Transliteration vs. Transcription

Transliteration and transcription are both processes by which text is converted from one script to another. Strictly speaking, they are two distinct processes and a given conversion system will be of either one or the other type, not both. However, in practice, the two processes are often like two ends of a continuum, and a given system may be closer to one or to the other, but with elements of both.

That said, it is still useful to understand the technical distinction between them. Technically, transliteration is concerned primarily with accurately representing the graphemes of another script, whilst transcription is concerned primarily with representing its phonemes.

In addition, transliteration is concerned with scripts, whilst transcription is concerned with writing systems (the way a script is applied to a particular language). To illustrate, the Devanagari letter ‘ज’ is usually transliterated in the Latin script as ‘j’ or ‘ja’, which roughly approximates its pronunciation in most contexts. However, a transcription system (such as the IPA) would transcribe the same character, ज, as ‘dʒə’ if the source text was in Hindi, but as ‘ɟʝə’ or ‘zə’ if the source text was in Marathi, which more accurately represents its pronunciation in these two particular languages. Transcription can also be used to examine dialectal variation within a single language.

The differences in the two processes make them suitable for different purposes. Transliteration is useful when studying some aspect of a language or script which does not require an intimate understanding or representation of the language’s phonetic systems, or where the pronunciation differences between languages or dialects are not important. Transcription is useful for study which has a greater focus on phonetic systems, for example when determining how closely related two languages are, for language learners wishing to improve their pronunciation, or for examining dialectal variation within a language. IPA transcriptions of the English word bath, for example, include ‘bæθ’, ‘bɑθ’, and ‘bɑf’.