Arabic chat alphabet
The Arabic chat alphabet, Arabizi, Franco-Arabic, Arabish, Araby, and Mu'arrab, refer to the Romanized alphabets for informal Arabic dialects in which Arabic script is transcribed or encoded into a combination of Latin script and Arabic numerals. These informal chat alphabets were originally used primarily by youth in the Arab world in very informal settings—especially for communicating over the Internet or for sending messages via cellular phones—though use is not necessarily restricted by age any more and these chat alphabets have been used in other media such as advertising.
These chat alphabets differ from more formal and academic Arabic transliteration systems, in that they use numerals and multigraphs instead of diacritics for letters such as qāf or Ḍād that do not exist in the basic Latin script, and in that what is being transcribed is an informal dialect and not Standard Arabic. These Arabic chat alphabets also differ from each other, as each is influenced by the particular phonology of the Arabic dialect being transcribed and the orthography of the dominant European language in the area—typically the language of the former colonists, and typically either French or English.
Because of their widespread use, including in public advertisements by large multinational companies, large players in the online industry like Google and Microsoft have introduced tools that convert text written in Arabish to Arabic. Add-ons for Mozilla Firefox and Chrome also exist. The Arabic chat alphabet is never used in formal settings and is rarely, if ever, used for long communications.
History
During the last decades of the 20th century, Western text-based communication technologies, such as mobile phone text messaging, the World Wide Web, email, bulletin board systems, IRC, and instant messaging became increasingly prevalent in the Arab world. Most of these technologies originally permitted the use of the Latin script only, and some still lack support for displaying Arabic script. As a result, Arabic-speaking users frequently transliterate Arabic text into Latin script when using these technologies to communicate.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 —note the choice of a visually similar character, with the numeral resembling a mirrored version of the Arabic letter. Many users of mobile phones and computers use Arabish even though their system is capable of displaying Arabic script. This may be due to a lack of an appropriate keyboard layout for Arabic, or because users are already more familiar with the QWERTY or AZERTY keyboard layout.
Online communication systems, such as IRC, bulletin board systems, and blogs, are often run on systems or over protocols that do not support code pages or alternate character sets. Thus, the Arabic chat alphabet has become commonplace. It can be seen even in domain names, like Qal3ah.
Comparison table
Because of the informal nature of this system, there is no single "correct" or "official" usage. There may be some overlap in the way various letters are transliterated.Most of the characters in the system make use of the Latin character that best approximates phonetically the Arabic letter that one would otherwise use. Regional variations in the pronunciation of an Arabic letter can also produce some variation in its transliteration.
Those letters that do not have a close phonetic approximation in the Latin script are often expressed using numerals or other characters, so that the numeral graphically approximates the Arabic letter that one would otherwise use.
Since many letters are distinguished from others solely by a dot above or below the main portion of the character, the transliterations of these letters frequently use the same letter or number with an apostrophe added before or after.
| Letters | Arabic chat alphabet | IPA |
| Hamza| | 2 | |
| a e è | ||
| b p | ||
| t | ||
| s th | ||
| j dj g | ||
| 7 | ||
| kh 7' 5 | ||
| d | ||
| z th dh | ||
| r | ||
| z | ||
| s | ||
| sh ch $ | ||
| s 9 | ||
| d dh 9' | ||
| t 6 | ||
| z th dh 6' | ||
| 3 | ||
| gh 3' | ||
| f v | ||
| 2 g 8 9 q | ||
| k g | ||
| l | ||
| m | ||
| n | ||
| h a e ah eh é | , | |
| a e eh at et é | ||
| w o ou oo u | ||
| y i ee ei ai a é | , |
| Additional letters | Arabic chat alphabet | IPA |
| p | ||
| j tsh ch tch g | ||
| ch tch | ||
| v | ||
| g |
Examples
Each of the different varieties of Arabic chat alphabets is influenced by the particular phonology of the Arabic dialect being transcribed and the orthography of the dominant European language in the area—typically the language of the former colonists. Below are some examples of Arabic chat alphabet varieties.Egyptian Arabic
The frequent use of y and w to represent ي and و demonstrates the influence of English orthography on the romanization of Egyptian Arabic. As was the case in other parts of the region, English became the primary European language in Egypt as a result of British colonialism in the first half of the 20th century.Additionally, the letter qāf is usually pronounced as a glottal stop, like a Hamza in Metropolitan Egyptian Arabic—unlike Standard Arabic in which it represents a voiceless uvular stop. Therefore, in Egyptian Arabizi, the numeral 2 can represent either a Hamza or a qāf pronounced as a glottal stop.
| Egyptian Arabic | ||
| Araby transcription | ana raye7 el gam3a el sa3a 3 el 3asr. | el gaw 3amel eh elnaharda f eskendereya? |
| IPA | ||
| English | I'm going to college at 3 pm. | How is the weather today in Alexandria? |
Levantine Arabic
Lebanese, Syrian, Jordanian, Palestinian| Levantine Arabic | .كيف صحتك، شو عم تعمل |
| Araby transcription | kif/keef se7tak, chou/shu 3am ti3mel? |
| ALA-LC | kīf ṣaḥtak, shū ʻam tiʻmel? |
| IPA | |
| English | How is your health, what are you doing? |
Moroccan Arabic
The use of ch to represent ش demonstrates the influence of French orthography on the romanization of Moroccan Arabic or Darija. French became the primary European language in Morocco as a result of French colonialism.| Moroccan Arabic | |
| Araby transcription | kifach dayer fle9raya? |
| English | How are you doing with your studies? |
Gulf Arabic
- ''Spoken along the Persian Gulf coasts of Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, UAE and eastern Saudi Arabia, with growing number use of English due to British Colonialism in the later 19th Century: see Arablish.
| Gulf Arabic | |
| Araby transcription | shlounik? Shnu ga3d tsawe al7een? |
| English | How are you? What are you doing right now? |
Iraqi Arabic
- Baghdadi Arabic
| Iraqi Arabic | |
| Araby transcription | 3alayman ya galub ti3tib 3alayman? |
| English | Who do you blame, my heart, who? |
Sudanese Arabic
Chadian Arabic
- Shuwa Arabic spoken in N'Djamena, Chad.
| Chadian Arabic | |
| Araby transcription | Boh yakhi, inta afé? Wallah semeh, ana maché lê supermarché dik bi ousut n'djamena lô tidoura tamshi yani, ta'al maa'ai yalla yakhi. |
| English | Oh, hey, my brother. How are you? Good. I am going to that supermarket, so if you want to come, hurry and come with me, my brother! |