Musings of transliteration: Tharman Shanmugaratnam's name

Tharman , the 9th president of Singapore is of Indian Tamil ethnicity. The pronunciation of his first name shows how various languages use Latin alphabets.

English speakers use th to convey three different sounds -

1. “Thames/ते़म्ज़” - Palatial /t/ similar but different from Hindi/Spanish/French/Arabic dental /t/त.
2. “Think/थ़िन्क” - voiceless interdental fricative sound /θ/.
3. “This/द़िस” - voiced interdental fricative /ð/.

Hindi speakers use th to transliterate /tʰ/थ - a dental form of /θ/थ़.

Tamil speakers use th to transliterate த which represents sounds ranging from dental `/t/त` to `/dʱ/ध`.

And that’s how தர்மன் which should have been translated directly as dharma/धर्मं ends up going via Tamil -> English -> Hindi route and becomes थर्मन !