Transliteration is the process of converting words or letters in one script to another script. With transliteration, one maps word to word or letter to letter.
In many cases, reverse transliteration is also possible. However, transliteration may not preserve the subtle differences in sounds that are specific to a language.
Transliteration is not Translation
Translation is converting text in one script into text in another script with equivalent meaning. Transliteration is looking for equivalent alphabets and does not strive for equivalent meaning of the word or sentence.
How Transliteration Works in Loqate
Field based transliteration
Loqate has a compiled set of words for commonly used Address field values in each language. The compiled data for field based transform does transliteration in some cases and translation in some cases.
Character mapping
Loqate maps between both native and Latin character sets. The character mapping is used to do character based transliteration.
Native to Latin character set
If user enters an address in native language and needs the output in English, the individual address fields are queried in the address field set for the transliterated value. If not found, individual characters are transliterated. If either of these do not work, Loqate returns the original native word.
Below is a list of supported character sets within the Loqate Engine, along with the respective ISO-15924 codes. The default value is “Native” which means the output script will match the input wherever possible.
Latin [LATN]
The Loqate Engine has the ability to transliterate between native character sets and Latin across our core product functions: Verify, Register and Geocode. When an output script is set to Latin we will transliterate to English wherever possible.
Latin Example 121 Girdwood Road |
Latin Example 2315 Linden St |
Cyrillic (Russia) [CYRL]
Example in CyrillicБеловежская Улица 39 |
Transliterated to LatinBelovezskaja Ulica 39 |
Hellenic (Greece) [GREK]
Example in HellenicΑνατολικης Θρακης 9 |
Transliterated to LatinAnatolikis Thrakis 9 |
Hebrew (Israel) [HEBR]
Example in Hebrew8 אלכסנדר גרהם בל |
Transliterated to Latin8 Alexander Graham Bell |
Kanji (Japan) [HANI]
Example in Kanji242-0002 |
Transliterated to Latin6-1-45 TSUKIMINO |
Simplified Chinese (China) [HANS]
Example in Simplified Chinese天津市天津市河北区长张屯村6 |
Transliterated to Latin6 ChangZhangTunCun |
Arabic (United Arab Emirates) [ARAB]
Example in Arabicشارع العوير |
Transliterated to LatinAl Awir Road |
Thai (Thailand) [THAI]
Example in Thai10200 กรุงเทพฯ-นนทบุรี 40 |
Transliterated to Latin10200 Krungthep Nonthaburi 40 |
Hangul (South Korea) [HANG]
Example in Hangul세오울 |
Transliterated to Latin272 Nuhadong |