Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 January 7

= January 7 =

Arabic transcription
Which spelling of "Saf(f)iy(y)a(h)" is correct? --108.225.115.211 (talk) 21:49, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
 * See Romanization of Arabic, which describes various schemes (you really need to know the original Arabic). It's very complex, as there's no universally-used standard. Which Safiyah/etc is it? Sometimes people have a preferred transliteration, or there is a commonly-used transliteration, or you can use a style guide for a particular publication. --Colapeninsula (talk) 00:57, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It's for a Muslim character in a story I'm writing. --108.225.115.211 (talk) 01:23, 8 January 2012 (UTC)


 * If I knew the Arabic-alphabet spelling, I might be able to give more advice, but "-iy(y)a(h)" is the nisba (adjectival) suffix with feminine ending (the "h" being ta marbutah). The double "yy" would only be used in rather scholarly transliterations (and not all of those), while more popular or journalistic styles might completely omit any "y".  As for the "h", you're pretty much on your own, because omitting it and including it are both quite common.  You can see the semi-de-facto Wikipedia practices at Manual of Style/Arabic‎... AnonMoos (talk) 05:03, 8 January 2012 (UTC)


 * P.S. We actually have an article Saffiyah (name)... AnonMoos (talk) 05:06, 8 January 2012 (UTC)