Lang::Transliterate

A comprehensive Raku library for transliterating text between different writing systems. Support for 130+ transliteration systems across 20+ languages.

Installation

zef install Lang::Transliterate

Features

Lang::Transliterate provides context-aware transliteration with several advanced features:

• Context-Aware Transliteration: The library intelligently handles character combinations and contextual rules.
• Bidirectional Conversion: Most transliteration schemes support both forward transliteration (native script to Latin or other script) and reverse transliteration, allowing round-trip conversions.
• Case Preservation: The library automatically preserves the case of the original text when necessary, intelligently handling multi-character mappings.
• Ancient and Historical Scripts: Support for ancient writing systems including Egyptian hieroglyphics, Imperial Aramaic, Paleo-Hebrew, and Church Slavonic, with multiple scholarly transliteration standards.
• Klingon and Tolkien Runic: Just getting started now.
• Extensible Architecture: All transliterators implement a common interface, making it easy to add new scripts or customize existing ones. The modular design allows for language-specific rules and exceptions.

Available Transliteration Systems

General Systems

Greek

Ancient Greek (Grc)

Modern Greek (El)

Indo-Iranian Languages

Persian/Farsi (Fa)

Sanskrit (Sa)

Other Languages

Egyptian Hieroglyphic (Egy)

English (En)

Klingon (Tlh)

Yiddish (Yi)

Semitic Languages

Arabic (Ar)

Aramaic (Arc)

Hebrew (He)

Slavic Languages

Belarusian (Be)

Bulgarian (Bg)

Church Slavonic (Cu)

Macedonian (Mk)

Russian (Ru)

Rusyn (Rue)

Serbian (Sr)

Ukrainian (Uk)

Usage

Basic Transliteration

use Lang::Transliterate;
use Lang::Transliterate::Egy::Gardiner1927;
use Lang::Transliterate::Sa::IAST;
use Lang::Transliterate::Yi::YIVO;

# Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics (Gardiner's system)
my $hieroglyphic = "𓊪𓏏𓇯𓃭𓅓𓏏";
my $gardiner = Lang::Transliterate::Egy::Gardiner1927.new;
say transliterate($hieroglyphic, $gardiner); # "pt-ḥ-m-t"

# Sanskrit IAST 
my $sanskrit = "भगवद्गीता";
my $iast = Lang::Transliterate::Sa::IAST.new;
say transliterate($sanskrit, $iast); # "bhagavadgītā"

# Yiddish YIVO standard
my $yiddish = "ייִדיש";
my $yivo = Lang::Transliterate::Yi::YIVO.new;
say transliterate($yiddish, $yivo); # "yidish"

Reverse Transliteration (Detransliteration)

use Lang::Transliterate;
use Lang::Transliterate::Sa::IAST;
use Lang::Transliterate::He::CommonIsraeli;

# Convert romanized text back to original script
my $romanized = "śaṅkarācārya";
my $iast = Lang::Transliterate::Sa::IAST.new;
my $devanagari = detransliterate($romanized, $iast);
say $devanagari; # "शङ्कराचार्य"

# Reconstruct Hebrew from common transliteration
my $name = "Yerushalayim";
my $israeli = Lang::Transliterate::He::CommonIsraeli.new;
my $hebrew = detransliterate($name, $israeli);
say $hebrew; # "ירושלים"

Working with Ancient Scripts

use Lang::Transliterate;
use Lang::Transliterate::Arc::Hebrew;
use Lang::Transliterate::Arc::Arabic;
use Lang::Transliterate::Arc::Syriac;
use Lang::Transliterate::Arc::Phoenician;
use Lang::Transliterate::Egy::Gardiner1927;
use Lang::Transliterate::Egy::Allen2000;

# Imperial Aramaic to multiple scripts
my $aramaic = "𐡀𐡁𐡂𐡃";

my $to-hebrew = Lang::Transliterate::Arc::Hebrew.new;
say transliterate($aramaic, $to-hebrew);     # "אבגד"

my $to-arabic = Lang::Transliterate::Arc::Arabic.new;
say transliterate($aramaic, $to-arabic);     # "ابجد"

my $to-syriac = Lang::Transliterate::Arc::Syriac.new;
say transliterate($aramaic, $to-syriac);     # "ܐܒܓܕ"

my $to-phoenician = Lang::Transliterate::Arc::Phoenician.new;
say transliterate($aramaic, $to-phoenician); # "𐤀𐤁𐤂𐤃"

# Different Egyptian transliteration standards
my $cartouche = "𓈖𓆑𓂋𓏏𓇳𓏏𓇋";
my $gardiner = Lang::Transliterate::Egy::Gardiner1927.new;
say transliterate($cartouche, $gardiner);    # "nfr.t-ỉ.t-ỉ"

my $allen = Lang::Transliterate::Egy::Allen2000.new;
say transliterate($cartouche, $allen);       # "nfrt-jty"

Special Features

use Lang::Transliterate;
use Lang::Transliterate::En::TolkienRunic;
use Lang::Transliterate::El::ISO843;

# English to Tolkien's runic system
my $ring-text = "One transliterator to rule them all";
say transliterate($ring-text, $tolkien); # "ᚩᚾᛖ ᛏᚱᚪᚾᛋᛚᛁᛏᛖᚱᚪᛏᚩᚱ ᛏᚩ ᚱᚢᛚᛖ ᚦᛖᛗ ᚪᛚᛚ"

# Case preservation in Greek
my $greek = "ΑΘΗΝΑ Ελλάδα";
my $iso843 = Lang::Transliterate::El::ISO843.new;
say transliterate($greek, $iso843); # "ATHĪNA Elláda"

Author

Danslav Slavenskoj

License

The Artistic License 2.0

Copyright © 2025 Danslav Slavenskoj

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/slavenskoj/raku-lang-transliterate.