arabic

some examples:

hamza elimination: صحراء => صحرا, أنا جئت => أنا جيت
substitution of diacritics: تَكتُبُ => تِكتِبْ
change of pronouns: http://arabic.desert-sky.net/g_pronouns.html, http://arabic.desert-sky.net/g_pronouns_demr.html
elimination of dual mode
negation: ما جيتش
conjugation: بتشجع اي فريق؟

other good resources:
http://www.lexilogos.com/keyboard/arabic.htm
http://www.almaany.com/ar/dict/ar-ar/

Is there an Arabic equivalent to English Internet acronyms, such as the ones listed here?

Here are the ones I use:

• AFAIK - as far as I know - على حد علمي او على قدر علمي - ع ح ع لو ع ق ع
• IIRC - if i recall correctly - ان كانت ذاكرتي صحيحة او على ما اتذكر - ان ك ص او ع م ا
• IMO - in my opinion - في رأيي - ف ر
• WYSIWYG - what you see is what you get - anyone?

Please help out on a live site!

The form فـِــعـِــلْ is an Egyptian form that denotes a subject who is an expert at doing the action.

For example, حـِــرِ كْ and رِ وِ شْ are purely Egyptian words that indicate expertise at their respective actions, namely maneuvering and dazzling.

The Egyptian dialect also changes existing forms.

Some sites try to serve me targeted ads based on my geographical location. Because I live in the Middle East, most ads I get on American sites are the two reproduced below. For non-Arabic speakers, the campaign encourages people to apply for a working visa to the US.

and

Click the attachment to see the full thing.

Globalization from the point of view of the globalizee.

Leaving aside the religious content (for the sake of this discussion), check out the Arabic text on this page. You'll have noticed it is an embedded image, but see how clearly the writing and diacritics are displayed. One would wish that Arabic text were rendered this way on a browser.

What does it take to do that, I wonder.

The western world has a tough time learning Arabic. Here's a suggestion to make it a bit easier:

Arabic words have no vowels: alif, waw, and ya' play ambiguous roles that are outside the scope of this discussion. Consonants are stringed together, with diacritics providing pronunciation and more precise meaning. So let's do the same with Latin consonants, which provide as much meaning as their Arabic counterparts. This will give something like:

k_t_b_ al w_l_d_ b_q_l_m_h_

Now it remains to choose Latin diacritics that will perform the same functions are the Arabic counterparts. Unfortunately, it seems that the current Unicode Latin script does not contain all possible combinations between letters and even the basic Arabic diacritics (fatha, kasra, damma). So what follows is only an approximation:

David Bohm was a quantum physicist who tried to reconcile the philosophical implications of new discoveries in physics (chiefly quantum behaviour) with art, society, and eastern mysticism. Retaining scientific rigour all the while, which earned him near-universal respect.