Do you speak Arabish?

So I guess a lot of people would like to know how to read “this Arabish language” (Arabic written with Latin letters and numbers), I wish my mom would master it because it takes me ages to write her or dad a text message in Arabic (For those of you who will say “just call her”, this is in cases of meetings, parties and situations where I can’t call). Plus Arabic characters take up more space so a text message can only have 70 characters as opposed to 160 Latin characters.

Anyway, some people use numbers to replace letters that do exist (or are close enough) in English, I don’t like that, I think it makes the written word an eyesore (you know what else is bad for your sight? WrItInG LiKe tHiS, I hAtE iT aNd iT tAkEs mE aGeS tO rEaD iT), back to the point, here’s a list, of course, of the numbers and their uses:

“2” is used instead of the Hamza, or the glottal stop, the best example I found was on Wikipedia: it’s represented by the hyphen in uh-oh! So, if uh-oh was an Arabic expression, it would be written like this: uh2o (usually the h in the end is dropped).

“3” is used instead of the letter Eyn, as in Arabee (Arabic) or 3arabee, and 3eraq (Iraq).

and 3’ (with an apostrophe) represents the letter Ghain, as in Ughneyeh (song) or u3'neyeh, and a lot of people use "gh" instead.

“5” not as popular as the 2 and 3, it’s the substitute of the letter Khaa, similar to a Spanish J, as in Julio (not Hulio), a lot of people just use “kh” instead, for example “sabaah al 5air (khair)” (good morning), some people like to use this: 7’ instead.

“6” also not a very popular one, sometimes used instead of the letter Ta, with a heavy T as in Tareq = 6areq.

“7” is used instead of the letter Haa but with an intense H coming from further down the throat (imagine an English person saying something is hhhhot, kind of) for example, habeebi and habeebti are written like this: 7abeebi or 7abeebti.

“8” is sometimes used instead of Qaaf, a more intense Q, as in 8atar = Qatar but it’s also not that popular.

“9” is used in two different ways, in the Middle East, it’s a heavy S, the letter Saad, as in 9adeeq = sadeeq (friend) while in North Africa (countries like Tunisia and Morocco) it has the same use as the “8” above.

“10” is used… no I’m just kidding, that would be too much now wouldn’t it?

Also, it wouldn’t be unusual to find words without vowels, since short vowels in Arabic are represented by Arabic diacritics: Harakaat (or tashkeel) and they’re not always used because mostly they are there to show the correct pronunciation of the word, for example my name, Rand, is written in Arabic using three letters only, R, N and D. Now how you read a word that is vowelless and unfamiliar is your problem not mine :)

I think these numbers were chosen based on their similarity to the letter they are replacing in Arabic, as you can tell from the pictures.

http://one-ugly-duckling.blogspot.com/2010/04/do-you-speak-arabish.html

Nahfat 3ailtna - Diet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fricoLS92I&playnext=1&list=PL6E2C8035EC7C15AA

How Stressful Language Learning Is For Me.

Source of Questionnaire: Greg Thomson

Directions: Put your answer to the following statements in the left hand column, choosing a number from a scale of 1 to 6 as follows: 1 = "very much like me" and 6 = "hardly at all like me". Don't use fractions in your answers!

	1. I feel fully relaxed when speaking to local strangers in their language.
	2. I almost never feel bad when I realize I have made a grammar error in my new language.
	3. I don't mind speaking in front of other learners who are more advanced than I am.
	4. It doesn't bother me if a fellow learner seems to be learning more quickly than I am.
	5. When speaking to local good friends in their language, I rarely feel nervous.
	6. When I make a grammar mistake, I don't mind if I can't understand what I did wrong.
	7. I almost always look forward with pleasure to language sessions/or classes.
	8. My heart almost never speeds up when I have to speak this language to someone.
	9. If someone talks to me and I only half understand, I don't feel under pressure.
	10. I almost never feel discouraged about the complexity of the grammar.
	11. If a native speaker seems to think that I sound funny, I don't mind.
	12. I almost always feel relaxed going into my language session/class.
	13. I almost always feel encouraged at the end of my language session/class.
	14. It is almost always pleasant for me to use the language in real life interactions.
	15. If I realize I said something ridiculous, it doesn't really bother me.
	Score (add up the answers)

Interpretation:

If your score is near 15, you find language learning a low stress activity, pleasant and enjoyable. If your score is 60 or higher, you may need to think of ways to deal with the relatively high stress or unpleasantness of your language learning experience. How might you do this? Example: discuss with colleagues, get in touch with the deeper thoughts underneath the stress you feel (fear of failure? competition with colleagues?) to deal with these in a healthy way.

your language "Volcano"