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

ASIST TRANSLATIONS: Language Services for Electronic Media

ASIST Translation Services can help you create e-learning, interactive, audio and video content for multiple languages and cultures.

- Translate narrations and onscreen text to any language
- Place translated text into video and interactive media
- Proofread onscreen text after placement
- Foreign-language voiceovers:

• Provide voice talent for dubbing videos and interactive pieces to other languages
  
• In-studio auditor ensures accuracy and inflection in voice performances
• Record voiceovers in our digital (Pro Tools-based) studio
• Edit narrations and dialog to match picture in video files
• Cultural consultation regarding language variety and spoken accent

- Collaborate in the planning of media projects that will be optimized for globalization

• Optimization and disambiguation for translation purposes
• Cultural perspectives on content, vocabulary
  
• Language support issues for specific authoring and design software

- Page layout, formatting in any language, including double-byte and right-to-left languages

ASIST routinely provides voice-over recordings for multimedia and computer-based training (Flash, AuthorWare, etc.). Narrations can be delivered as WAV, MP3 or any other required audio file format. Frequently, we deliver separate audio files for each segment, enabling interactive authors to align each scene, then adjust the timing of graphics as necessary in order to allow for larger word counts in most translations.

We can also dub videos to many different languages. For clients with in-house video editing capability, the ideal method is to export a digital video file. We use that as the onscreen reference while recording and editing translated narrations and dialogs. ASIST returns a WAV file that is already conformed to source video project. Once this translated narration is dropped in at 0:00 in the video timeline—everything lines up from beginning to end.

• In order to avoid a rushed pace in dubbed video, it helps to leave some extra padding between paragraphs or scenes in the original English version. With enough editing and/or time compression, we can make anything fit! However, this can sound rushed, especially if the translation must accurately reflect all nuances of the original English content, with no abridgment or paraphasing for time permitted. (In fact, creating a “looser” version of the original English program for dubbing purposes is a strategy that globalization-savvy content producers incorporate into their project plan.)

ASIST translates for all types of Web content. We have translated large sites supporting dozens of languages, including Russian, Chinese, Japanese and various others that don’t use Latin characters. Proofreading before the client goes live with the formatted content is one of the crucial services that ASIST provides. Even in languages using Latin character sets, longer string length, line break issues and diacritical marks can be problematic if they are not reviewed by a qualified linguist.

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

www.ASISTtranslations.com