Comments on: Should We Start Using Latin Alphabet to Write Arabic?

By: Kawikanui

Kawikanui — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 19:53:15 +0000

I have been studying Arabic for a number of years and I have found that for SPOKEN Arabic, using Latin letters makes it much easier. But, of course, the Arabic alphabet should always be kept. Why not use both?

By: jakeengland

jakeengland — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 19:51:19 +0000

That is total crap.
The French never wrote in Arabic, and the Spanish only did because they were under Moorish occupation!
'Western' Domination? Get over yourself.
The Latin / Greek / Cyrillic alphabets are accepted as easier to understand. Pre-Roman conquest many languages had their own alphabets; but they over time realized that their writing systems were weaker than these alphabets.

The Turks realized this a while ago, and literacy rates increased enormously.

Don't forget; the entire world uses Arabic Numerals, so why not Latin/Cyrillic/Greek Letters?
We didn't see Arabic Numerals as 'Arabic Colonization', we saw them as more methodical and effective.

I am sick and tired of this Western Targeted Racism.

When you point your finger; there are three pointing back at you.
Remember this.

By: Abdurrahman Gemei

Abdurrahman Gemei — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:32:36 +0000

I know this post is old but I have to comment. The fact some Arabs (including me sometimes) write their own language using the latin letters is because of a weakened culture. We are still under colonization by the West, but this time around it is a cultural one rather than a military one. This simply is because the West is stronger than us.

In fact if you look back at history, the Spanish and French used to write their romance languages using the Arabic alphabet. And that is called Aljamiado. This happened because the Arabic culture was dominant at the time and all sciences were in Arabic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aljamiado

The key is not to give up on our language, but to make it stronger and 'Arabize' sciences. If you can be good at a language that is not your own, you must perfect your own language.

By: Abdurrahman Gemei

Abdurrahman Gemei — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:32:36 +0000

By: MyComment

MyComment — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 02:27:16 +0000

I think Arabs should change it and start using the latin version of Arabic alphabet. It will help them connect with the rest of the world better.

By: MS

MS — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 23:33:28 +0000

I will give an example of the satatement above. In arabic we say "Maktoub" but in arabic we only write it as "mktob". 99.9% of the time the 5 letters are enough to tell you the meaning clearly without harakat, because arabic is a derivational language where everything is derived from consonant root according to different moulds based on the meaning to be conveyed.

I am also against adding new letters to alphabet. Right now the sounds "V", "P" are not for example present in arabic. There is nothing wrong with approximating them to the nearest sounds (f for V, b for P). Every language in the world does that with imported words.

"Phonemic" alphabets are overrated. English orthography is not phonemic yet we all learned English rather easily. You say "rough" (f sound at the end). You say "read" (pronounced reed) for present tense but "read" (pronounced red) for past tense. And so on. English is far more difficult and irregular in its spelling than arabic. That is why they have national spelling bees in America. Still yet you don't hear about a lot of people asking for the invention of a 40 letter alphabet (there are 40 sounds in english) to express the different english sounds.

I want everything in Arabic to stay the way it is. Those who cannot read arabic poetry or arabic literature and appreciate it for its timeless beauty are products of a very poor education system. I don't care how flawless their english might be.

By: MS

MS — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 23:01:22 +0000

Correction:

It should say "Short Vowels should NOT have to be written in Arabic"

MS

By: MS

MS — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 22:58:20 +0000

Arabic orthography is by far the most ingeneous orthography of any single language out there. Those who are in favor of latin alphabet for arabic are ignorant of hte nature of the arabic language which is fundamentally different from indo-european languages. Short vowels should have to be written because that will require everyone to be in expert in I3rab (the inflection rules of arabic). Arabic orthography is beautiful. What is needed is a revolution in arabic typography (ie arabic orthography for computers to reflect the inherent beauties of arab orthography). Cursive scripts as in arabic orthography are more advanced than latin alphabet. Latin alphabet is laborious to write in. George Bernard Shaw even wanted to change English orthography into a cursive (very quick to write) script like the arabic script.

By: Fark Knight

Fark Knight — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 06:34:28 +0000

Nope. It stays. Arabic alphabet script has been around for long enough to be the base script for a number of languages now. Foremost of these is Farsi (Persian) language followed closely by Urdu (national language of Pakistan). Much like english being sourced out from Latin and constantly adding more and more to it, these 2 have Arabic as their roots. With the removal of arabic scripts, per se, we'd be further alienating derived languages and marginalizing possible work that can be done in making technology arabic-compatible.

I'm all in for adding new alphabets. Adding new sounds and new words is the way to go. Not only helps the script keep up with the colloquial, but also helps the language learn, expand and adapt; keeping it alive.

-Fark Knight

By: Blue_Chi

Blue_Chi — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:48:48 +0000

Thanks for all your replies guys.

I'm not sure I have a definite opinion on the topic myself. It is hard to deny that a very significant number of people on the Internet type Arabic using the Latin alphabet, but I also think that the Arabic alphabet is very artistic and do not think that it should disappear.