With more than 20 per cent of Arabic-speaking population having access to internet, a meager 1.4 per cent of Arabic content is a matter of concern, believe industry experts.
Mohamed Elzubeir, Managing Director, Mediastow, a media monitoring, analysis and evaluation agency, said: "Arabic is the language of the government, media, education and businesses for many countries in the Middle East and North Africa. We were pleased that the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are among the first to get internet addresses in Arabic, following final approval by ICANN. This represents the first major change to the internet domain name system since its creation in the 1980s.
"However, the real issue lies in using standard Arabic, which everyone understands in the Arab World so that our content on the web becomes bigger in size and usage".
As a noted media expert and commentator on the subject, he was speaking on the sidelines of a media conference about the relevance and proper usage of digital platform. In his keynote address, he urged Arab communities to use standard Arabic on the web that will let the outside world treat Arabs as an integrated community and prevent the Arabic language from getting marginalised on the web through different colloquial versions.
He highlighted the fact that there are approximately 100 million Arabic speaking internet users, amounting to 20 per cent of the total population with access to internet. Arabic, he added, is the fifth most widely spoken language in the world and yet, despite the recent dramatic growth of internet penetration in the Arab World, only 1.4 per cent of online digital content is in Arabic.
Elzubeir added: "Now names can be registered using the country's Arabic suffix. Arabic websites generally did not have that option because Arabic characters are written right to left, conflicting with Latin suffixes written left to right. This will enhance web penetration especially among people who do not know English as they will be more comfortable using Arabic letters."
Elzubeir said: "There is a paucity of native Arabic content on the web. It is not acceptable anymore for Arabs to use English alphabets to write Arabic in their chats and social media websites. Rubbing salt to wound, the lack of Arabic support in software is a big stumbling block in enhancing the Arabic web presence. We need to encourage people to write in real Arabic terminology and preserve the Arabic alphabet, which will result in more Arabic content on the web."
The quantum of Arabic content on the web is very low. This has created a vicious cycle, where the lack of content discourages people to search, which in turn de-motivates content creators from publishing in Arabic. Standard Arabic is what brings the Arab World together, and what makes knowledge transfer easy between Arab countries. The usage of standard Arabic makes the published content understood by everyone in the Arab world and, most importantly, easily searched for.
"On the other side, colloquial Arabic will hinder the development of the Arab web by having 22 versions used on the web, instead of having one language used by 22 countries, reducing the impact of our language with the outside world," he said.
Regional and global organisations and government institutions have also noticed this lack of Arabic language material online, inhibiting Arabic speakers to effectively use the internet to gain information and exchange ideas.
By Vigyan Arya
© Emirates Business 24/7 2010
