Re: The Arabic Abbreviation Dictionary

[Djihed Afifi <djihedlists at googlemail dot com>]

Salam,


> No, actually, we studied in Arabic first then in English, and even when we 
> studied using Arabic abbreviations we used to write the abbreviations but we 
> never read it, when we used to read an Arabic abbreviation we used to say the 
> full form.

Well we did, in my previous example, we said م م أ every time. I believe
it just is a question of practice. A lot of people do it, your group
happened to not do it, but that's hardly the way to put forward a
policy.

> This brings us to a very important issue, in Arabic, we can have abbreviations 
> but we cannot have acronyms.
> 

Why? will your tongue flip over if you prounouce the acronym? Again,
it's just a question of practice. And believe it, unless you can
categorily prove otherwise, the vast majority of Arabs would rather deal
with Arabic. I think you should seriously consider the general public
rather than the select few, who you assume know the english language.


> OK, how many people are we? We're not more that 20 persons, what can we do? We 
> won't be able to change a lot of people.
> 

As I said, it's a start. First make it run, then make it run faster. 


> You didn't answer my question, would you really ask your friends that 
> question? Assuming you did and your friend asked what it means and you told 
> him the full form, there's a chance of only 20% that he will actually start 
> using that abbreviation with his friends.

Great, where is your study that shows this 20% number?

I already answered your question. I told you we, hundreds of thousands
of students use the Arabic form *only* and we never had a problem with
it. Heck, even televised high school lessons use the abbreviated forms.
I think eveyone will go "what!" when faced with an English abbreviation
that they never heard about it, and never knew the meaning of the
original words.

> 
> Let me quote from a how-to that I really like and it is the reason why I 
> decided to use Linux and contribute to KDE.
> 
> "Back around 1991 I learned that many hackers who have English as a second 
> language use it in technical discussions even when they share a birth tongue; 
> it was reported to me at the time that English has a richer technical 
> vocabulary than any other language and is therefore simply a better tool for 
> the job. For similar reasons, translations of technical books written in 
> English are often unsatisfactory (when they get done at all).
> 

Can we stop this please? why do you keep dragging documentation,
programming, etc into the equation? we are talking about user
interfaces.

Let me go one step further and claim one more thing. You can NEVER get
the masses of Arabic users to adopt English as a second language en
masse. That will never happen. It's true that English has a richer
running technical vocabulary, other languages and their speakers will
stay behind perpetually if they don't import this vocabulary into their
languages. 

Advocating the use of English directly will always lead to the
inevitable situation (that we more or less have nowadays anyway) of a
select few class of people knowing the language, and a vast majority of
poor people with no access to technology because of language barriers.
It's a dangerous path you are advocating there. Throwing the towel and
requesting that Arabic speakers adopt another language will lead to
technological, cultural and social disasters.

I urge you to go look at other nations and see how much they translate.
Precisely because of this issue.

> Linus Torvalds, a Finn, comments his code in English (it apparently never 
> occurred to him to do otherwise). His fluency in English has been an 
> important factor in his ability to recruit a worldwide community of 
> developers for Linux. It's an example worth following."

I'm not after recruiting developers, I'm after providing an Arabic
interface for the vast majority of Arabs who have a very weak second
language. 

I'll tell you something about the translation process. Nobody is saying
that we should turn our backs onto the English language. That can't
happen. What we should do, as we are the select few who do know the
English language, is to be the "bridge" between two languages. For that
to succeed, you shouldn't force the recipient group to adopt any element
of the source language, because if you do you're literally creating
hurdles for them. 

For a minute, drop the second language assuption and consider the vast
majority of arab users who have no grasp whatsover of the English
language beyond "yes" and "no", and probably "I love you" ;)

> 
> That is exactly my point, you don't have to have English as your second 
> language to use these abbreviations, English abbreviations should be used 
> everywhere.
> 

Why? they make even less sense for an Arabic user whose second language
is French and thus is more likely to know the French abbreivations. I
told you, no other language just imports all English languages wholesale
as you suggest.

I wonder, on the one hand you think Arabic people won't understand
abbreviations using Arabic letters, on the other hand you advocate that
they just use the even more cryptic English abbreviations? 

> You see, the word Television, Arabs first translated it as رائي, when no one 
> used it they translated it to تلفاز, and nowadays, everyone uses تلفزيون.
> 

OK, how is "car" translated into Arabic? I hope that convinces you to
keep ancedotal examples aside.


Regards,
Djihed