Arabenglish

It's a fairly common thing nowadays to be in an Arab country and still not hear a word of Arabic in some places. I, as a teenager, can confirm that most of the time, even those teens who DO speak Arabic hardly ever converse in Arabic. I do however think that this probably applies more in the UAE than in many other Arab countries merely because of the fact that the backgrounds of people out here are so diverse.

I go to a school in this country and in that tiny community itself there are probably over 100 nationalities. Last year, a teacher conducted a survey to see how many languages were spoken in grade 10. In GRADE 10 ALONE, she found that over 40 languages were spoken! So, naturally, it comes as no surprise that the primary language for communication out here among the youth is English. 

However, despite the prevalence of English, there have been a few tweaks that the Arab teens of today have made in order to keep their roots (as much as they can, that is...) 

One such genius tweak is the development of what I like to call Arabenglish. It's basically typing in Arabic using Roman script and Arabic numbers. If you're friends with an Arab person (especially a tech-savvy one), then you'll have probably already come across Arabenglish. 

Here's an example: 

Salam 3laikum. Keef 7alkum? Fahmeen shay2? 

I just greeted you and asked you how you were and whether you could understand what I was writing. The numbers in the writing represent Arabic phonetics that can't be written in Roman script. The number 3 represents the throaty sound that is made ("aa") while squeezing muscles around your vocal chord (I have no idea if there are muscles there... this is all pseudo science). 

The number 7 is for the "h" sound made from the throat, as if you're Harry trying to speak Parseltongue. Try it!

So, you see, we Arab kids might be "deviating from our culture" (as my grandmother and mother like to point out whenever I speak to my Iraqi best friend in English, despite the fact that we both speak Arabic), but we still use creative ways to keep it alive ;)