| Description | The current United Nations recommended romanization
system was approved in 2017 (resolution XI/3), based on
the system adopted by Arabic experts at the conference
held in Beirut in 2007, the Unified Arabic
Transliteration System, taking into account the
practical amendments and corrections carried out and
agreed upon by the representatives of the Arabic-
speaking countries at the Fourth Arab Conference on
Geographical Names, held in Beirut in 2008, and some
clarifications and amendments agreed in Riyadh in 20171.
Previously, the United Nations had approved a
romanization system in 1972 (resolution II/8), based on the
system adopted by Arabic experts at the conference
held at Beirut in 1971 with the practical amendments carried out
and agreed upon by the representatives of the Arabic-speaking
countries at their conference. The table was published in volume
II of the conference report.
In UN resolution XI/3 it is specifically stated that the
system was recommended for the “romanization of the
geographical names within those Arabic-speaking countries
where this system is officially adopted”. There is
evidence of its partial implementation in Jordan, Oman and
Saudi Arabia. The UNGEGN Working Group on Romanization
Systems intends to continue monitoring the UN system’s
implementation across Arabic-speaking countries.
In some countries there exist local romanization schemes
or practices. The geographical names of Algeria, Djibouti,
Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia are generally rendered in
the traditional manner which conforms to the principles of
the French orthography.
The previous UN-approved system is still found in
considerable international usage.
Arabic is written from right to left. The Arabic script
usually omits vowel points and diacritical marks from
writing which makes it difficult to obtain uniform results
in the romanization of Arabic. It is essential to identify
correctly the words which appear in any particular name
and to know the standard Arabic-script spelling including
the relevant vowels. One must also take into account
dialectal and idiosyncratic deviations. The romanization
is generally reversible though there may be some ambiguous
letter sequences (dh, kh, sh, th) which may also point to
combinations of Arabic characters in addition to the
respective single characters.
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