转写（transliteration）和译音
（transcription）的区别
冯志伟
2013年的ISO-TC46柏林会议上，IAO国际标准化组织任命我担任ISO7098“Documentation
and Information: Romanization of Chinese”的工作组组长，由我带领美国、俄罗斯、加拿大和德国委派的4名专家研制这个国际标准。目前，这个国际标准已经进入CD(Committee
Draft)阶段，得到了国际上大多数国家的支持。
由于中文不是拼音文字，因此，中文转换（conversion）为拉丁字母情况与拼音文字之间的转写（transliteration）很不同，为此，在这个国际标准中，我们把转换（conversion）进一步区分转写（transliteration）和译音（transcription）这两个不同的概念。
这里，我把ISO-7098的CD中有关这两个概念的英文叙述抄录如下，供大家参考和讨论。
1
General principles of conversion of writing
systems
1.1
The words in a language, which are written according to a
given script (the converted system), sometimes have to be rendered
according to a different system (the conversion system), normally
used for a different language. This operation is often followed for
historical or geographical texts, cartographical documents and in
particular for bibliographical work in every case where it is
necessary to write words supplied in various alphabets in a manner
that allows intercalation with other words in a single alphabet so
as to enable a uniform alphabetization to be made in
bibliographies, catalogues, indices, toponymic lists, etc. It is
indispensable in that it permits the univocal transmission of a
written message between two countries using different writing
systems or exchanging a message, the
writing of which is different from their own. It thereby permits
transmission by manual as well as mechanical or electronic
means.
The two basic methods of
conversion of a system of writing are transliteration and
transcription.
1.2
Transliteration is the operation which consists of
representing the characters of an entirely
alphabetical character or alphanumeric
character system of writing by the characters of the
conversion alphabet. In principle, this conversion should be made
character by character: each character of the converted alphabet is
rendered by one character, and one only of the conversion alphabet,
to ensure the complete and unambiguous reversibility of the
conversion alphabet into the converted alphabet.
When the number of
characters used in the conversion system is smaller than the number
of characters of the converted system, it is necessary to use
digraph or diacritical marks. In this case one must avoid as far as
possible arbitrary choice and the use of purely conventional marks
and try to maintain a certain phonetic logic in order to give the
system a wide acceptance.
However, it must be
accepted that the graphism obtained may not always be correctly
pronounced according to the phonetic habits of the language (or of
all the languages) which usually use(s) the conversion alphabet. On
the other hand, this graphism must be such that the reader who
knows the converted language may mentally restore unequivocally the
original graphism and thus pronounce it
correctly.
1.3
Retransliteration is the operation which consists of
converting the characters of a conversion alphabet to those of the
converted alphabet. This operation is the exact opposite of
transliteration; it is carried out by applying the rules of a
system of transliteration in reverse order so as to reconstitute
the transliterated word to its original form.
1.4
Transcription is the operation which consists of representing
the characters of a language, whatever the original system of
writing, by the phonetic system of letters or signs of the
conversion language.
A transcription system is
of necessity based on the orthographical conventions of a
conversion language and its alphabet. The users of a transcription
system must therefore have a knowledge of the conversion language
to be able to pronounce the characters correctly. Transcription is
not strictly reversible.
Transcription may be used
for the conversion of all writing systems. It is the only method
that can be used for systems that are not entirely alphabetical and
for all ideophonographic writing systems (Chinese, Japanese,
etc.).
1.5
Romanization is the conversion of non-Latin
writing systems to the Latin
alphabet by means of transliteration or
transcription. To carry out
Romanization it is possible to use either
transliteration or transcription or a combination of these two
methods, according to the nature of the converted
system.
1.6
A conversion system proposed for international use may call
for compromise and the sacrifice of certain national customs. It is
therefore necessary for each national community of users to accept
concessions, fully abstaining in every case from imposing as a
matter of course solutions that are actually justified only by
national practice (for example, regards
pronunciation, orthography, etc.). However, these concessions would
obviously not relate to the use that a country makes of its
national writing system: when this national system is not
converted, the characters constituting it must be accepted in the
form in which they are written in the national
language.
When a country uses two
systems univocally,convertible one into
the other to write its own language, the system of transliteration
thus implemented must be taken a priori as a basis for the
international standardized system, as far as it is compatible with
the other principles mentioned hereafter.
1.7
Where necessary, the conversion systems should specify an
equivalent for each character, not only the letters but also the
punctuation marks, numbers, etc. They should similarly take into
account the arrangement of the sequence of characters that make up
the text, for example the direction of the script, and specify the
way of distinguishing words and of using separation signs and
capital letters, following as closely as possible the customs of
the language(s) which use the converted
writing system.
2.1
The structure of ideophonographic
characters, where conveyance of meaning is of
greater importance than that of pronunciation, entails the
existence of a large number of characters (more than 60 000 in the
case of Chinese), thus making sign by sign transliteration
impossible and resulting in the need to devise a system of
transcription. Each character must
therefore be transcribed by one or more Latin letters
standing for the pronunciation or pronunciations of the character
in question. This means that the transcriber must be familiar with
the reading or readings of the text to be
transcribed.
2.2
In as much as the transcription of
ideophonographic characters is merely a
matter of phonetic notation of characters in Latin letters of the
languages which use them, the identical characters will require
different transcriptions depending on whether they are found in
Chinese, Japanese or Korean texts.
2.3
On the other hand, the same character within the same
language must always be transcribed in the same way regardless of
the type of graphic representation utilized (traditional form or
simplified form of a Chinese character) except where a single
character has more than one pronunciation.
2.4
Reversibility of Romanization
systems of ideophonographic characters is
impossible due to the following factors:
¾
the disparity in pronunciation of a given character in two
different languages or within a single language;
¾
the high frequency of homophones within the
same language;
¾
the possible coexistence of several writing
systems within a given text.
2.5
In the case of those languages which use, even
within the same text, more than one kind of script (for example
Kana and Chinese characters in Japanese, Hangul and Chinese
characters in Korean) both the transcription of the
ideophonographic characters and the conversion of the other types
of characters (for example Kana/Hangul should yield a consistent
and homogeneous system of
Romanization).
2.6
Although, as a rule, spacing between characters is regular,
it is usual to transcribe the characters forming a single word by
linking them together. Principles and rules for formation of words
shall be standardized in other texts related to every language
concerned.
2.7
Although there are no capital letters in
ideophonographic characters, it is usual
when romanizing to capitalize some words,
following the national uses.
今年5月5日-9日将在华盛顿召开ISO-TC46会议，如果顺利，ISO-7098的研制有可能进入DIS(Draft
of International Standard)阶段的投票。我将在这次会议上用英文做一个专题发言，向各国代表介绍我们的研制工作。
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(2014-04-24 21:45:51)