Arabic chat alphabet

The Arabic chat alphabet, also known as Arabish, Moaarab (معرب), Arabizi (عربيزي),[1] Araby (عربي),[2] Franco-Arabic,[3] is an alphabet used to communicate in Arabic over the Internet or for sending messages via cellular phones when the actual Arabic alphabet is unavailable for technical reasons or otherwise more difficult to use. It is a character encoding of Arabic to the Latin script and the Arabic numerals. It differs from more formal and academic Arabic transliteration systems, as it avoids diacritics by freely using digits and multigraphs for letters that do not exist in the basic Latin script (ASCII).[4]

History

During the last decades of the 20th century and especially since the 1990s, Western text communication technologies became increasingly prevalent in the Arab world, such as personal computers, the World Wide Web, email, bulletin board systems, IRC, instant messaging and mobile phone text messaging. Most of these technologies originally had the ability to communicate using Latin script only, and some of them still do not have the Arabic alphabet as an optional feature. As a result, Arabic speaking users communicated in these technologies by transliterating the Arabic text in to English using Latin script. To handle those Arabic letters that do not have an approximate phonetic equivalent in the Latin script, numerals and other characters were appropriated. For example, the numeral "3" is used to represent the Arabic letter ⟨ع⟩ (ʿayn), note the usage of the mirroring technique to create a visual similarity between the Arabic letter and its numeral substitution. Many users of mobile phones and computers use Arabish even when their system supports the Arabic script because they do not always have Arabic keyboards, or because they are more familiar with the QWERTY keyboard layout for typing.

Usage

Online communications, such as IRC, bulletin board systems, and blogs, are often run on systems or over protocols which don't support codepages or alternate character sets. This system has gained common use and can be seen even in domain names such as Qal3ah.

It is most commonly used by youth in the Arab world in very informal settings, for example communicating with friends or other youths. The Arabic chat alphabet is never used in formal settings and is rarely, if ever, used for long communications. A single communication in ACA rarely exceeds more than a few sentences.

Even though the Arabic language is well integrated with Windows XP and Mac OS X, people still use it in Arabic forums and instant Messaging programs such as Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger because they don't always have Arabic keyboards. Also, some people are not capable of using an Arabic keyboard as it is much more complicated than the English one.

Arabish is used on many public advertisements by large multinationals.[5] Because of its widespread use, large players in the online industry like Google[6][7] and Microsoft[8] have introduced tools that convert text written in Arabish to Arabic. Add-ons for Mozilla Firefox and Chrome exist to romanize Arabic webpages in the ArabEasy system. and Firefox also permits romanized Arabic text input.

Arabic chat alphabet[2] is used to communicate in the Arabic language over the Internet or for sending messages via cellular phones when the Arabic alphabet is unavailable or difficult to use for technical reasons. It is a character encoding of Arabic letters to the English alphabet and Hindu-Arabic numerals.

Comparison table

Because of the informal nature of this system, there is no single "correct" way, so some character usage overlaps.

Most of the characters in the system make use of the roman character (as used in English and French) that best approximates phoneticall the Arabic letter that one wants to express (for example, ب corresponds to b). This may sometimes vary due to regional variations in the pronunciation of the Arabic letter (e.g. ﺝ might be transliterated as j in the Levantine dialect, or as g in the Egyptian dialect).

Those letters that do not have a close phonetic approximate in the Latin script are often expressed using numerals or other characters, so that the numeral graphically approximate the Arabic letter that one wants to express (e.g. ع is represented using the numeral 3 because the latter looks like a horizontal reflection of the former).

Since many letters are distinguished from others solely by a dot above or below the main character, the conversions frequently used the same letter or number with an apostrophe added after or before (e.g. 3' is used to represent غ).

Letters Arabic chat alphabet Phonetic Value (IPA)
ء‎ أ ؤ إ ئ آ‎ 2 / ' ʔ
ا‎ a / e / é / è [decimal 1] æ(ː)~a(ː)~ɑ(ː)~e(ː)~ɛ(ː)~ɐ
ب‎ b / p b, p
ت‎ t t~t̪~t͡s
ث‎ s / th s~θ
ج‎ g / j / dj [decimal 1] ɡ~ɟ~ʒ~d͡ʒ
ح‎ 7 ħ~ʜ
خ‎ kh / 7' / 5 x~χ
د‎ d d~d̪
ذ‎ z / dh / th z~ð
ر‎ r r~ɾ, rˤ
ز‎ z z
س‎ s s
ش‎ sh / ch [decimal 1] ʃ
ص‎ s / 9 sˤ~s~sˠ
ض‎ d / 9' d~dˤ~d̪ˤ~d̪ˠ
ط‎ t / 6 tˤ~t~t̪ˤ~t̪ˠ
ظ‎ z / dh / t' / 6' zˤ~ðˤ~ðˠ
ع‎ 3 ʕ~ʢ̰
غ‎ gh / 3' ɣ~ʁ
ف‎ f / v f, v
ق‎ 8 ʔ~ɡ~ɢ~q
ك‎ k / g k, ɡ
ل‎ l l~ɫ
م‎ m m
ن‎ n n
ه‎ h / a / e / ah / eh h, æ~a~ɑ~e~ɐ
ة‎ a / e / ah / eh æ~a~ɑ~e~ɐ
و‎ w / o / u / ou / oo w,  /o(ː)/,  /u(ː)/
ي‎ or ى‎ [9][10] y / i / ee / ei / ai / a j,  /i(ː)/,  /e(ː)/,  /a/
  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 é, è, ch, dj are likely to be used at regions where French language is the primary foreign language used. dj is especially used in Algerian Arabic.
Additional letters Arabic chat alphabet Phonetic Value (IPA)
پ‎ p p
چ‎ j / tsh / ch / tch [2] ʒ~t͡ʃ
ڤ‎ ‎/ ڥ‎ ‎[3] v v
ڨ‎ / گ‎ ‎/ ݣ‎ ‎[3] g ɡ

^2 In Iraq and sometimes Persian Gulf, it may be used to transcribe /t͡ʃ/, but most often transcribed as تش, while in Egypt it is used for transcribing /ʒ/ (which can be a reduction of /d͡ʒ/).
^3 Depending on the region, different letters may be used for the same phoneme.

Examples

Egyptian Arabic

Egyptian Arabic انا رايح الجامعه الساعه 3 العصر الجو عامل ايه النهارده فى إسكندرية؟
Araby transcription ana raye7 el gam3a el sa3a 3 el 3asr. el gaw 3amel eh ennaharda fe eskendereya?
IPA [ʔænæˈrɑˑjeħ elˈɡæmʕæ (ʔe)sˈsæˑʕæ tæˈlæˑtæ lˈʕɑsˤɾ] [elˈɡæwwe ˈʕæˑmel ˈe(ˑhe)nnɑˈhɑɾdɑ feskendeˈɾejjæ]
English I'm going to college at 3pm. How is the weather today in Alexandria?

North Levantine Arabic

North Levantine Arabic كيف صحتك، شو عمتعمل؟
Araby transcription kif/keef sa7tak, chou/shu 3am ta3mil?
ALA-LC kīf ṣaḥtak, shū ʻam taʻmil?
IPA [kiːf ˈsˤɑħtak ʃuː ʕam ˈtaʕmɪl]
English How is your health, what are you doing?

Saudi Arabic

Saudi Arabic كيف الحال؟ وش تسوون اليوم؟
Araby transcription kaif al7al? wsh tsawwoon el youm?
English How are you doing? What are you doing today?

Moroccan Arabic

Moroccan Arabic كي داير مع القراية؟
Araby transcription ki dayr m3a l9raya?
English How are you doing with your studies?

Gulf Arabic

Gulf Arabic شلونك؟ شنو بتسوون اليوم؟
Araby transcription shlonak? shino bitsawwoon el youm?
English How are you? What are you going to do today?

Iraqi Arabic

Iraqi Arabic يابه شلونك؟ شدتسوي مادتسوي اليوم؟
Araby transcription yaba shlonak? shdassowee ma dassowee ilyom?
English How are you, man? What are you up to today?

Sudanese Arabic

Sudanese Arabic .يا زول، تقدر تعمل أي حاجة النهار دا ولا شِنو؟ أنا زاتو بس زهجان شديد هنا
Araby transcription ya zol, tagdar ta3mal aya 7aja enhar da wla shino? ani zato bs zahjan shadid hina.
English Hey man, can you do anything today or what? I'm just really very bored here.

Chadian Arabic

Chadian Arabic .وه ياخي، إتَ عفة؟ أنينا نقدرو نمشو إلو السوبرمارشة ديك أمباكر ولا؟ انا كي محتاج شوية حاجات جديدة من مرّة مرّة دا
Araby transcription boh yakhi, etta afé? anina negdarou nemchou ilou el supermarché dik ambâkir walaï? anaki mohtadj shwayé hâdjât djididé min marré marré dah.
English Oh hey man, how are you? Can we go to that market tomorrow? I really need some new things from time to time.

Criticism

Conservative Muslims, as well as Pan-Arabists and some Arab-nationalists, view Arabish as a detrimental form of Westernization. Arabish emerged amid a growing trend among Arab youth, especially in Lebanon and Jordan, to incorporate English into Arabic as a form of slang. Arabish is used to replace Arabic script, and this raises concerns regarding the preservation of the quality of the language.[3]

See also

References

Notes

  1. ↑ http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article366743.ece
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Yaghan, M. (2008). "Araby: A Contemporary Style of Arabic Slang". Design Issues 24(2): 39-52.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Purists alarmed at increasing popularity of Franco-Arabic
  4. ↑ David Palfreyman; Muhamed al Khalil (November 2003). ""A Funky Language for Teenzz to Use": Representing Gulf Arabic in Instant Messaging". Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (USC Annenberg School for Communication) 9 (1). Retrieved 2008-08-25.
  5. ↑ Zain Sami3ny Service using Sami3ny in Arabish as a name
  6. ↑ Google Ta3reeb - Arabic Keyboard using Roman Characters
  7. ↑ Google Translator auto convert Arabish to Arabic before translation
  8. ↑ Microsoft Maren: allowing you to type Arabic in Roman characters and have it converted on the fly to Arabic script
  9. ↑ In Egypt, Sudan and sometimes other regions, the final form is always ى (without dots), representing both final /-iː/ and /-aː/.
  10. ↑ ى representing final /-a/ is less likely to occur. In this case, it is commonly known as, especially in Egypt, ألف لينة [ˈʔælef læjˈjenæ]. Also called ʾalif maqṣūra. In Egypt, it is always short [-æ, -ɑ] in Egyptian Arabic.

General references

External links