Searching in Languages with Non-Roman Scripts
Columbia Libraries have extensive collections in many languages, but searching for languages in non-Roman scripts can be tricky. Some catalog records can be found using the language's native script, but many library resources have been cataloged using romanization tables for transliteration. Older catalog records may also use variant romanization schemes. When searching for non-roman script items in the library catalog, it can be useful to try several spelling variants.
Search tools and tips for specific languages and scripts can be found below. When available, romanization tables from the American Library Association and Library of Congress (ALA-LC) are included, which can be used as guides for searching library catalogs in the United States.
Columbia selectively collects a small number of publications in African languages written in indigenous scripts, including the following. Where possible, the ALA-LC romanization table is linked.
- Amharic Romanization Table
- Guinean Pular (no romanization table available)
- Mande languages in N'ko Romanization Table
- Moroccan Tamazight Romanization Table
- Senegalese Wofolal (no romanization table available)
- Tamashek of Algeria, Mali, and Niger Romanization Table
- Tigrinya Romanization Table
- Other West African languages using the African ajami script (no romanization table available)
Contact a librarian for more help:
Yuusuf Caruso
African Studies Librarian
- Global Studies
CLIO can be searched using Arabic script. However, only books cataloged after 2007 will have a bibliographic description in Arabic. Older records can only be found using Latin alphabet. CLIO and most other library catalogs use the following ALA-LC transliteration rules.
Arabic ALA-LC Romanization Tables:
Please note that these rules vary slightly from those used by IJMES or Encyclopaedia of Islam.
We also recommend searching in WorldCat, where a large percentage of books has description in Arabic script and records that link back to CLIO catalog.
Contact a librarian for more help:
Peter Magierski
Middle East & Islamic Studies Librarian
- Global Studies
Contact a librarian for more help:
Chengzhi Wang
Chinese Studies Librarian
- Starr East Asian Library
Nearly 60% of the records for Hebrew works in CLIO include Hebrew characters, so it is worthwhile to try searching in Hebrew if you are looking for a specific text.
Library transliteration can differ slightly from typical academic transliteration of Hebrew. Hebrew transliteration has also changed significantly over the 20th century, and so a book that was cataloged in the 1940s might look different than a book from 2003. If you cannot find your book, it is also helpful to seach by author.
Another useful tool is to search Worldcat, the "catalog of catalogs," which will indicate if Columbia holds a title, and will give a direct link to that title in CLIO, if it is available.
Contact a librarian for more help:
Michelle Margolis
Norman E. Alexander Librarian for Jewish Studies
- Global Studies
Contact a librarian for more help:
Chiaki Sakai
Japanese Studies Librarian
- Starr East Asian Library
Contact a librarian for more help:
Hee-Sook Shin
Korean Studies Librarian
- Starr East Asian Library
OCLC currently claims to support South Asian scripts such as Assamese, Bengali, Devanagari, Hindi, Marathi, Nepali, Persian, Sanskrit, Sherpa, Tamil, Urdu. In practice, only a small percentage of materials cataloged in Worldcat are directly searchable by non-Roman scripts. Hence it is necessary to know how to search using non-Roman script standard transliteration conventions.
ALA-LC transliteration guidelines for specific languages and scripts may vary from standards common to introductory South Asia language learning texts. A few examples:
- In Hindi transliteration, the vowel a is implicit after all consonants and consonant clusters and is supplied in transliteration unless another vowel is specifically indicated or the absence of a vowel is clearly indicated by the virāma. Thus, for example, the Hindi word for ‘book’ is transliterated as kitāba and pustaka (rather than as kitāb and pustak).
- Transliteration of Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit conjunct compounds may vary; sometimes rendered as a single word/unit; sometimes with dashes separating individual elements; and sometimes with spaces between individual ‘words.’
South Asian ALA-LC romanization tables:
- Assamese
- Bengali
- Divehi
- Gujarati
- Hindi
- Kannada
- Kashmiri (in Perso-Arabic script)
- Lepcha
- Limbu
- Manipuri, Modern (Meiti script)
- Malayalam
- Marathi
- Moplah (in Arabic script)
- Oriya
- Pali (in various scripts)
- Panjabi (in Gurmukhi script)
- Persian
- Sanskrit and Prakrit (in Devanagiri script)
- Santali (in Ol script)
- Sindhi (in Arabic script)
- Sinhalese
- Tamil
- Telugu
- Tibetan
- Urdu (in Arabic script)
Contact a librarian for more help:
Gary Hausman
South Asian Studies Librarian
- Global Studies
South Asian ALA-LC romanization tables:
Contact a librarian for more help:
Gary Hausman
South Asian Studies Librarian
- Global Studies
Contact a librarian for more help:
Kristina Dy-Liacco
Tibetan Studies Librarian
- Starr East Asian Library