ABSTRACT
This book makes use of materials in several languages, so rigorous standardization of names and transliterations is required. Non-English names are written in the orthography and using the accent marks of the original language unless they have a generally used English form. In such cases the original name is given in parentheses the first time it appears. As a rule, we have striven to maintain the contemporary spelling of the surnames of non-English personalities, while using the modern spelling of their first names according to each individual’s native tongue. Names and terms in Arabic are written according to the 1991 ALA-LC romanization of the American Library Association and the Library of Congress, whereas Hebrew names and terms are transliterated according to the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) Handbook of Style. As is usually accepted in academic writing in English, East Asian names are given in the order that is common in the region—that is, surnames preceed given names. Chinese names and terms are written according to the pinyin transliteration system. Macrons above some of the Japanese names and terms are used to indicate a long vowel (e.g., Abe Shinzō), except for commonly used ones or those adopted into the English lexicon (e.g., Tokyo). Korean names and terms follow the Revised Romanization of Korean. Words, terms, titles, and place names in South and Southeast Asian languages (e.g., Hindi, Tamil, Javanese, Malay) follow currently accepted systems of transliteration and appear without diacritics. Toponyms are spelled in the way most familiar to English-speaking readers, at least when an English version exists and when its pronunciation approximates the name in the original language. For unfamiliar place names, we used the modern spellings employed in the countries concerned in their common transliteration
