The most difficult problem faced by writers of reports containing Arabic names is determining the correct translation of those names into English. Basis Technology’s Transliteration Assistant is a productivity enhancer for Microsoft Word, Excel, and Access which (a) eliminates this problem when writing reports; and (b) automatically translates long lists of names from Arabic into English. Transliteration Assistant ensures that any names appearing in finished products conform to the Congressionally-mandated Intelligence Community Standard for the Transliteration of Arabic Names (the “IC Standard”). Transliteration Assistant also supports other widely-used U.S. Government standards, including the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (“BGN”) and the Standard Arabic Technical Transliteration System (“SATTS”).

When used interactively, the report writer types an approximate spelling of the desired name. For example, here are three approximate spellings of the same Arabic name:

1. Mustafa Ahmed bin Samir al-haitham
   Moustafa Ahmad bin Saameer alhaytham
   Moustephah Ehmed ben Samire el-heythem

The writer then quickly selects the correct Arabic spelling:

2. 

Finally, the correct IC standard transliteration is automatically generated and inserted into the document:

3. Mustafa Ahmad Bin-Samir al-Haytham

The Arabic spelling may also be preserved in a footnote, annotation, or attachment.

Transliteration Assistant may also be used to process large lists of names, such as might appear in a telephone book, in a fully automatic, “best guess” manner. The expected accuracy of names translated this way can be as high as 97%, much higher than for other commercially-available machine translation systems.

The list of names may be opened in or copied to Microsoft Word, Excel, or Access. (For lists with more than 50,000 names, the use of Access is recommended.) The analyst then selects those names to be translated and selects the appropriate target transliteration system (BGN, FBIS, IC, or SATTS).

		Ahmad al-Rikabi
		Sayyid 'Abd-al-Majid al-Khu'i
		'Abbas al-Bayati
		Safiyyah Talib al-Suhayl
		Siddiq al-Musawi
		Fawzi Karim
		Husayn Sinjari

Transliteration Assistant may be used with names of places as well as names of persons. When a place name is entered, a list of matches (both in Arabic and in BGN transliteration) and their coordinates is presented.

Place names may be annotated in reports with either latitude/longitude coordinates or the Military Grid Reference System (MGRS).

Transliteration Assistant may be used concurrently with GeoScope, Basis Technology’s map viewing application, to display selected locations on a map.