Hans Wehr transliteration

The Hans Wehr transliteration system is used in the Hans Wehr dictionary. There was a change in the transliteration system between two editions of the dictionary. The transliteration system uses no digraphs. It is always displayed in the italic style of Latin-alphabet font. It uses two types of diacritics. It uses a dot underneath or upside for some letters. It also uses a line underneath for other letters. For long vowels a macron is used (a line on top of the letter). No capital letters are used (they were in previous editions).

* . dot underneath the letter
* _ line underneath the letter
* - line on top of the letter

The transliteration of the Arabic alphabet.

* Hamza (ء): Transliterated as unicode|ʾ. Never transliterated at the beginning of a word.
* No special letter for the unicode|tāʾ marbūṭa (ة). Either the letter "t" or the letter "h" depending on context. When a word with a unicode|tāʾ marbūṭa is written alone a normal letter "h" (or just as an "a") is used to transcribe it. This depends on pronunciation.
* Native Arabic long vowels: ā ī ū
* Long vowels in borrowed words: ē ō
* Diphthongs: ai, au
* Short vowels: unicode|Fatḥa should be transcribed as "a", kasra as "i" and unicode|ḍamma as "u".
* Non-Standard Arabic consonants: p (پ), ž (ژ), g (گ)
* Alif maqsūra (ى): ā
* Madda (آ): unicode|ʾā
* Words that end in a letter "unicode|yāʾ" (يّ) that could be written with a šadda (consonant gemination symbol): This "nisba" ending is transliterated as īy.
* Capitalization: in the current Hans Wehr transliteration system (the fourth edition) no capital letters are used whatsoever, even in proper nouns; the reason given for this is that the upper-case /lower-case contrast does not exist in Arabic writing, so deciding whether a word should begin with a capital letter would be pointless guess work (it is pointless because the definition of the word given beside the word in the dictionary).
* Arabic definite Article: The Arabic definite article ال is always rendered as "al-" except where assimilation occurs (al + šams BECOMES aš-šams). Never does the "a" in "al-" change.