Arabish

Arabish, sometimes called Arabizi or the Arabic chat alphabet, is a system for writing Arabic with the Latin alphabet and numerals. It arose in informal digital communication—text messages, online chats, and social media—primarily among Arabic-speaking youth and diaspora communities who faced limited access to Arabic keyboard layouts. The practice emphasizes phonetic transcription of spoken Arabic rather than traditional orthography and coexists with Arabic script in everyday use.

Orthography in Arabish is not standardized. Conventions vary by dialect, platform, and writer. Numbers are used to represent Arabic sounds without direct Latin equivalents—for example, 2 often stands for a glottal stop or hamza, 3 for ع, 5 for خ, 7 for ح, and 8 or 9 for other emphatic or uvular consonants. Vowels are frequently omitted or written with a, i, or u to indicate pronunciation. Typical phrases written in Arabish include “shukran” (thank you), “marhaba” (hello), and “keef halak” (how are you).

Usage and regional variation: Arabish is widespread among dialect speakers of Egyptian, Levantine, Gulf, and Maghrebi Arabic, with phonetic renderings that reflect local speech; it is often mixed with French or English in multilingual contexts. With improved Arabic input support on mobile devices and keyboards, some users now write in Arabic script, but Arabish remains common in casual online communication and identity expression.

Scholarly perspective: Arabish is described as a sociolinguistic phenomenon rather than a standardized writing system. It presents challenges for natural language processing and searchability due to nonstandard spellings and code-switching, while it also serves as a flexible bridge for users transitioning between scripts.