สำนักราชบัณฑิตยสภา

The Journal of the Royal Institute of Thailand Romanization, Transliteration, and Transcription for the Globalization of the Thai Language 832 Vol. 31 No. 3 Jul.-Sep. 2006 Romanization, Transliteration, and Transcription for the Globalization of the Thai Language 1 Nitaya Kanchanawan * Associate Fellow of the Academy of Arts, The Royal Institute, Thailand * Associate Professor, Faculty of Humanities, Ramkhamhaeng University 1 Paper presented in Round Table “Romanization, Transliteration, and Transcription for Globalization.” 1 st World Congress on the Power of Language: Theory, Practice, and Development. In Honor of Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn’s 50 th Birthday Anniversary in the Year of Languages. 22-25 May 2006. Queen Sirikit Center, Bangkok, Thailand 1. Introduction Two or more different lan- guages may use similar or different sets of symbols for writing pur- poses. The same symbol set may be modified to suit a particular language in question. The crucial point is that each language contains it’s own pronunciation. Thus, by default, the same linguistic sym- bol set may not always represent the same sounds for two different Abstract This paper differentiates between the similar terms of transcription, transliteration, Romanization and Anglicization. The six systems which are employed to represent Thai words through the Roman script are examined. These systems are King Rama VI system, the first Royal Institute systems (both General and Precise Systems), the second Royal Institute system, the third Royal Institute system, Anglicization system and the ISO system. Whereas each system serves a different purpose, the ISO system can be used globally as a means to exchange information both by humans and machines. Key words : transcription, transliteration, Romanization, Anglicization, Rama VI system, Royal Institute system, ISO system languages. This can be seen in the case of the Roman script used in transcribing English, French, German, etc. or in the case of the Thai and Cambodian scripts which came from the same origin. Thus, using different sets of written symbols for the same language may cause some confusion in pronunciation or other ambigui- ties. According to the International Standard Organization (ISO), however, the need for harmonized standards in the world of infor- mation is global. The wide spread use of the Internet has strengthened the need for interoperable stan- dards and compatible information systems. Thus, characters from different individual writing sys- tems must be converted into a single universal alphabet to allow for alphabetical intercalation in