transliteration

Transliteration is the process of transferring a word from the alphabet of one language to another. Transliteration helps people pronounce words and names in foreign languages.

Unlike a translation, which tells you the meaning of a word that’s written in another language, a transliteration only gives you an idea of how the word is pronounced, by putting it in a familiar alphabet. It changes the letters from the word’s original alphabet to similar-sounding letters in a different one. In Hebrew, the Jewish winter holiday is חנוכה. Its English transliteration is Hanukkah or Chanukah.