John Cowan <cowan at ccil dot org> wrote:

>> You don't transliterate text of one language into another language.
>> Going from language to language is translation. Transliteration goes
>> from script to script. What you mean to say is "transliterated into
>> Latin script".
>
> True enough, but you are omitting transcription, which I define as
> "writing language A according to the writing conventions of language B
> (insofar as possible)." Embedding the word "Tschaikowski" into German
> text is neither translation nor transliteration, but transcription.

The way this was explained to me, true transliteration requires a
one-to-one correspondence between the original symbols (letters,
syllables, whatever) and those in the target script. The target string
often bears no resemblance to what native speakers of German or English
would write, say when Чайковский is transformed into Čaĭkovskiĭ, but it
is one-to-one and unambiguous.

This may run counter to the popular notion of "transliteration," but it
is the correct distinction.

By contrast, transcription is about transforming Чайковский into
Tschaikowski (for the benefit of German speakers) or Tchaikovsky (for
English speakers).

Translation is about transforming German "die Katze" into English "the
cat," and everyone knows that's not what Tex had in mind.

-Doug Ewell
Fullerton, California
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/