loanwords - How should foreign words (with foreign characters) be written in English text?


This question is not about italicisation or how to construct plurals. I wonder what are general guidelines for writing foreign words based on a Latin alphabet in English text. I know that, for languages written in completely different script systems, there exist more or less standard per-language “romanization” procedures (such as writing Japanse in rōmaji). My question is about words from languages with Latin script, where some glyphs are not found commonly in English. Examples of such characters include:



  • accents of all kinds (é, ô, ñ, etc.)

  • ligatures (æ, œ, ij, Å, ç, ķ, etc.)

  • characters not found at all: thorn (Þ), eth (ð), german ß,


How should these words be written in English text? Should they be copied entirely, normalized in some way (e.g., ß → ss, é → e), or transliterated so that they can be read as they should be spelt?


My personal preference is to borrow them as they are, but I would like to know what style guides recommand and what is common usage in press.


Added: data from some research is inconsistent:



  • New Oxford American Dictionary has piñata, but Anschluss (vs. ß) and oeuvre (vs. œ).

  • The Guardian uses the two variants of both Anschluß and œuvre

  • I don’t know other languages well enough that I know what to look for :)


2nd addition: I’m starting a bounty on this, because I style haven’t found any reference to actual style guides, or research from data in open-access corpuses/corpora (which I don’t know how to do myself).



Answer



The Times (not to be confused with the New York Times) style guide says:



foreign words Write in roman when foreign words and phrases have become essentially a part of the English language (eg, elite, debacle, fête, de rigueur, soirée); likewise, now use roman rather than italic, but retain accents, in a bon mot, a bête noire, the raison d'être. Avoid pretension by using an English phrase wherever one will serve. See accents



and



accents Give French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian, Irish and Ancient Greek words their proper accents and diacritical marks; omit in other languages unless you are sure of them. Accents should be used in headlines and on capital letters. With Anglicised words, no need for accents in foreign words that have taken English nationality (hotel, depot, debacle, elite, regime etc), but keep the accent when it makes a crucial difference to pronunciation or understanding - café, communiqué, détente, émigré, façade, fête, fiancée, mêlée, métier, pâté, protégé, raison d'être; also note vis-à-vis. See foreign words, Spanish



http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/tools_and_services/specials/style_guide/article986724.ece


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