DIN 31635


DIN 31635 is a Deutsches Institut für Normung standard for the transliteration of the Arabic alphabet adopted in 1982. It is based on the rules of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft as modified by the International Orientalist Congress 1935 in Rome. The most important differences from English-based systems were doing away with j, because it stood for in the English-speaking world and for in the German-speaking world and the entire absence of digraphs like th, dh, kh, gh, sh. Its acceptance relies less on its official status than on its elegance and the Geschichte der arabischen Literatur manuscript catalogue of Carl Brockelmann and the dictionary of Hans Wehr. Today it is used in most German-language publications of Arabic and Islamic studies.
Along with rules for the Arabic language, it also includes transliteration standards for Ottoman Turkish, Persian, Kurdish, Urdu, and Pashto.

Table

The 28 letters:
Arabic lettersء‎ / ابتثجحخدذرزسشصضطظعغفقكلمنهوي / ى‎
DIN 31635 / btḥdrzsṣḍṭẓfqklmnhw / ūy / ī
ALA-LCʼ / ābtthjḥkhddhrzsshṣḍṭẓʻghfqklmnhw / ūy / ī
IPA ,


, ,

Rules

The ' are transliterated as ', ' and '. A ' results in a geminate. The article is written with the sun letters assimilated.
An ' marking is transliterated as '. The letter ' is transliterated as word-final ' normally, or ' in a word in the construct state.
' has many variants, أ إ ء ئ ؤ; depending on its position, all of them are transliterated as. The initial ' without a ' is not transliterated using initially, only the initial vowel is transliterated : .
' appears as , transliterating it indistinguishable from .
Long vowels and are transliterated as ' and . The ' suffix appears as ' although the former is normally transliterated as ', and nunation is ignored in transliteration. A hyphen is used to separate clitics from words to which they are attached.
The Eastern Arabic numerals are rendered as western Arabic numerals.