El-jaahil 'adoww nafsoh: Arabic
Such accomplishments are doubly impressive considering the challenges Arabic surfers face. Most obvious is their non-Roman alphabet and right-to-left writing system. In response to these obstacles, arabophones have developed Arabic-capable browsing software. However, the standards are more or less mutually exclusive; often, different systems can't interface. A visit to Saudi newspaper Al-Riyadh with an incompatible browser brings the dilemma jarringly into focus.
Some sites duck this problem by simply scanning written Arabic and uploading blocks of it as images. This is an effective, low-tech band-aid, but it negates much of what makes the Internet useful in the first place, to wit, the ability to download text and manipulate it with word processors and similar programmes.
Some Arabic speakers Romanise their language for use online. As always, this creates as many problems as it solves. To begin with, regardless of which Arabic dialect is chosen as the basis for transliteration, speakers of others will find the Romanised text even more difficult to read. And of course, transliteration warps meaning; imagine writing English in right-to-left Arabic characters. Whatever the actual words turn out to be when sounded out, the end result is something other than authentic English.
Arabic has touched many Western languages, especially those of the Mediterranean. Spain's years in the great Muslim Empire are reflected in the Arabic loan words such as alfombra that represent 9% of modern Spanish vocabulary. The language of Malta, an island nation in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, is heavily influenced by Arabic. Guitar and algebra, Arabic words and Arab inventions, are just two of the Arabic words that have made a permanent home in English. Interestingly, though, what we call "Arabic numerals," aren't. While many bear a reversed resemblance to the real thing, the actual Arab numeric system is different (and lefthanded, of course).
The Western media works overtime to paint Arabic speakers as backward religious fanatics and terrorists. As the Palestinian proverb points out, Westerners who accept this view unquestioningly do as much damage to themselves as to anyone else. Islamic religious bigots are in fact no more numerous or unreasonable than their Western counterparts, and to write off Arab nations based on that assumption is idiotic and unproductive. Here's a better idea: let's encourage talented Westerners to become fluent in Arabic, so we can meet one the world's richest cultures as equals.
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