DIN 31635

DIN 31635 is a Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN) standard for the transliteration of the Arabic alphabet adopted in 1982. It is based on the rules of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft (DMG) as modified by the International Orientalist Congress 1935 in Rome. The most important differences from English-based systems were doing away with j, because it stood for /dʒ/ in the English-speaking world and for /j/ in the German-speaking world and the entire absence of digraphs like th, dh, kh, gh, sh. Its acceptance relies less on its official status than on its elegance (one sign for each Arabic letter) and the Geschichte der arabischen Literatur manuscript catalogue of Carl Brockelmann and the dictionary of Hans Wehr. Today it is used in most German-language publications of Arabic and Islamic studies.

Table

The 28 letters:

Arabic letters	ء‎ / ا	ب	ت	ث	ج	ح	خ	د	ذ	ر	ز	س	ش	ص	ض	ط	ظ	ع	غ	ف	ق	ك	ل	م	ن	ه	و	ي / ى‎
DIN 31635	ʾ / ā	b	t	ṯ	ǧ	ḥ	ḫ	d	ḏ	r	z	s	š	ṣ	ḍ	ṭ	ẓ	ʿ	ġ	f	q	k	l	m	n	h	w / ū	y / ī
ALA-LC	ʼ / ā			th	j		kh		dh				sh					ʻ	gh
IPA (MSA)	ʔ, aː	b	t	θ	dʒ ɡ ʒ	ħ	x	d	ð	r	z	s	ʃ	sˤ	dˤ	tˤ	ðˤ zˤ	ʕ	ɣ	f	q	k	l	m	n	h	w, uː	j, iː

Rules

The ḥarakāt, fatḥah, kasrah and ḍammah are transliterated as a, i, u. A šaddah results in a geminate (consonant written twice). The article is written with “sun letters” assimilated.

An ʾalif marking /aː/ is transliterated as ā. (ﺓ) tāʾ marbūṭah as word-final -h normally, or -t in a word in the construct state.

Hamzah has many variants: أ إ ء ئ ؤ depending on its position, all of which are transliterated as ⟨ʾ⟩. The initial ʾalif (ا) without a hamzah isn't transliterated using ʾ initially, only the initial vowel is transliterated (if pronounced): i-.

(ﻯ) ʾalif maqṣūrah appears as ā, transliterating it indistinguishable from ʾalif. Long vowels /iː/ and /uː/ are transliterated as ī and ū. The nisbah suffix /ij(j), ijja/ appears as -iyy, -iyyah although the male version (the former one) is normally transliterated as -ī, the nunation is ignored in transliteration. A hyphen - is used to separate clitics (the article, prepositions, and the conjunction) from words to which they are attached.

The "Arabic-Indic numerals" (‭٠ ١ ٢ ٣ ٤ ٥ ٦ ٧ ٨ ٩‬) in use with the Arabic script are rendered as western "Arabic numerals" (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9).

See also

• Romanization of Arabic
• ISO 233
• Hans Wehr transliteration
• Arabic phonology
• Help:IPA for Arabic (Wikipedia help)

References

• Reprint (Wiesbaden, 1969)

External links

• Chart of Arabic transliteration systems (non-normative), including DIN 31635, Revision 2.2 (2008-02-25)
• Deutsches Institut für Normung