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Page 1: Authentic texts and authentic scripts

ISSN 0147-6882, Scientific and Technical Information Processing, 2008, Vol. 35, No. 3, pp. 155–157. © Allerton Press, Inc., 2008.Original Russian Text © V.T. Galenko, 2008, published in Nauchno-Technicheskaya Informatsiya, Seriya 1, 2008, No. 6, pp. 26–28.

155

In a knowledge-based information society, accord-ing to the international standards in the sphere of mul-tilingual communication, the word forms of geograph-ical, personal and family names are freely converted toany text in foreign languages while retaining their lit-eral and orthographic informativity [information con-tent] as visually perceivable by speakers of various lan-guages.

China is the first (beginning in 1979) and so far theonly non-Latin script country that uses internationalstandards of multilingual communication adopted forthe languages of Western Europe.

It may be said that the Chinese (Mandarin) languageat the official (Government) level is now represented bytwo script forms: a hieroglyphic script and a romanizedscript (Pinyin system). A literate man in China todaymust knows about 1500 hieroglyphs (language signs)written in the two graphic systems of Chinese script:hieroglyphic and romanized. The hieroglyphic andromanized forms of Chinese scripts are studied simul-taneously. This provides the basis for the present-dayeducation system in the People’s Republic of China.

The official romanized form of Chinese script(Pinyin) is an authentic form of the traditionalhieroglyphic script in Chinese.

In international practice (since 1979), the officialromanized form of the Chinese script (Pinyin system)can be treated as a multilingual transliteration and evenwith certain assumptions as an unambiguous transla-tion to various languages (a very specific translation notexplaining the meaning of the romanized hieroglyphs)of Chinese proper names. This system does not need areversibility requirement because it is based on thereversibility concept. Similar multilingual systemshave also been developed for Cyrillic-script languages.The direction and principle of the multilingual transla-tion of words in non-Latin script languages applied bythe Chinese system Pinyin have been accepted andapproved by every country.

Unfortunately, script-script countries have not evenapproached the understanding of the existing worldpractice of interaction between cultures using differentscripts and fail to see the direct relationship between

their backwardness in this sphere and the general lag inthe development of information technology, includingits application to a country’s informatics. In this branchof knowledge our country (but not our linguistic sci-ence or linguistic programming) is at least 50 yearsbehind China. An interesting paradox has arisen: wehave everything we need, with all the necessary regis-trations in the RF Federal Patent Service (Rospatent),material is published in the most prestigious Russianscientific publications and abstract journals, but noth-ing has ever been used.

The person translating a literary composition fromRussian into a foreign language is the author of histranslation or an author of a text that is authentic withrespect to the author of the original text. The situationis somewhat different when dealing with cartographicworks. A Russian cartographic work executed in ortho-graphic script using the alphabetic and analphabeticcharacters of the Roman script is a special type of ver-bal work where there are no traditional standards fortranslating geographical names and essentially it iscomparable with a living bearer of the Russian writtenculture in any other verbal environment. Every suchcartographic work must be treated as a creation involv-ing a special type of the Russian orthographic script.The authentic form of the traditional script should betreated as a very important separate (special) form andthe means of multilingual communication betweennations with different traditions of the written culture.

The authentic form of the Russian language usingcommonly known characters of the Latin script inWestern Europe represented in the “TransCyrillicAlphabet—International Form” adequately and scrupu-lously reflects the phonemic structure of the Russianlanguage. The criterion of the truthful representation ofthe Russian soft consonants and positionally deter-mined Russian vowels is compliance with orthographicstandards of traditional Russian writing.

By the definition of V.V. Lopatin, the Chairman ofthe Spelling Committee of the Russian Academy ofSciences, representation of Russian soft consonants bythe Latin script remains a fundamental difficulty foreverybody dealing with this problem.

Authentic Texts and Authentic Scripts

V. T. Galenko

Received on April 16, 2008

Abstract

—Authentic forms of scripts in China and Russia are considered for multilingual communications forcountries with non-Latin alphabets in information space.

DOI:

10.3103/S0147688208030088

Page 2: Authentic texts and authentic scripts

156

SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL INFORMATION PROCESSING

Vol. 35

No. 3

2008

GALENKO

Today the two most popular languages of theworld—Chinese and English—determine the develop-ment and harmonization vector in the sphere of infor-mation science and translingual multilingual communi-cation. China has demonstrated the efficiency of uni-form representation of proper names using a differentscript, and English-speaking countries readily sup-ported this effective innovation in information technol-ogies. The spell checker of linguistic programs containswords written in Pinyin alongside the English words. Itall happened so fast that in our country that Pinyin isstill perceived as an Anglo-Saxon transcription of theChinese script.

New concepts call for new terminology, and theexisting linguistic terms must be refined to allow for thealready developed international practice for ultimateunderstanding. For instance, in order to convert to Rus-sian Chinese hieroglyphic script the bilingual system“Palladium,” should be used and in order to transfer theofficial romanized Chinese script (Pinyin system) themultilingual system “Palladium plus” should be used.The main, although not the only difference betweenthese systems is that in the system “Palladium plus” thelower-case diacritical sign “

˙

” used in the system “Pal-ladium” is replaced by an international analphabeticcharacter suitable for all Cyrillic-script languages, pri-marily the Russian, Byelorussian, Bulgarian, andUkrainian languages.

In this article, the author suggests new terms alreadyemployed in his scientific publications. The form of anencyclopedia entry is chosen to facilitate their furtherimmediate use in reference publications.

Authentic script

(authentic script form)—A scriptwith an alphabet using the writing systems of WesternEuropean languages, which are commonly known andcomprehensible for various peoples; equivalent to thetraditional writing of the native tongue; widely used inthe sphere of international multilingual communication.For example, the Chinese Pinyin system has been usedby all the world’s languages since 1979. Words and textsirrespective of their language, even texts written exclu-sively in analphabetic characters (morse (dot-and-dash)code), can also be interpreted as an authentic script formof different languages. There are examples of Russianauthentic script retaining the phonetic and graphic imageof words in Latin-script languages, viz., Sitin, Sîtin,Ot’yasov-Mel’nikov (

éÚ˙flÒÓ‚

-

åÂθÌËÍÓ‚

), Pod-palîy, Poluyektov (

èÓÎÛ˝ÍÚÓ‚

), Poluektov (

èÓÎÛ˝Í-ÚÓ‚

).

REFERENCES

1. Galenko, V.T., Normalized Writing of Russian Geo-graphic Names in the Roman alphabet, Izvestia RAN,Geographic Series, 2005, no. 4., pp. 83–88.

2. Galenko, V.T., Culture of Multilingual Communicationin Information Space, NTI, Series 1, 2006, no.11,pp.

37–39.

Conversion of graphic script systems

—widelyused in computer linguistics. This concept simulta-neously involves conversion of alphabetic charactersand conversion of the language signs of script. In lin-guistic programs, conversion of the language signs ofa script is performed by automatic replacement ofwords written in the original graphic system by wordswritten in the recipient system. For example, thehieroglyphs or linguistic signs of Chinese script are con-verted by the Pinyin system to the romanized linguisticsigns of the Chinese script for international use in multi-lingual information space. As well linguistic signs(words) of the Russian language: “

·Ó¯˛‡

” “

Ê˛Ë

”“

ˆÂÌÚ

” (international road sign) as well as familynames of a foreign origin are subject to conversion onlyusing domestic official computer programs by the auto-matic replacement in writing of common and familynames:

·Ó¯˛‡

—brochure,

Ê˛Ë

—jury,

ˆÂÌÚ

—center, and also

Ç·Â

—Weber,

ÅÛ¯Â

—Bouché.Unlike transliteration, transcription, and translation, theconversion of graphic script systems (a graphic image ofthe word forms) is not targeted to show the script belong-ing to a particular foreign language. After conversion allthe words in Chinese or Russian represented by otherorthographic systems of Latin script have a unique anduniform form of writing, viz., the international form ofwriting. With respect to the source national orthographicscript, the international forms of writing the Chinese andRussian languages are authentic forms of Chinese andRussian scripts in a multilingual information space.

REFERENCES

Galenko, V.T., Culture of Multilingual Communication in Information Space, NTI, Series 1, 2006, no.11, pp. 37–39.

Palladium plus

—a system of multilingual elec-tronic conversion of Chinese script characters writtenin Pinyin system to linguistic signs of Cyrillic scripttypical of Russian, Byelorussian, Bulgarian, and Ukrai-nian languages. A Chinese-Cyrillic multilingual systemof script conversion, System PP was worked out on thebasis of the transcription system “Palladium” andauthentic forms of Cyrillic writing.

REFERENCES

1. Galenko, V.T., System in Pinyin. International Form ofPresentation of Chinese Geographical Names in CyrillicScript, NTI. Series 1, 2008, no. 1, pp. 30–32.

2. Galenko, V.T., Multilingual Communication of Lan-guages with Non-Latin Script, Mir perevodov, 2006,no.

2 (16), pp. 46–49.

3. Program “Chinese-Cyrillic system,” Official Bulletin ofthe Federal Service for Intellectual Property, Patents andTrademarks, Computer Programs, Databases, IntegratedCircuit Topograhies, 2007, no. 2, p. 40.

Page 3: Authentic texts and authentic scripts

SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL INFORMATION PROCESSING

Vol. 35

No. 3

2008

AUTHENTIC TEXTS AND AUTHENTIC SCRIPTS 157

Note

The multilingual system of Cyrillic languages

Pal-ladium plus

was officially registered with the RF Fed-eral Patent Service (Rospatent) as a computer program“Chinese–Cyrillic system.”

Pinyin

(Pinyin system)—Chinese syllabic writingin a Latin script for international use. The Pinyin scriptis a romanized authentic form of the simplified Beijing(Peking) hieroglyphic script of China. For example, ahieroglyph (an ideographic character meaning “fire”) isding in a romanized form and the hieroglyph (water)—hai—can represent a word or the syllable of a linguisticsign in the Pinyin system. The international form (IF) ofwriting the Chinese city DINGHAI. The spelling of theabbreviation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)in two graphic systems of the European script in Chi-nese:

óÊÛÌıÛ‡ Ü˝Ì¸ÏË̸ ÉÛÌı˝„Ó

—The Russianlocal dialect form; Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo—Pinyin system, the international form (IF) of multilin-gual language communication. As far as syllables areconcerned: [zhong-

˜ÊÛÌ

, hua-

ıÛ‡

; ren-

Ê˝Ì¸

, min-

ÏË̸

; gong-

„ÛÌ

, he-

ı˝

, guo-

„Ó

]; [pin-

ÔË̸

, yin-

Ë̸

].Or the Capital of China:

Å˝ÈˆÁËÌ

—(IF) Beijing [bei-jing].

For the purpose of reading in Pinyin a phonetic tran-scription has been worked out that in China has an offi-cial English name: Pronunciation of Chinese PhoneticAlphabet Marked with International Phonetic Symbols.The phonetic alphabet of the Pinyin script transcriptionhas 50 graphemes (alphabetic characters).

In 1979, the United Nations recommended that allthe countries use the Pinyin script in international doc-umentation. At present the international form (IF) ofmultilingual language communication represented bythe Pinyin system is uniformly used by all the world’slanguages in dictionaries, international documentation,computer technologies, and mass publications.

REFERENCES

1. Galenko, V.T., System in Pinyin. International Form ofPresentation of Chinese Geographical Names in CyrillicScript, NTI. Series 1, 2008, no. 1, pp. 30–32.

2. ATLAS OF CHINA. China cartographic publishinghouse, Beijing, China. Jan. 1999. (Index -glossary inPinyin).

Note

The international form (IF) of spelling Chineseproper names—by analogy with the representation of theBig Russian Encyclopedia of the proper names in West

European languages. Spelling examples:

ÅÂÎËÌ

(Ber-lin),

è‡ËÊ

(Paris),

èÂÍËÌ

(IF-Beijing),

ò‡Ìı‡È

(IFShanghai), and

ü̈Á˚

(IF Chang Jiang). In practice,the Chinese spelling in the Pinyin system, such asBeijing, Shanghai, Chang Jiang acquired internationalsignificance and as a result has been transformed into auniform international form (IF) for the spelling of Chi-nese proper names. At present (IF) the Pinyin System isused in all the encyclopedic publications of the leadingworld countries except Russian journals oriented to thebilingual form of language communication, i.e., the“Palladium” system of Russian–Chinese transcription.Making use of bilingual transcription instead of themultilingual form of language communication leads theRussian language to the verge of self-isolation, not onlyin the international information space, but also in itsown territory during international communication ofregional languages.

Palladium—an archimandrite (monastic superior),Chinologist (secular name Kafarov, 1817–1878.), thecompiler of the Russian–Chinese dictionary publishedin 1889 after Palladium’s death.

Transliteration

is a kind of non-orthographicscript. It is used exclusively during the bilingual formof language communication with different graphicscripts when the words of the source language are writ-ten using the rules of the receiving language. At the endof the twentieth century the expanding use of computertechnology gradually led to the complete replacementof transliteration by script conversion. Unlike translit-eration, script conversion is intended for representingwords strictly observing the rules of the source lan-guage orthographic script when the conventionality andspelling of the source language are fully retained. Con-version is used only under the multilingual form of lan-guage communication.

Examples of script transliteration: city of

„. èÛ¯-ÍËÌ

—Pouchkine (F), Pushkin (E); city of

„. òË-ı‡Ì˚

—Schihani (D), Shikhany (E) national spellingsof proper names.

Examples of script conversion: city of

„. èÛ¯ÍËÌ

,city of

„. òËı‡Ì˚

g. Pushkin, g. Shikhani (E, D, F,etc.) multilingual script form. The conversion of familynames:

ëËÚËÌ

—Sitin,

ë˚ÚËÌ

—Sitin;

èÓÎÛÂÍÚÓ‚

—Poluyektov,

èÓÎÛ˝ÍÚÓ‚

—Poluektov, where the soft“S” differs from the hard “S,” and the Russian “E”(yotized vowel) can be distinguished from Western-European “E” (

ù

).

REFERENCE

1. Galenko, V.T., Normalized Writing of Russian Geo-graphic Names in Cyrillic Script, Izvestia RAN, Geo-graphic Series, 2005, no. 4, pp. 83–88.