July 24, 2024 / by Margarita Núñez Estimated read time: 7 minutes
Are you considering selling your product in the Middle East? Then this article will help you pick the correct written language for translation.
First, it is important to know where your clients are located geographically, which are the official languages in their country, and what dialects are more prominent within the group of people you are targeting. Once you do some initial research, you can choose the correct language(s) for localization.
Arabic
Let’s start with Arabic, or better said, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), which is an official language in many countries in the Middle East. These countries include Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, the Palestinian Territories, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.
Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA) is the variety of standardized, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and in some usages also the variety of spoken Arabic that approximates this written standard. MSA is the language used in literature, academia, print and mass media, law and legislation, though it is generally not spoken as a first language.
MSA, or Modern Standard Arabic, stands out as a remarkable linguistic entity. It acts as the prestigious and formal standard of the Arabic language throughout the Arab world. Despite the diverse regional dialects spoken in this region, MSA bridges geographical divides, making it easily understood by speakers from various backgrounds. Known for its grammatical precision, MSA adheres to strict rules and utilizes the Arabic script, a writing system read from right to left.
Essentially, MSA serves as a universal language in educational and formal contexts, fostering communication across borders. So, if you want to sell your product or services in the regions mentioned above, pick Modern Standard Arabic as the written language to cover these countries.
Farsi
Many of our customers assume that Arabic will also cover other countries such as Iran. However, this is not the case. If you want to do business in Iran, you need to pick a different language, Farsi.
A Note About Persian v. Farsi:
The Academy of Persian Language and Literature has maintained that the endonym Farsi is to be avoided in foreign languages and that Persian is the appropriate designation of the language in English, as it has a longer tradition in Western languages and better expresses the role of the language as a mark of cultural and national continuity
Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken and used officially within:
- Iran: Iranian Persian (officially known as Persian, but referred to as Farsi by locals)
- Afghanistan: Dari Persian (officially known as Dari)
- Tajikistan: Tajiki Persian (officially known as Tajik)
Persian is written officially within Iran and Afghanistan in the Persian alphabet, a derivative of the Arabic script, and within Tajikistan in the Tajik alphabet, a derivative of the Cyrillic script.
- Persian: Also known as Farsi, is spoken in Iran, with a population of 86.5 million people. Although multilingualism is not encouraged, the constitution also recognizes Arabic as the language of religion.
- Dari: This language holds the status of one of Afghanistan’s official languages, alongside, Pashto. Afghanistan has a population of 2 million people.
- Tajik: This language is spoken in Tajikistan. Tajik bears similarities to Dari. Some consider Tajik as a dialectal variety of Persian rather than a language on its own. Russian is also spoken in Tajikistan, which has a population of 10 million people.
How Do These Two Languages Differ?
Quite simply, Arabic and Persian are two different languages that belong to two different families and are in no way similar in terms of phonology and grammar.
- The Persian language, is an Iranian language of the Indo-European family, the native language of ethnic Persians.
- The Arabic language is a Central Semitic language of the Semitic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world.
Although they share an alphabet, Farsi contains four additional letters: پ چ ژ گ. and the script is cursive, meaning most letters in a word connect to each other. In both cases, the writing direction is from right to left.
Farsi differs in the numbers. Although the numbers are similar to Arabic, they are read from left to right. So, mathematical expressions, numeric dates, and numbers bearing units are embedded from left to right.
If you are considering targeting a specific country in the Middle East, contact SimulTrans.
