Talk:Romanization of Georgian

@Dixtosa: This is the wording which is still obscure to me: "... preferred to avoid ambiguity, as an expressions ..." I can't even guess what this might mean, sorry. — Hippietrail (talk) 17:35, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Transliterated expression containing t or/and j or/and ch or/and g are ambiguous, because, as you can see, t can imply თ(tʰ) or ტ(tʼ), j can imply ჯ(dʒ) or ჟ(ʒ) and so on. And if we avoid using them and, instead, use alternatives expression gets obvious.--Dixtosa (talk) 14:20, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Merger proposal

Three separate articles exist (this one, Georgian national system of romanization, and ISO 9984), each consisting pretty much of just one simple table and very little text. The current focus of the present article, pretentiously entitled "Romanization of Georgian", is just an unofficial "chat alphabet" that is used for text messaging purposes and for the like. I propose merging the three tables into a large, comparative table.

Letter	IPA value	National system	ISO 9984	Unofficial
ა	ɑ	a	a	a
ბ	b	b	b	b
გ	ɡ	g	g	g
დ	d	d	d	d
ე	ɛ	e	e	e
ვ	v	v	v	v
ზ	z	z	z	z
თ	tʰ	t	t'	T, t
ი	i	i	i	i
კ	kʼ	k'	k	k
ლ	l	l	l	l
მ	m	m	m	m
ნ	n	n	n	n
ო	ɔ	o	o	o
პ	pʼ	p'	p	p
ჟ	ʒ	zh	ž	J, j
რ	r	r	r	r
ს	s	s	s	s
ტ	tʼ	t'	t	t
უ	u	u	u	u
ფ	pʰ	p	p'	p
ქ	kʰ	k	k'	q
ღ	ɣ	gh	ḡ	g, R
ყ	qʼ	q'	q	y
შ	ʃ	sh	š	sh, S
ჩ	tʃʰ	ch	č'	ch, C
ც	tsʰ	ts	c'	c, ts
ძ	dz	dz	j	dz, Z
წ	tsʼ	ts'	c	w
ჭ	tʃʼ	ch'	č	W, ch
ხ	x	kh	x	x, kh
ჯ	dʒ	j	ǰ	j
ჰ	h	h	h	h

There would be some notes outlining the principles of each system, plus a note on the ISO 9984 values for the obsolete letters ჱ, ჲ, ჳ, ჴ, ჵ, ჶ. All the text and the links from the other two articles would be transferred here, and they themselves can redirect here. --Theurgist (talk) 12:02, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

• Support. A very good idea and in fact long overdue. --Kober^Talk 12:09, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support Dixtosa (talk) 12:45, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
• Important note: The Georgian national system deals with the Georgian language, while ISO 9984 deals with the Georgian alphabet. The two overlap to a large extent, but that where they don't must be noted. In languages like Laz, Mingrelian, Svan and others that employ or used to employ the script, do any of the basic 33 letters stand for different sound values or not occur at all, and do the six "obsolete" letters occur? --Theurgist (talk) 19:43, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Here's what we're going to do. We'll expand the above table to include BGN/PCGN (found here). A mini-table will follow, to use up all the available ISO 9984 values for Georgian-script characters, noting that those additional letters are either nonexistent or obsolete in Georgian, but may appear in the alphabets of other languages of the region.

Letter	IPA value	ISO 9984
ჱ	ei, ej	ē
ჲ	i, j	y
ჳ	ui, uj	w
ჴ	q, qʰ	ẖ
ჵ	oː	ō
ჶ	f	f

It will be explained that the ISO 9984 standard is universal for the respective characters regardless of which particular language employs them, whereas the National system and the BGN/PCGN standards only apply for the Georgian language, and there might exist other standard, scientific or conventional systems dealing with romanization of languages other than Georgian (example, example). This article is not going to detail them, because its subject is the romanization of Georgian, and not Romanization of Laz or Romanization of Mingrelian. Comments and criticism are welcome. --Theurgist (talk) 17:14, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi Theurgist, I recognise the User name from your sensible comments on the Vietnamese moves, thankfully being reversed. But can you explain what you mean by above - you mean merge only the first fork, but leave ISO 9984 separate? In ictu oculi (talk) 01:26, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

It all looked pretty simple and obvious until I belatedly realised that ISO 9984 is different from the other systems in the sense that it deals with the letters and not with a language. If we do the expanding, then "ISO 9984" would still remain the stub of just one sentence and one simple table that it is now, and the only information there not duplicated here would be just the six rows of the table for the six characters romanised as ē, y, w, ẖ, ō, f. Therefore, I'm proposing that the six characters be transferred here, with an additional mini-table and adequate notes, and the "ISO 9984" page remain as a redirect. By the way, I'm not sure how exhaustive that standard actually is, because there don't seem to be ISO 9984 values for the last four letters listed at Georgian alphabet#Mkhedruli, namely ჷ, ჺ, ჸ and ჹ. --Theurgist (talk) 13:58, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

On the other hand, WP:TOPIC and WP:COATRACK advise against doing such a thing. What a mess this turned out to be. --Theurgist (talk) 20:50, 26 August 2012 (UTC)