Keyword: Transcription

Transcription

Transcription is the process of writing down what someone says, or writing down words as they are spoken. Examples are court reporters, who type the words spoken in trials, or closed captioning for television, where technicians take live programs and write what is said for use in on-screen text.

Transcription also helps in understanding other languages, particularly those that use different alphabets, like comparing English to Arabic or Russian to Japanese. When writing down words in other languages, transcription means writing down the sounds the words make without regard to the symbols or alphabets used in the original language. For example, Omar Khayyam is a famous Persian mathematician, scientist, and poet. His name in Arabic is عمر خيام, but in English we know him as Omar Khayyam. In German, because of the different sounds letters make in German, he is known as Omar Chajjam. Note that English and German speakers would make the same sounds in pronouncing his name.