Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences

An online presentation of the National Transliteration System and the "Transliteration" web portal was organized by the Division of Humanities and Division of Physical, Mathematical and Technical Sciences of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences (ANAS) on September 18. The online presentation brought together the first vice-president of ANAS, head of the Division of Humanities academician Isa Habibbayli, vice-president of ANAS, director of the Institute of Information Technology of ANAS academician Rasim Alguliyev, director of the Institute of Linguistics named after Nasimi academician Mohsun Nagisoylu, ANAS corresponding members - Masuma Mammadova and Ramiz Aliguliyev, as well as employees of the Institute of Information Technology and Linguistics named after Nasimi of ANAS, Institute of Oriental Studies named after academician Ziya Bunyadov, specialists in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish and Persian of the Baku State University, Azerbaijan University of Languages, who closely involved in the development of the National Transliteration System and "Transliteration" web portal, including media representatives and guests.

Academician Isa Habibbayli, who made an introductory speech at the online event, noted that samples of written literature have been written in the Azerbaijani language, one of the oldest languages in the world, since the 13th century. The Azerbaijani language occupies a special place among the Turkic languages, in general, among the world languages due to its richness and wide potential. It is no coincidence that the Azerbaijani language has been the common language in the Caucasus for many years.

The First Vice-President of ANAS then informed the participants of the online event that the “State Program on the use of the Azerbaijani language in accordance with the requirements of the time and the development of linguistics in the country in the context of globalization” approved by the relevant Order of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev dated April 9, 2013 paragraph 6.1.4 covers the development of national transliteration standards. According to the academician, another item of the State Program - 6.3.9. dedicated to the development of software that transliterates from the Azerbaijani alphabet to other alphabets on the basis of national transliteration standards.

Relevant items of the "Action Plan to prevent the use of distorted maps referring to the Armenian-occupied territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan" approved by the proper decision of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Azerbaijan dated February 20, 2020 covers issue of creating an electronic database reflecting the national transliteration standards and the spelling of geographical names of our country in different languages on the basis of these standards, stated the academician.

Then Sabina Mammadzadeh, a senior researcher at the Institute of Information Technology, presented the website of the National Transliteration System. She noted that the web-site, developed by the institute's specialists, is in line with the "Requirements for the creation and management of Internet information resources of government agencies" approved by the Cabinet of Ministers. The transliteration system, which is an open system that will work in an online environment, was designed for Azerbaijani, English, Russian, French and German languages and consists of sections "Home", "About transliteration", "Transliteration standards", "Transliteration tables", "Cooperation" and "Contact".

Noting that a working group has been set up to implement the project, the rapporteur said that foreign experience was studied in order to create a transliteration system based on international standards, and the current situation in the field of transliteration in Azerbaijan was studied.

S. Mammadzadeh said that transliteration tables were compiled together with specialists in relevant fields, and through these conversion tables it is possible to translate texts from Azerbaijani into English, Russian, French, German, Spanish, Persian and from those languages into Azerbaijani.

In addition to the texts on the website, it is also possible to transliterate any website operating in these languages, she added.

She also noted that users can submit comments and suggestions on transliteration, including in the forum section of the website.

Speaking at the online event, the head of the department of the Institute of Linguistics named after Nasimi, Professor Ilham Tahirov noted that the National Transliteration System has transliterated and converted texts specific to the Azerbaijani language into 8 foreign languages. The scientist spoke about the difficulties encountered in the process of translating personal names, geographical names, toponyms in our native language into foreign languages, especially the specific features of the transliteration of the letters "a", "ö", "ü", "ğ", "ç" and "x" in detail.

Speaking at the online event, deputy director of the Institute of Linguistics, Ph.D. in Philology, Associate Professor Baba Maharramli stressed that transliteration is generally considered a type of transcription, which is considered a "phonetic writing". The term "transliteration" is usually used when referring to the transcription of proper names

The development of the National Transliteration System and the "Transliteration" web portal is the fruitful work of the Embassy of the Republic of Peru in the Republic of Azerbaijan with specialists in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish and Persian along with the Nasimi Institute of Linguistics and Information Technology of ANAS, Institute of Oriental Studies named after academician Ziya Bunyadov, as well as Baku State University, Azerbaijan University of Languages and Baku Slavic University, he stated.

Then, vice-president of ANAS, director of the Institute of Information Technology of ANAS, academician Rasim Alguliyev first spoke about the important achievements in the field of state language policy under the leadership of President Ilham Aliyev, the tasks set in this field and the adopted documents.

Making speech on the achievements gained in the formation of e-base of the Azerbaijani language, R. Alguliyev reminded the development and commissioning of the common information base of Azerbaijani language – azerbaycandili.az portal, National Terminological Information System Concept and terminologiya.az web-portal by joint activities of the Institutes of Information Technology and Linguistics.

He also stressed that in order to overcome the difficulties faced by the Azerbaijani language in the virtual space, the development of Text Mining (intellectual analysis of texts) technologies, there is a great need for training specialists in computer linguistics in our country.

Finally, discussions were carried out upon upcoming problems and tasks.

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