Language Facts for Arabic Translation Projects

Arabic-Speaking Countries

Current estimates indicate that 360 million people speak Arabic—including those who speak it as a second (or third) language. As of 1999 (according to the Ethnologue site) about 221 million people spoke some variety of Arabic as their first language.

Arabic is among the official languages in 24 countries. In some of these countries, Arabic is a minority language and more than language has official status. (By way of comparison, English figures among the official languages in 55 countries, versus 29 for French, 20 for Spanish, 10 each for Russian and Portuguese, and 7 for German.)

However, Arabic is the sole official language in only 8 countries.

Egypt is home to the largest number of native or second-language Arabic speakers (92 million), followed by Algeria (35 million), Morocco (32 million), Saudi Arabia (28 million), Iraq and Yemen (24 million each).

In the Americas, there are 3.5 million native or second-language Arabic speakers in the United States, 12 million in Brazil (where there are more people of Lebanese origin than within Lebanon itself), 6 million in France, 3.5 million in Argentina and 1.1 million in Mexico. ASIST Translations frequently produces Arabic translations and voice-over recordings that are directed towards Arabic speakers within the United States, for medical, government and corporate clients.

Arabic Translation: Target Varieties

Ethnologue lists 30 varieties within the Arabic macrolanguage. Modern Standard Arabic is usually the target variety when translating to Arabic for audiences from a wide variety of national origins. It is derived from Classical Arabic, which is still in use for religious and ceremonial purposes, and includes a large proportion of archaic grammar and vocabulary. In most Arab countries, proficiency in Standard Arabic (also known as Literary Arabic) is directly related to educational level; at least 101 million Arabic-speaking are not considered fully proficient in Standard Arabic.

Spoken Arabic for Voice-Over Narrations

Spoken accents within the Arabic-speaking world vary dramatically. When recording Arabic narrations for video, interactive training, education, etc., it is extremely important to identify your core target audience—and then use voice talent whose accent will be most acceptable to the largest number of people. It is also important that professional Arabic linguists on your translation team know how to optimize scripts for the spoken word. In particular, the studio voice-recording process will be facilitated if the translated script indicates vowel pronunciations very clearly—even when this would not be strictly necessary for a print-only document. Additionally, when proper names or technical terms from the source English text are transliterated to Arabic (i.e., approximating the original pronunciation using the characters of the target language), it is important that a native English speaker be involved in the studio recording session to assist voice talent with accurate pronunciation.

Arabic text and computers

Written Arabic uses the Arabic alphabet. It is a cursive script and written from right to left. Arabic is the second most-frequently used alphabet in the world (after the Latin alphabet). It includes 28 basic letters that all represent consonants, plus optional symbols to indicate vowels. Many computer programs don’t support right-to-left languages at all (and support for right-to-left languages such as Arabic, Hebrew and Farsi must be enabled in the control panel of Windows). Even among programs that do support Arabic script, artifacts can occur when Arabic text is taken from one program to another—not to mention between Windows and Macintosh platforms! (This is also the case with the Perso-Arabic script used for Farsi and Dari.) For instance, Arabic letters have a basic form when they stand alone, and then change shape according on their position within each word (initial, medial or final), as well as connections to letters that precede or follow them within each word. Additionally, certain pairs of letters get joined together to form a single ligature (sometimes obligatory, sometimes optional; practice varies according to country and personal preferences). It is absolutely essential for your final layout, video or interactive module to be reviewed by a native Arabic linguist. Font errors can be very easily overlooked by non-native speakers!

ASIST Translation Services, Inc. is a full-service translation agency located in Columbus, Ohio. We provide translation, interpreting, proofreading, studio voice recording and media production, localization of interactive and Web content, and specialized language services to clients around the world.

www.ASISTtranslations.com