Talk:Arabic chat alphabet

Terminology and History

I've just edited this page to remove terminology discussion from the history section. Refer to the article's history diff. If terminology is a significant issue such that it warrants its own detailed discussion, dedicate a subsection to it.

Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.184.49.237 (talk) 09:27, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

its true ~2026-20955-49 (talk) 18:37, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

Opinionated political details

@Sambasoccer27: Why do we need those details about political interpretation about how Egyptians and Moroccans use Latin alphabet? What does it have to do with Suez crisis and the French presence in Africa? Not only Egyptians follow a more Anglicized orthography, but others. The same applies to French and Morocco. Both are used in Lebanon based on one's education! And actually, Egyptians also use the ou digraph for /uː/ which is French inspired. Till the second world war, French was the most common second language in Egypt, and Egypt became independent in 1922, and the British Empire had no rule over Egypt. Having troops based on agreements doesn't make it an occupied country, otherwise the Persian Gulf would be an American colony! So, even when Egypt was politically influenced with the British Empire before 1922, French was the second language and the diplomatic language of choice, not English! Your edit currently incorrectly suggests that only Egyptians use an Anglicized spelling and only Moroccans use a Frenchified spelling.

Hello again @Mahmudmasri:, I hope you're doing well. You should not have reverted the edit you object to as you also removed information to which you have not expressed objection, specifically the information about "2" representing ق and ء in Egyptian Arabizi. The intention is to illustrate how these informal Arabic chat alphabets vary from one place to another based on influence from colonial pasts and the phonology of local Arabic dialects. The fact that former British colonies use English orthography while former French colonies use French orthography is not a coincidence and this information provides useful context. The reason I chose to add the information specifically about the Egyptian and Moroccan varieties is simply that I am more familiar with language and history in Morocco and Egypt than other places. By the way, could you substantiate your claims that French was more significant than English in Egypt even after the Entente Cordiale of 1904, and that Egypt became more than nominally independent in 1922?

If you feel that the article as it stands suggests that only Egypt uses English orthography, even with this text at the beginning of the section: "Each of the different varieties of Arabic chat alphabets is influenced by the particular phonology of the Arabic dialect being transcribed and the orthography of the dominant European language in the area—typically the language of the former colonists. Below are some examples of Arabic chat alphabet varieties," then I encourage you to contribute more to the Shami section.

Let's work together to improve the article. Sambasoccer27 (talk) 01:33, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Let's not bloat the article

Your additions weren't Egyptian specific. The 2 for the glottal stop spelled with ق isn't Egyptian specific and isn't only used for ق, but also for ء (and its other forms) and has nothing to do with English or French. That was inappropriately detailed. Each article of the dialects has the phonological details.

You wrote things about consonant clusters, assuming that people write Franco-Arab in a unified manner. I doubt that you've ever read or used it. That even counters the sourced material about how it is used.

The table already shows the various characters used for each Arabic letter.

I'm not sure if Egypt could have been precisely considered a British colony! The reason for Egypt gradually switching from French to English had nothing to do with colonialism or occupation, but because the United States had more cultural and political influence, which made English a wiser choice, even if British spelling is preferred in text books. And you see, I was trying to avoid political debates, since this is not the right place. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 09:24, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

muhmudmasri still alive ~2026-20955-49 (talk) 18:40, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

Requested move 8 April 2026

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. One may perhaps feel this was relisted to much, and that's fair.. but it did end up generating a clear consensus in favour to move! (closed by non-admin page mover) ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley $\lor$ investigateᛅ} 02:16, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

Arabic chat alphabet → Arabizi – Per WP:Common name. Arabizi is the term used among most sources listed in the article. FunLater (talk) 17:24, 8 April 2026 (UTC) — Relisting. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley $\lor$ investigateᛅ} 21:42, 15 April 2026 (UTC) — Relisting. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley $\lor$ investigateᛅ} 04:17, 23 April 2026 (UTC) — Relisting. TarnishedPath^talk 12:20, 1 May 2026 (UTC) — Relisting. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley $\lor$ investigateᛅ} 10:17, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

Disagree: Not clear enough and not a standard word known by its non-users. People who are unfamiliar with the topic wouldn't understand the word "Arabizi". In Egypt, an Arabic speaking nation, we don't use that word. We use franco or franco-Arab. --Esperfulmo (talk) 17:37, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

Per the naming WP:CRITERIA in the Article titles policy: Recognizability – The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize. The WP:COMMONNAME section expands on this. We of course don't want to confuse the uninitiated, but the article title is not meant to define the topic for readers who are totally unfamiliar with the topic. Ngram shows that Arabizi domiantes (and is always capitalized) and doesn't find a single instance of Arabic chat alphabet. (I omitted Franco since the name and the combining form are common in English to refer to unrelated topics.) —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 18:59, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

But that's not the name reliable sources use. Here in Lebanon, we don't use franco-Arabic, but rather call it the "WhatsApp language"—but we shouldn't call it that, since it's not the term reliable sources use. FunLater (talk) 21:28, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

Support per WP:COMMONNAME, WP:PRECISE, and WP:CONCISE. The Ngram shows an overwhelming preference for Arabizi. Google Scholar has 2,270 hits for Arabizi, 698 for Franco-Arabic, 613 for Arabish, 199 for Arabic chat alphabet, and 21 for Arabeezi. JSTOR returns 121 hits for Franco-Arabic, 59 for Arabizi, 44 for Arabish, 9 for Arabic chat alpahbet, and just 1 hit for Arabeezi. Note that in both databases, Franco-Arabic is ambiguous and is often used in reference to Franco-Arabic schools, culture, history, etc. Even in the linguistic sense, Franco-Arabic is ambiguous as it can also refer to hybrid usage of both languages (similar to Spanglish) as well influences each language has on the other. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 20:27, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

Support Arabizi per WP:COMMONNAME. Also what is an Arabic chat alphabet? From the looks of it, it seems like any alphabet you use to spell Arabic in order to have a 'chat'. Sahib-e-Qiran, EasternShah 15:59, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

Disagree, for same reason said by @Esperfulmo :Ziggzevenzigma (talk) 05:54, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

Page mover here. Can someone explain why this !vote was struck. From what I can discern the editor wasn't blocked as a sockpuppet and it doesn't look like this contribution was in breach of their topic ban. Am I missing something? TarnishedPath^talk 12:12, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

Pinging @Ziggzevenzigma. Can you address my above question please. TarnishedPath^talk 12:14, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

i saw the other user's vote removed for being blocked, i didnt know it was removed specifically for sockpuppetry Ziggzevenzigma (talk) 12:47, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

@Ziggzevenzigma, yes we generally don't strike people's votes on their behalf unless they were blocked as a sock puppetry (in which case the very act of them editing was in bad faith). Can you please unstrike their !vote. TarnishedPath^talk 13:01, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

uhhh cant u do it urself Ziggzevenzigma (talk) 20:29, 2 May 2026 (UTC)

Up until 2016, Franco-Arab, the word I referred to, rather than Franco-Arabic, was the preferred word and later became the runner up. --Esperfulmo (talk) 14:11, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Franco-Arab has many other uses and most often does not refer to Arabizi. We can't just look at raw usage without determining its meaning in context. This is a compound adjective that can describe anything related to both France/French and Arabs/Arabic, using the combining form Franco-. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 15:58, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Arabizi falsely suggests a mixture of English and Arabic, however that's not the case. It's not like Denglisch by analogy, but rather writing spoken Arabic in Latin script with numerals. Depending on the person's linguistic background, one could use a French-influenced spelling or an English-influenced one. That's how far English or French are involved, e.g. "ch" or "sh" for /ʃ/. --Esperfulmo (talk) 01:43, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

I'm aware, but Arabizi appears to be the term widely adopted in English-language sources. The article can expand on related terminology and variations in usage if necessary. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 02:06, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

Since Franco-Arabe and Arabizi are problematic, "Arabic chat alphabet" was the right neutral choice. --Esperfulmo (talk) 21:47, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Do you have sources showing that Arabizi only refers to usage with English-based phonetics, and that Arabic chat alphabet is the best universal label? —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 01:23, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Support per WP:CONCISE, WP:COMMONNAME, WP:PRECISE as explained above. --PoliticalPoint (talk) 20:48, 25 April 2026 (UTC) ( Blocked sockpuppet of Justthefacts, see investigation) ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley $\lor$ investigateᛅ} 14:34, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Writing systems and WikiProject Arab world have been notified of this discussion. TarnishedPath^talk 12:20, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

Oppose This wouldn't be easily recognized as the common name by non-Arabic speakers and isn't even universally recognized in the entire Arabic speaking world. Agnieszka653 (talk) 06:38, 4 May 2026 (UTC)
Nobody calls it "Arabic chat alphabet". FunLater (talk) 09:23, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

The term does not need to be "universal". This is a rather bizarre defense of the current title, since "Arabic chat alphabet" is far less common than "Arabizi" and nowhere near universal. Per the WP:NAMINGCRITERIA in the Article titles policy:
Recognizability – The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize.
"Arabizi" is the most commonly used term in English and is therefore the most likely to be recognizable by English-langauge readers who are familiar with this topic. We have redirects from other, less common names and we list important synonyms in the lead. WP:COMMONNAME expands on this. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 15:22, 4 May 2026 (UTC)
Support per COMMONNAME.--Ortizesp (talk) 01:07, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

Close the proposal

Summary:

User:FunLater proposed to move the page to Arabizi as a "common name".
So far only unfamiliar users with the topic who haven't contributed to it have agreed, most prominently User:Myceteae.
The only user familiar with the topic who agreed to move the page was user:FunLater who was the same user to initiated the move proposal.
The topic is known by many words and none of which are prominent enough to be in any dictionary, therefore its current title is an appropriate title.
Arabizi isn't prominent enough, not in dictionaries, and falsely suggests that the spontaneous Arabic chat alphabet is a mix of English words with Arabic (Arabic+Engilizi) like the following examples, which is not the case per the references in the article. Those familiar with the topic understand this point.
- For example, Franglais is cited by Merriam Webster, however its a mixed English-French writing, much like Denglish which is a German-English mixed language used in marketing. Where is Arabizi in any dictionary, other than Wiktionary (citation loop) which doesn't cite any dictionary?
Franco-Arab, Franco-arabe, or chat/Whatsapp language are non-specific.

Let's close this staling discussion that won't go anywhere after a month. Thanks. --Esperfulmo (talk) 01:24, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

I find your use of scare quotes around "common name" offensive. Please take a look at sources related to this article's topic. Arabizi, in the Arabic script عربيزي, is undeniably the common name.

Also, how is User:Myceteae who's been editing for 19 years and is interested in linguistics and participating in move discussions—according to his user page—unqualified, and why would we not move a page that has a title that's:

not a common name or even a name, but more of a description of Arabizi?
longer than the common name, which is used in English sources and Arabic sources?
does not unambiguously define the subject, as even the Arabic alphabet is considered an Arabic chat alphabet since it's used for chatting too?

Wikipedia is not a democracy (WP:NOTDEMOCRACY)

"In determining consensus, consider the quality of the arguments" — I noticed that your arguments have provided no quality. We don't use dictionaries to define the appropriate title of pages, and in fact I can confidently say that this random page's title will not be in a dictionary.

How are we supposed to justify leaving such a… weird title? FunLater (talk) 02:32, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

Move to Arabizi, per @Myceteae and @FunLater. English sources seem to predominantly use "Arabizi" over "Arabic chat alphabet". (Side note: If this were up to personal taste, "Arabic chat alphabet" sounds more natural to me, because I first learned about this from Wikipedia under this title. Of course that would not be a policy-based argument to keep it in its current title. We need to follow policies like MOS:COMMONNAME, not our personal preferences.)

TheJoyfulTentmaker (talk) 02:04, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.