Arabic Professional Localization: An Art and A Science

Arabic is a rich language spoken by people who embellish a very distinct culture. Over 280 million people in the world speak Arabic as their mother tongue. This is not to mention the million others who are drawn to this language for the purposes of business, entertainment or sheer curiosity. It is not possible to fluently communicate in this rich language without having a solid bearing of the culture of its speakers. It is not only a sacred but also a poetic language as evidenced by the fact that the earliest scripts in Arabic were poems. The need to clearly pass messages in Arabic brought forth the demand for Arabic professional localization an art and a science.

About Arabic Professional Localization

It is utter vanity trying to communicate to Arabic speakers with a tenuous grip of the language. Arabic pulsates with emotion, values and standards that have to be evident to its native speakers. That is why several advertising and marketing firms have found it difficult to break into certain Northern Africa and Middle East markets where a plethora of Arabic speakers reside. Unfortunately, they have not grasped the art and science that is Arabic professional localization. Arabic professional localization is a science since it has to be done right the first time by deploying a series of localization best practices. It is an art since the work of two different providers of Arabic professional localization are bound to deliver completely different results; each with its own strengths and weaknesses.

Great Providers of Arabic Professional Localization

Arabic is not like any other language. Most translations are usually done to and from the English language (despite the fact that it is second to Mandarin in the ranking of languages in the world; you know why). Arabic will expand by up to 30% in size from English during translation. It has an ensemble of dialects, styles, registers and accents all of which have to be scaled with perfection to deliver the intended results. It is a ‘Right to Left’ language as opposed to a number of languages in the world that are based from the ancient Latin text. The target audience of Arabic also responds differently depending on how the language is structured and presented. This work therefore has to be left to a team comprising predominantly of native Arabic speakers with years of experience in delivering great customer value. That is what marks a great provider of Arabic professional localization-leverage of a team of local Arabic speakers with several years of experience.

Use of Arabic Professional Localization

Different clients of providers of Arabic professional localization need different services. They range from desktop publishing, scientific text localization, software localization, video game localization and website localization just to mention a few. Most of these services are optimized to meet the needs, tastes and preferences of the modern speaker of the Arabic language. Indeed there is a shortage of native Arabic speakers who can do this optimization. The best bet for anyone is to contact providers of Arabic professional localization with several years of experience.