Baháʼí orthography

Texts of the Baháʼí Faith use a standard system of orthography to romanize Persian and Arabic script. The system used in Baháʼí literature was set in 1923, and although it was based on a commonly used standard of the time, it has its own embellishments that make it unique.

Shoghi Effendi, head of the religion from 1921 to 1957, created the system of Baháʼí orthography and shared a list of examples of common terms with Baháʼís around the world in several letters in 1923. The stated need for standardized transliteration was to "avoid confusion in future, and insure in this matter a uniformity which is greatly needed at present in all Baháʼí literature." According to the standard, the most common terms are "Baháʼí," "Baháʼís," "Báb," "Baháʼu'lláh," and "ʻAbdu'l-Bahá," using accent marks to distinguish long vowels, and raised turned versus raised commas to distinguish ayin and hamza, respectively.

Since the Baháʼís adopted their system, Middle Eastern scholars have modified the standard academic system adopted in 1894 in various ways, and have created a separate, related system for writing Persian (a principal change being use of e and o). The Baháʼí system, however, has now been used to print thousands of books and pamphlets in many languages, hence modifying it would create confusion and force authors to use two different spelling systems (one in passages being quoted exactly, the other in the rest of the text).