. 541
LITERATURE RESOURCES Advances in Chemistry; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1954.
ADVANCES IN CHEMISTRY SERIES
542
These cases amply illustrate the importance of transliteration and particularly the necessity of a uniform transliteration scheme. Transliteration can be defined as rendition of one alphabet i n letters of another. Unless there is a change-over from one alphabet to another, within the same language—e.g., Turkish, which adopted the L a t i n alphabet around 1920—transliteration applies only to proper nouns. The different number of letters i n different alphabets, the difference i n phonetic value of identical letters i n two alphabets or even languages, and the absence of phones (speech sounds) i n one language common to another, complicate transliteration greatly. T h i s instance is concerned with transliteration of Russian into English. Table I.
Comparative Transliterations
Cyrillic
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Russian A Β Β Γ
a 6
Ά
Α e
Β
r
Ε
— —
Ë 3Κ 3 Η
—
ft tt
Κ JI Μ Η 0 Π Ρ C Τ
— —
ë » 3 Η
— κ ji Η
ο
π Ρ c τ y φ χ
φ Χ U
a 6 Β
η
III m
m m
hi h 3 Κ) Η
bl b 3
κ) Η
Ά
Ε e
Ά
— e β
— — ητ/· Λν
3
— Η τ1
3
— Η
a b
ν
V i
d e le]
d
[ye] e [ë] zh z i [y] iil l1
g d e e ie ë zh z i y
ϊ
κ JI Μ Η 0 Π Ρ C Τ
Κ
ft
JI Μ Η
Ο
ï[yi] k 1 m n o
Ï
k 1 m n o
m
P r s t u f kh ts ch sh shch
—
—
y
P r s t u f kh ts ch sh shch /r y
—
—
yu ya
e^ ni ia
y
Φ
χ u Η III m
Κ) Η
German Chem. Zentr. a b
V
V
V
g
g
g
g
d ye, e
d e
d e
d je, e
—
—
—
—
6
ye, e zh z i
w
c
zh z i
ë zh z i
y k 1 m n
y (y, ») k 1 m n
ï k 1 m n
P r s t u f kh ts ch sh shch
P r s t u f kh ts ch sh shch
P r s t u f kh cz ch sh shch
f ch z, tz' tech sch schtsch
y
y
y
e yu ya
e yu ya
é yu ya
e ju ja
sh s i
1
ϊ
ft
a b g
ρ ί
Μ
y
Α Β Β
LC
CA
Ukrainian
English ~ Brit. Abstr. Bushell BGN a a a b b b
Π
Ρ c τ y Φ χ η Η III
Κ) Η
It
o
w y
0
—
—
0
J
k 1 m n o
P r
S8,
S*
t
U
° T h i s letter, sounded as g i n good, was dropped from the U k r a i n i a n alphabet i n 1945. à I n i t i a l l y , after vowels and after T> and b ye ; elsewhere e. A t the beginning of a syllable je, otherwise e. d CA does not provide for transliteration of U k r a i n i a n , nor does Brit. Abatr., B u s h e l l , or Chem. Zmtr. T h e letters i n brackets are suggestions for transliterating the letters. • Between 2 consonants or at the beginning before a consonant s, otherwise ss. / A f t e r a vowel t a , otherwise z. ο A c u t e accent is a suggestion for rendering 3. CA. Chemical Abstract*. L C . L i b r a r y of Congress. BGN. B o a r d on Geographic N a m e s , e
LITERATURE RESOURCES Advances in Chemistry; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1954.
543
HOSEH—PITFALLS O F TRANSLITERATION IN INDEXING AND SEARCHING
Russian and English Alphabets
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Russian uses 32 (formerly 36) letters, while English consists of 26. Twelve of the Russian letters look alike i n both alphabets: a, B , e, κ, Μ, Η, Ο, ρ , c, τ, and χ. Of these, three sound alike at a l l times: κ, M, and τ and four sound alike sometimes: a, e, o, c—e.g., a as i n father; e as i n pep, although actually e i n Russian is palatal and its sound resembles the short e (ë) i n society and propriety; ο i n more; and c i n acid. Five sound differently at all times: B, H, p, y, and x, they are respectively, v, n, r, oo (as i n foot), and German ch. Once a transliteration system is adopted, the rendition of originally Russian names into English and the location of these names i n an English index is simple. However, names originally written i n a L a t i n alphabet, then transposed into Russian and trans literated from the latter, are apt to become separated from their original forms. The following names are taken from a Chemical Abstracts author index.
Dabrowski Czarnecki Hladky Cleja
floMÔpOBCKHÔ
HapHeijKHft
XjiaAKHÔ
Ujiea
Dombrovskiï Charaetskiï Khladkiï Tsleya
CA Index Pages 1951 Decennial 17 107 22 134 40 270 405 2644
Difficulties are also encountered with Russian names which come v i a French or Ger man. Thus, ΕφρβΜΟΒ is transliterated i n German as Jefremow, CyBopoB as Ssuworow. and Iïbiôa as Z y b a ; i n English, as Efremov, Suvorov, and T s y b a . The name 2KVKOB is transliterated i n German as Shukow, i n French as Joucov, and i n English as Zhukov. JKflaHOB becomes Shdanow i n German, Jdanoff i n French, and Zhdanov i n English. IDmeHKo and HpocjiaecKHu are transliterated i n German as Juschtschenko and Jarosslawskij and i n English as Yushchenko and YaroslavskiL The distance between J and E , Ss and Su, Τ and Ζ, J and Z, and J and Y i n an author index such as Chemical Abstracts is appreciable, and unless one knows that Jdanoff is Zhdanov, a search for this author is greatly impeded. These differences i n spelling must be kept i n mind when looking, for example, for JKypaBjiee i n Chemical Abstracts, Bulletin analytique, or Chemisches Zentralblatt. They must be remembered too when a paper is indexed, for instance, by ^ermoB taken from a French (Tchernoff), German (Tschernow), Italian (Cernov), Czech (Cernov), or Polish (Czernow) source. N o w what happens when Jouin, Williams, and Huckel settle i n Russia and start publishing there? We are confronted with papers by }KyaH, BHJIBHMC, and ΓΙΟΚΘΛΒ; their names as residents of Russia are transliterated as Zhuen, ViPyams, and Gyukel. These names resemble their original forms only phonetically and will naturally become separated from them in a name index. Equally troublesome is the spelling of names of Russians who move to the United States, Britain, France, or Germany.
