What Is Transliteration, And How Can It Help Your Business Communication?
Does your business have a customer database that crosses numerous countries? Do you have trouble managing customer address data in foreign languages? If your answer is a yes to both these questions. In that case, using an address verification tool with transliteration capability can be especially beneficial.
Transliteration in address verification is a simple but often effective way for businesses to manage their international address data. But, what does transliteration mean? Is it just another fancy name for translation? These are questions that are likely on your mind right now.
We promise that we will answer all your questions as you read further. Here, is an attempt to help you understand what is transliteration process and how it differs from translation. There are even several examples here to help you better understand the concept of transliteration.
What is Transliteration?
Transliteration is a process that involves converting a text in one language into text in another language. Now, before you say, “isn’t that the same as a translation?” no, it isn’t. Let us explain why. In translation, the conversion of the text is such that it maintains its underlying meaning.
On the other hand, the text conversion in transliteration is more literal and does not bother with the underlying meaning. The process may seem the same for transliteration and translation, but the outputs are very different.
But, we can discuss the similarities and differences between transliteration and translation in the next section. What you need to know about transliteration is that it converts each character from one alphabet to another. In other words, transliteration replaces sounds phonetically in another language. However, this replacement does not apply to the word’s meaning.
Understanding Transliteration Using Examples
Even with the explanation above, you may still be confused about the transliteration concept. It’s pretty normal to have these confusions, which is why we will help you understand what does transliteration mean with the help of an example.
Let us consider the example of the Japanese word KONNICHIWA. The word KONNICHIWA in Japanese looks like this こんにちは. During transliteration and translation, each word goes through a conversion process. So, the Japanese phrase こんにちは splits into pieces, as you see below.
| こ | KO |
| ん | N |
| に | NI |
| ち | CHI |
| は | HA or WA |
As you can see from the table above, the transliteration process becomes interesting as we reach the sound は. There are two possible transliterations for the sound は, which are HA and WA. So, what does transliteration mean in this situation?
Transliteration Can Have Different Phonetic Matches
In the example we discussed above, we saw how a character by itself can have two different sounds. Here, you can see that the transliteration depends on the context and has other phonetic matches. It is the same as some English letters sounding different in words, such as the “c” in cold and city.
Transliteration Is Dependent On The Country
Another thing you should know about transliteration is that it is also dependent on the country which uses or speaks a specific language. The best example of what does transliteration means in this situation is the use of the letter “Z.”
In most English-speaking countries, such as the UK, Australia, New Zealand, etc., the pronunciation of Z is ZED. But in the US, the letter Z is pronounced ZEE. It means you can not transliterate the letter Z without knowing the country and the language.
Transliteration Is Not Always Phonetic Conversion
Usually, transliteration may seem like a phonetic conversion process, but that is not always the case. You need to consider what does transliteration mean if a character in one language has an equivalent in another language. Let’s also assume that the pronunciation of these characters is also different.
For instance, take the letter Ö. You can usually find this letter in places that speak German languages, including German, Danish, Swedish, and Icelandic. The English transliteration of the letter Ö can be either O or OE. Here O and OE are considered equivalent.
Transliteration Is Not Romanisation
People often confuse transliteration with romanisation. However, they are not the same. A romanisation is a form of transliteration that does not use Roman characters, such as
- Arabic
- Chinese
- Cyrillic
- Japanese
- Korean
- And more
But in romanisation, the output is a language that does use Roman characters, such as
- English
- French
- German
- Spanish
Transliteration Involves Converting Numbers
When you first asked yourself, “what is transliteration?” you probably did not think it involved converting numbers. Surprisingly enough, transliteration also involves converting numbers. For instance, transliteration can convert Roman numerals to Japanese numbers. The table below shows the transliteration of five roman numbers to Japanese numbers.
| Roman Number | Japanese Number |
| I | 一 |
| II | 二 |
| III | 三 |
| IV | 四 |
| V | 五 |
What Does Transliteration Mean In Address Verification?
By now, you have a good idea of what is transliteration and the process behind it. But, how does transliteration apply to address verification?
First of all, the transliteration in address verification applies to your business if you have international customers and business partners.
So, let us say you have customer address data from every corner of the world. We are talking about addresses in different languages, such as Chinese, Russian, Arabic, etc. There is no way you can read all these languages by yourself and have no way of telling the customer’s location.
This is a situation where transliteration can help your business. “But, what does transliteration mean in this situation?” you may wonder. Well, it allows you to spell out the addresses in different languages in your native language, which in this case is English.
Ensure CRM Compatibility
Before searching for a transliteration tool for your business organisation, you should first check your CRM. If your business website or app already supports foreign languages, things should be pretty smooth and straightforward for you.
On the other hand, if you are looking for transliteration capability for future international customers, ensure your CRM can keep up. Ask yourself, what does transliteration mean if your CRM cannot support different languages. Without a good CRM, you cannot provide the services you wish, even with transliteration.
Address Parsing and Address Standardisation
An advanced address verification tool like PostGrid provides superior address parsing and standardisation capability. Our system breaks down your addresses into small units and rearranges them into a standard format.
The standard format PostGrid is the official address format obtained directly from the official postal service provider. For UK addresses, PostGrid uses the standard address format defined by Royal Mail; for US addresses, it is USPS standard format and so on.
Transliteration vs Translation
We have already established that transliteration and translation are not the same. If you are unfamiliar with a language, translation and transliteration can give you a good idea of what a word means. However, you can not use translation and transliteration interchangeably.
Translation Is Interchangeable. Transliteration Is Not.
Let’s take the Japanese word KONNICHIWA. It will help you understand interchangeability in translation vs transliteration. You can do an easy exercise here. Type in KONNICHIWA in Google translate in Japanese, which is こんにちは.
The result should say the translation of こんにちは is HELLO. Now, try the same by typing in the English word (HELLO) and looking at the result, and it should show こんにちは. In that sense, translation words are interchangeable.
Now, try to transliterate the English word HELLO and check the result. The Japanese transliteration of HELLO is ハロー. Here is where the translate vs transliterate argument becomes interesting. If you try to transliterate ハロー back to English, your result will be HARŌ.
As you can see, transliteration is not a two-way street. It doesn’t work both ways like translation, and you may lose some information. More importantly, it is unlikely that you will get a meaningful word using transliteration.
Conclusion
Business organisations with customers from all over the world can benefit from transliteration. It allows them to ensure the validity of addresses even if they are utterly alien to their customer’s native language.
However, it is not the same as translation. A business organisation should never confuse transliteration and translation because their results can be entirely different. Transliteration does not take into account the underlying meaning of the words.
Hence, the outcome of a transliteration process may seem random. However, transliterating specific phrases and numbers can be helpful for address verification. Investing in a robust address verification tool like PostGrid with bulk mailing capability enables you to streamline communication with your domestic and international customers.
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The post What is Transliteration in Address Verification appeared first on PostGrid UK.
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