Dubai: Log into an Arabic chat room and you might be baffled by what you read. It's not what is being said that might come across as bizarre, but rather how it is being said.

A native English speaker would not understand a word, but neither would a traditional Arabic speaker.
The language often used in the virtual world of text messaging and the internet is perhaps only comprehensible by
Arabs of the internet generation today.

It is often referred to as Arabenglish or Arabizi by young Arabs, and it is a form of Computer Mediated Communication (CMC), according to Dr Fatma Badry, social linguist at the American University of Sharjah.

Text messages

"CMC is typically used in informal settings such as instant messaging and text messages. In the psyche of Arabs, writing Arabic is reserved for formal contexts. As long as they are 'just chatting' with friends in their [colloquial] dialects, they feel it is OK to use a modified Latin alphabet to represent Arabic speech," she says.

But the Arabic alphabet, with 28 letters, has sounds that are not found in English. For those letters, Arabs use numbers as a substitute while "texting" or chatting. Number two, three, five, six, seven and nine, all represent different sounds or letters in Arabic.

For Emirati national Khalid Mohammad, a student at Dubai Men's College (DMC), writing Arabic text messages in the Latin script "comes naturally". "For letters that don't exist in the English alphabet, I use numbers. It's very easy".

Many students claim that their decision to use English characters to communicate in Arabic is because of the lack of availability of Arabic characters on their devices. However out of a classroom of about 20 students at DMC, only two claim that their phones or laptops lack Arabic as an option.

Dr Fatma says that research conducted by AUS students on the use of the 'Arabenglish' script found that young Arabs thought it was "cool" and casual to use the Latin script, whereas others said they had never learned to type in Arabic, while a few said they did not have an Arabic option on their computers.

"English is easier," says Mohammad. "Arabic follows many detailed rules you must follow to write a comprehensible phrase. I am also used to the placement of the English letters on the keypad whereas in Arabic I have to search for the letters."

Default setting

Mohammad Ebrahim, another DMC student, agrees. "English is the default setting when you purchase a product. Just figuring out how to switch the settings takes extra effort. If you're used to something, why change it?"

Arabenglish serves a limited function and does not go beyond informal contexts, says Dr Fatma. "CMC has its own characteristics in all languages used over the electronic media among friends."

Arabenglish

The sounds in Arabic that are not found in the English alphabet are replaced with numbers:
'Ain 3
Haa' 7
Khaa 5
Hamza 2
Sa'ad 9
Ta'af 6

For example, the name 'Ajman would be written as 3ajman; Ras Al Khaimah would be Ras Al 5aimah, Ahmad would be A7mad, and Al Wasl would be Al Wa9l.

By Abbas Al Lawati and Manal Ismail, Staff Reporters

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