| Description | This romanization system agreed by BGN and PCGN in November 2007,
accommodates the linguistic complexity of Afghanistan as manifest in
its geographical names.
The following tabulation shows the original Perso-Arabic script with
accompanying Unicode value (columns 1a and b), the Yaghoubi
romanization (column 2), the BGN/PCGN romanization with accompanying
Unicode value (columns 3a and b), an English phonetic example (column
4), and an example toponym (columns 5b and c).
[The Yaghoubi romanization system was developed in 1959 by
Muzaffarud Din Yaqubi (commonly seen as Yaghoubi). It is a native
official system designed to reflect Afghan names, both Dari and Pashto,
and both pronunciation and genuine linguistic truth.]
The tables function as both a romanization system for Afghanistan (i.e.
with access to the original script, these tables can be applied to get
a standardized Roman result - moving from columns 1 to 3) and as a
means of converting the available Yaghoubi Roman-script spellings, as
appear on the Fairchild Aerial Surveys map series, to standard BGN/PCGN
spellings (moving from columns 2 to 3).
The points used in Arabic to mark short vowels and certain other
diacritical marks are infrequently written in Afghanistan.
Consequently, a reference source may sometimes be required to aid
correct identification of the standard spellings and proper vowels and
elimination of dialectal and idiosyncratic variations. In the interests
of clarity, the example columns show script with vowel pointing from
Arabic to indicate the short vowels that are included alongside the
unpointed form that will usually be encountered. However it should be
noted that the pronunciation of short vowels will vary.
Note: it is recommended that a font such as Scheherazade, available
from www.sil.org, which includes the Unicode extended Arabic sub-range,
be used to view this system. [Please note that the identification of a
particular font does not represent an endorsement of any specific
product or manufacturer.]
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