There was an email I received recently, about which I posted, asking about tones and xiao’erjin.
In the end, it got me thinking of Gwoyeu Romatzyh, the system of Romanisation created by YR Chao and Lin Yutang, a while before pinyin. In GR, all tones are marked in the spelling itself, so for example “hai” …
I recently received am email asking a simple but not unimportant question about the xiao’erjin system of transliteration. From the email:
How are you supposed to represent tones in Xiao’erjing? It doesn’t seem like you can. Wouldn’t that make Xiao’erjing an extremely unsatisfactory way of writing Chinese, if you can’t even express fully how it sounds?
I’d …
Josh of Far West China has a post up called a Pictorial History of Kashgar’s Id Kah Mosque (circa 1936). Being a fan of old stuff, mosques and pictures, I thought I’d pass it along. From the post:
The Id Kah mosque is one of the oldest and largest in all of China, dating all …
A friend recently appeared to me in Google Talk form, with the following link from the Los Angeles Times:
Arabic-language flashcards don’t fly with TSA
I’ve often wondered what sort of flags I’ve raised over the years travelling between the Middle East, China and America, often with multiple Arabic or Uyghur language texts in town, many of …
about木可至秦爿臣戈
I'm a grad student based in Shanghai. These are my accounts of linguistic collisions and cultural compromise, often specifically within the realm of Chinese Islam. I've also been known to make widgets.
I also maintain a site on the Wu language of East China.
arabictransliteration | close
Convert Arabic script to one of the most common Latin transliterations, DIN 31635. This is the same transliteration system used in the Hans Wehr, with some changes. I've added correction so that السَلام is rendered not as al-salām but as-salām, consistent with how it would be spoken.
« html
« display
downloadas a widget
You can download this transliteration tool as a widget for the OS X Dashboard. To remove the widget later, just go into ~/Library/Widgets and delete the file. To download, click here. A Readme file is included with more information on the widget and the transliteration.
Last updated 13 July 2009
• added support for ʼalif waṣla, ʼalif ḫanǧariyya and Allah ligature (ٱلله)
• fixed problem with šadda
pinyin to xiao'erjin | close
Convert pinyin to xiao'erjing, an early transliteration system for Chinese using the Arabic script.
Type in pinyin below and press Submit. Tone diacritics (e.g. mā má mǎ mà ma) and tone numbers (e.g. ma1 ma2 etc.) are supported.
There is, unfortunately, no single standard for xiao'erjing, so there may be some difference between these results and some of the texts available. I've made every effort to clear up some of the inherent ambiguity found elsewhere.
Last updated 13 July 2009
gwoyeu romatzyh to pīnyīn | close
Convert Gwoyeu Romatzyh to pinyin. Coming soon.
Download a Widget for the OS X Dashboard to quickly search Chinese characters, definitions, idioms and more on nciku.com and nciku.tw.
version 0.5
version 0.6.3
versionchanges
version 0.6
- added support for enter/return
- increased range of traditional searches
- updated design
version 0.5
- bug fixes
version 0.4
- added support for traditional characters
version 0.3.1
- added 10.4.0 support
version 0.3
- fixed bug causing widget to disappear
- removed unused code
- minor graphical changes
version 0.2
- added support for searching pinyin results, examples or idioms.
known issues& bugs
- "Search" must be clicked with cursor.
Download a Widget for the OS X Dashboard that acts as a front-end for the PopupChinese.com/Adsotrans tools.
version 0.6
features
- translation using adso dictionary
- conversion to pinyin
- switch between traditional and
simplified characters
changes
version 0.6
- graphical changes
version 0.5
- wider forms for longer search strings
- OS X 10.4.0 support
version 0.4
- selectable results
- cleaned up code
- craphical changes
uyghur transliteration tool | close
Convert Uyghur text from the Latin alphabet (Uyghur Latin Yéziqi) to the Arabic script more commonly used (Uyghur Ereb Yéziqi). Type in ULY text and hit submit for the corresponding UEY writing.
« ULY « UEY
known issues
There is one problem in converting from ULY to UEY. In ULY both /ʤ/ and /ʒ/ are written with j but in UEY one is ج while the other is ژ. In order to get the correct output you'll need to type zh for instances where ج is the correct letter.
Important:
You'll need to capitalise the first letter of every word that begins with a vowel. When appearing at the beginning of words, vowels are always written with a seated hamzah ء. Words cannot otherwise start with vowels in Uyghur, just as with Arabic and English. The use of capitals tells the script to add the hamza.
Last updated 10 July 2009
uyghur transliteration tool | close
Convert from Uyghur written in the Arabic script to the Latin alphabet following the Uyghur Latin Yéziqi standardisaton.
« UEY « ULY
While capitalisation is not a feature of the Arabic script, it has been used here to signify a glottal stop at the begining of a word which is written in the Arabic script. You'll need to make the appropriate changes if you want it to match English capitalisation standards.
Additionally, common English transliteration of names is rarely ULY. The name Rеbіуа Κаdееɾ, for example, would be written Rаbіуе Qаdіɾ in ULY. As such this tool will be of little use for converting English names of prominent Uyghurs into the Arabic script. For that I recommend Wikipedia.
Last updated 10 July 2009
harminator eliminator | close
A common concern of the China-based blogger is triggering a block due to using sensitive words. This script masks these words by replacing Latin letters with letters in other alphabets that look about the same to people but not to computers, so your conversations look much cleaner.
Type the word you want changed below, then paste the result wherever you need it.
« harmoniousness
Or you can do it manually. Just copy from the non-Latin letters below:
А В С ᗞ Ε Ϝ Ԍ Η Ι Ј Κ﹒Μ Ν Ο Ρ Ǫ﹒Ѕ Τ﹒﹒﹒Х Ү Ζ
а ɓ с ԁ е ſ ɡ﹒і ј ⱪ ɭ ɱ ƞ ο р ʠ ɾ ѕ ʈ﹒ѵ﹒х у﹒
Darkened letters above are not included in the automatic conversion for aesthetic reasons. Only one letter needs to be changed to effectively mask the word, so the absence of some letters isn't a problem.
Last updated 13 July 2009
glossary of islamic terms 回教词汇 مسرد الاسلامية الصينية | close
This is a collection of terms used by Muslims in China for common Islamic and Arabic phrases. I have left out less common terms and any that are direct transliterations of historical names. If there are any that are missing that you think should be here, feel free to contact me by email or on Twitter. Feedback is always welcome.
