Transliteration

🌍 Bridging the Script Divide: A Deep Dive into Transliteration

Transliteration is a specialized linguistic process that involves converting text from one writing system or character set into another. Crucially, it focuses on mapping the characters of the source script (e.g., Arabic, Cyrillic, or Chinese) to the characters of the target script (typically Latin or Roman characters), capturing the phonetic equivalent of the words, rather than simply translating the meaning.

In the world of global address verification, transliteration is an indispensable tool. It solves the critical problem of processing and standardizing addresses from countries that do not use the familiar 26-letter Latin alphabet. Without accurate transliteration, international e-commerce, logistics, and data governance would be highly unreliable, if not impossible.

The Necessity: The Challenge of Non-Latin Scripts

The internet and global commerce largely operate using the Latin alphabet. However, many of the world's major postal systems rely on non-Latin scripts, including Cyrillic (Eastern Europe), Hanzi/Kanji (Asia), and Arabic (Middle East).

When a company needs to ship a package or verify a customer's address in Beijing or Moscow, the raw address data must be converted into a consistent format that can be stored in Western databases, matched against local postal addressing standards, and printed on shipping labels.

Transliteration vs. Translation

It is important to distinguish transliteration from translation:

Process	Goal	Example (Russian)
Translation	Convert meaning from one language to another.	улица Свободы → Freedom Street
Transliteration	Convert script based on sound/characters.	улица Свободы → ulitsa Svobody

 

Transliteration preserves the original place name, making it recognizable by international postal authorities while still being readable by automated Latin-based sorting systems.

Here are examples of addresses after Loqate's transliteration:

• Cyrillic: Беловежская Улица 39, Можайский, Москва. 121353

  • Latin Transliteration: Belovezskaja Ulica 39. Mozaiskii, Moskva, 121353

• Chinese: 天津市天津市河北区长张屯村6

  • Latin Transliteration: 6 ChangZhangTunCun, HeBeiQu, TianJinShi

Loqate's Technical Application and Methodology

For address verification providers like we humble souls at Loqate, Transliteration is integrated directly into our Address Verification API to support global reach. Our verification technology can transliterate between native character sets and Latin across all core capture and verification products.

Field-Based and Character Mapping

Our Capture software follows a precise methodology for conversion:

 

1. Field-Based Transliteration: Capture first attempts field-based transliteration, where it uses a compiled set of standardized words for commonly used address field values in each language (like recognizing the common word for "Street" or "Square").

2. Character Mapping: If the field-based method is insufficient, the software attempts to map character-by-character between the native and Latin character sets.

3. Output Standardization: When the output script is set to Latin (as it is in most CRM/ERP systems), the address is transliterated into English wherever possible, providing a clean, consistent format for the destination database.

 

The Role in Geocoding

Transliteration also enhances the reliability of Geocoding. A standardized, transliterated address is far more likely to be accurately matched to a precise latitude and longitude coordinate than a raw, non-standardized string, ensuring accurate location intelligence for routing and planning purposes.

Strategic Benefits of Transliteration for Global Commerce

The successful use of Transliteration unlocks significant competitive advantages for businesses operating internationally:

• Data Integrity: Transliteration ensures all global address data is consistently stored in a uniform database structure, facilitating accurate data cleansing, deduplication, and standardized reporting that would be impossible if the data remained in disparate scripts.

• Reduced Delivery Failure: By ensuring the address is correctly represented in both local and universal Latin scripts, the risk of mail and packages being misplaced or returned due to script confusion is minimized.

• Frictionless UX: Allowing customers to enter data in their native language improves the User Experience (UX) and reduces friction during international checkout, boosting conversion rates in foreign markets and maintaining trust in global transactions.

By leveraging Transliteration, global enterprises transform the technical barrier of diverse writing systems into a competitive strength, making their services accessible and reliable worldwide. The best thing is, it's a cinch to get started. Just install Loqate's address verification solution and you're good to go with capturing and transliterating your customer addresses. Snap up a 45-day trial on the house to give us a test run to be sure you're happy.