Romanisations

What is romanisation?

At its core, romanisation is the system of writing down words from other languages in the roman script. Pikachu is one romanisation of a beloved Japanese pokemon. Tsingtao is a romanisation for a popular Chinese beer.

But Pikachu can also be romanised as Pikachuu, or Pikachū. Tsingtao is based on the Wade-Giles romanisation of Chinese, which was developed by two Englishmen in the colonial period. In pinyin, the home-grown Chinese romanisation system, it would be written as Qingdao.

Romanisation = a fascinating way to discover historical and political stories.

Romanisations are created in distinct political contexts, and their use today is still highly political.

Within a scholarly setting, for example, adding the macrons into your romanisation of Tōkyō sends a specific message that you support recent moves to make the romanisation of Japanese more accurate and sensitive to vowel lengths and other pronunciation details. Using the standard Tokyo in this context subtly indicates that you either haven't read about this research, or don't care.

The use of Tsingtao as the spelling for the brewery places it within the colonial context of its time. If the brewery were to change its romanisation to the pinyin Qingdao, there would be many ways to interpret the change on a political and nationalistic level - regardless of the intent. The recent change in the spelling of Ukraine's capital from Kiev to Kyiv is an explicitly political one: moving away from a Russo-centric romanisation and spelling, and towards one that reflects Ukraine's linguistic distinctness.

The historical and political analysis of historic romanisations is fascinating, but it is also of significant practical value.

What can historic romanisations tell us?

• Connecting historical romanisations with modern names can suddenly double the number of search terms for historical or family research.

• Historical romanisations tell you what scholars were using at the time. Knowing the different romanisations and their associated time periods will enable you to significantly deepen your research.

• For languages that are either lost, or have experienced significant change in the last few centuries, comparing different romanisations over time can provide a fascinating insight into the transformation of a language, and provide vital clues as to their history

The Cataloguer cannot keep up

Authority records attempt to account for some variant spellings of a name, place, or term. However, in working with rare books I come across so many different historical romanisations that it would be impossible to create updated, linked data for all of the iterations I see.

In recording the examples below, I usually have to use every part of the book at hand to 'decode' the romanisations within them. Sometimes it's the context of a word within a particular chapter, or some particular adjective or description in another sentence that allows me to say conclusively: "Ah, they are definitely talking about this [modern person / place / thing]

Sometimes it comes down to carefully unfolding the map provided in the book, and finding the place names mentioned so that I can compare their rough geographical locations with modern-day Google Maps.

But the Cataloguer is key

There are moves afoot to automate parts of cataloguing, or even to get AI to create entire catalogue records. No matter the amount of OCR or large language modelling, as far as I can tell there is no way that you can automate the extraction of historical romanisations from books, and in using the resource at hand to decode them and reveal their modern form. This is a clear example of the Cataloguer as Researcher, Linguist, and Historian - we are so much more than data entry machines.

Examples of romanisations, 1700s-present

Source: Voyages de Monsieur le chevalier Chardin en Perse, 1711 (Primarily Persian --> French)
1711 French Romanisation	2024 English Spelling
Cheic-Sehdi	Saadi Shiraz
Cheic-ali-can	Shaykh Ali Khan
Com	Qom
Divan Beghi	Devanbegi
Ebher	Abhar
Locman	Luqman
Ferdous	Ferdowsi
Hossein, fils d'Aly	Husayn ibn Ali
Iman-Couli-Can, Generalissime d'Abas le Grand	Imam Quli Khan
Locman	Luqman
Irivan, capitale d'Armenie	Yerevan
Kebla	Qibla
Mohomed Mehdi	Muhammad al-Mahdi
Hakim Daoud	Moḥammad-Dāvud Khan Ḥakim
Nacchivan	Nakhchivan
Sava	Saveh
Shady	Saadi
Sultanie	Soltaniyeh
Tauris	Tabriz

To see the full record: https://find.slv.vic.gov.au/permalink/61SLV_INST/1sev8ar/alma99408643607636

Source: A voyage to Abyssinia by Father Jerome Lobo (1789) (Various languages --> Portuguese --> English)
1789 English (via Portuguese)	2024 English Spelling
Socotora	Socotra
Dancali	Danakil
Plains of salt	Danakil Salt Lakes

To see the full record: https://find.slv.vic.gov.au/permalink/61SLV_INST/1sev8ar/alma99706643607636

Source: Travels through Arabia and other countries in the East (1792) (Mostly Arabic --> English)
1792 English Romanisation	2024 English Spelling
Sana	Sana'a
Nedsjed	Najd
Taoes	Taizz

To see the full record: https://find.slv.vic.gov.au/permalink/61SLV_INST/1sev8ar/alma992528963607636