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Those same teens came up with Arabizi so they could text. It consists of the Roman alphabet plus the numbers 3,5,7 and 9. It's written left to right and was cre

Those same teens came up with Arabizi so they could text. It consists of the Roman alphabet plus the numbers 3,5,7 and 9. It's written left to right and was created for texting on feature phones. Everyone can read it in any Arabic-speaking country. Given that so little is published in Arabic, a change to this grassroots script is long overdue.

leviathan 27d ago
I still maintain to this day that the original usable numbers were 2, 3, and 7. All that 5 and 6 and 9 crap is useless and those letter were and could be done with normal latin letters: 5 already has kh, 6 already has t, 9 already has d, don't know what people used for غ but you can write it with gh
- eddythompson80 27d ago
  When I used to communicate in Arabiz I would rarely use 5, 6 or 9 too, but I get why they are there. The problem with 6 and 9 is that there are 2 very unrelated sounds for t and d in Arabic. Mixing them is a hallmark of non-native speakers tell signs and to an Arabic speaker’s ear sounds broken. It’s like when German speakers mix th and z sounds in English. It’s very jarring to the ear and requires you to parse the same word you’re reading twice in your mind to tell whether it was 6 or t (or 9 or d) especially that very similar words might exist like 6atreb and tarteb or trab and 6arb. I usually don’t use 6 and 9 either except when I want to emphasis the 6 or 9 sound in a word. Kh and gh are problematic mainly because you’re relying on the special rule in Arabic that you can’t have 2 constants like k, g and h sounds after one another in a word. You’re relying on the wrongness of a kh or gh construct in Arabic to realize they must be standing for something else. I prefer them tbh, but I get the desire of some to have symbols for them. غ Is sometimes 3’ but I have seen more gh than 3’ especially that 3’ mixes the academic romanization with the “Arabiz” romanization
  - leviathan 26d ago
    My village's name is خنشارة - written in latin as Khenchara. There's precedent for this for kh, so it carries easily to gh as well. My last name starts with a ق and in latin it's written with a K. The tools were just to provide a way to write letters that do not have a corresponding letter in latin alphabet, it's not a way to provide all the nuances of pronunciation.
- senadir 27d ago
  Crazy to say that 9 is a d when it's clearly a قـ not a د Could be a regional thing because in north africa it's not a d
  - Cyph0n 27d ago
    They’re saying it is ض, which is a letter us North Africans generally struggle to differentiate from ظ :) Also, afaik 9 is a ص in many countries, while 8 is a ق. But it is definitely my first time hearing of a 9 used as ض.
delichon 27d ago
> Given that so little is published in Arabic, Rate of published words per person per language is a fascinating stat. I did a quick estimate and got Icelandic first, Mandarin last, with Arabic between Russian and Spanish.

leviathan 27d ago

I still maintain to this day that the original usable numbers were 2, 3, and 7. All that 5 and 6 and 9 crap is useless and those letter were and could be done with normal latin letters: 5 already has kh, 6 already has t, 9 already has d, don't know what people used for غ but you can write it with gh

eddythompson80 27d ago
When I used to communicate in Arabiz I would rarely use 5, 6 or 9 too, but I get why they are there. The problem with 6 and 9 is that there are 2 very unrelated sounds for t and d in Arabic. Mixing them is a hallmark of non-native speakers tell signs and to an Arabic speaker’s ear sounds broken. It’s like when German speakers mix th and z sounds in English. It’s very jarring to the ear and requires you to parse the same word you’re reading twice in your mind to tell whether it was 6 or t (or 9 or d) especially that very similar words might exist like 6atreb and tarteb or trab and 6arb. I usually don’t use 6 and 9 either except when I want to emphasis the 6 or 9 sound in a word. Kh and gh are problematic mainly because you’re relying on the special rule in Arabic that you can’t have 2 constants like k, g and h sounds after one another in a word. You’re relying on the wrongness of a kh or gh construct in Arabic to realize they must be standing for something else. I prefer them tbh, but I get the desire of some to have symbols for them. غ Is sometimes 3’ but I have seen more gh than 3’ especially that 3’ mixes the academic romanization with the “Arabiz” romanization
- leviathan 26d ago
  My village's name is خنشارة - written in latin as Khenchara. There's precedent for this for kh, so it carries easily to gh as well. My last name starts with a ق and in latin it's written with a K. The tools were just to provide a way to write letters that do not have a corresponding letter in latin alphabet, it's not a way to provide all the nuances of pronunciation.
senadir 27d ago
Crazy to say that 9 is a d when it's clearly a قـ not a د Could be a regional thing because in north africa it's not a d
- Cyph0n 27d ago
  They’re saying it is ض, which is a letter us North Africans generally struggle to differentiate from ظ :) Also, afaik 9 is a ص in many countries, while 8 is a ق. But it is definitely my first time hearing of a 9 used as ض.

delichon 27d ago

> Given that so little is published in Arabic, Rate of published words per person per language is a fascinating stat. I did a quick estimate and got Icelandic first, Mandarin last, with Arabic between Russian and Spanish.