Standard Arabic Technical Transliteration System

The Standard Arabic Technical Transliteration System, commonly referred to by its acronym SATTS, is a system for writing and transmitting Arabic language text using the one-for-one substitution of ASCII-range characters for the letters of the Arabic alphabet. Unlike more common systems for transliterating Arabic, SATTS does not provide the reader with any more phonetic information than standard Arabic orthography does; that is, it provides the bare Arabic alphabetic spelling with no notation of short vowels, doubled consonants, etc. In other words, it is intended as a transliteration tool for Arabists, and is of limited use to those who do not know Arabic.

SATTS, a legacy of Morse and teleprinter systems (see "Background," below), has historically been employed by military and communications elements of Western countries for handling Arabic text without the need for native fonts or special software. Although its use has decreased in recent years with the demise of Morse code and the obsolescence of the teleprinter, and with the increased availability of native-font software, it is still used for the quick and handy platform-independent recording and transmission of Arabic terms and text.

Read more about Standard Arabic Technical Transliteration System:  Format, Table of SATTS Equivalents, Sample Text, Background

Famous quotes containing the words standard, technical and/or system:

    Where shall we look for standard English but to the words of a standard man?
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Woman is the future of man. That means that the world which was once formed in man’s image will now be transformed to the image of woman. The more technical and mechanical, cold and metallic it becomes, the more it will need the kind of warmth that only the woman can give it. If we want to save the world, we must adapt to the woman, let ourselves be led by the woman, let ourselves be penetrated by the Ewigweiblich, the eternally feminine!
    Milan Kundera (b. 1929)

    In the end we beat them with Levi 501 jeans. Seventy-two years of Communist indoctrination and propaganda was drowned out by a three-ounce Sony Walkman. A huge totalitarian system ... has been brought to its knees because nobody wants to wear Bulgarian shoes.... Now they’re lunch, and we’re number one on the planet.
    —P.J. (Patrick Jake)