"spotted on Caltrain, the regional rail line between San Francisco and San Jose"
Jun 11th 2024A collection of things that are not Arabic.
Nope, Not Arabic is an archive of things that are not Arabic. It documents instances of butchered Arabic script in public, from major motion pictures to billboards to video games and everything in between.
Computers are designed to handle the subset of the Latin script required to manipulate American English first and foremost. Every other writing system is an afterthought, and Arabic is particularly poorly served. Most of the images in this archive are the result of non-Arab graphic designers pasting Arabic text into mainstream graphic design software that cannot handle anything but Latin characters and not checking with a native speaker.
I have written about this at length at The Increment and the Decolonising the Digital Journal, and I spoke at DECONSTRUCT 2019 on the subject.
Contact me on Mastodon or email with a screenshot or photograph and information on where and when you saw it and I will be happy to add it to the archive. You should also contact the people responsible, if possible, and tell them they are embarrassing themselves and offending a billion people.
My article at The Increment gets into it.>
Hi, I'm Ramsey Nasser and I do research into the hidden cultural assumptions present in computing among other things. Arabic is my native language so I lose sleep over this shit.
This archive was originally on tumblr but as that platform has degraded over the years I decided to move everything to a git repo where I have more control over the content.
"I received this from the Dutch government yesterday giving info in vaccinations."
via email
Jan 12th 2023"Seen on a bodega in Bed-Stuy.
Bonus points — the Hebrew is also backwards, the diacritics are nonsensical, and Hebrew is not a language spoken in the neighborhood — that would be yiddish, a completely different language written in the same script."
via email
Jul 30th 2022"the model is 'Topher DiMaggio'
he has it for ten years or more
it's supposed meaning is: the journey (of my life) means a lot"
via email
Jun 22nd 2022That's the second one from the Cowboy Bebop. The original anime had Arabic script in it and they got it right.
via @EltaibSami (reported by @nazihfares)
Nov 21st 2021"I saw this at the entrance of a small mall in Germany and it hurt my eyes and heart."
via email
Jun 8th 2021Spotted in the video game "Maquette" by Annapurna Interactive, more images at the source.
Mar 1st 2021"An ad I received from Ubisoft regarding one of their upcoming games, Scott Pilgrim."
via email from Mohammed Maher Abed
Dec 17th 2020(BREAKING NEWS) no one working at the the late show can read arabic via my family whatsapp group chat
Oct 23rd 2018Nothing says “happy Ramadan” like butchering Islam’s holy language. via @arabictype
May 22nd 2018Spotted in Peleng Island by my parents, who confirm that this is not, in fact, Arabic.
Feb 20th 2018“France literally has millions of Arabs living here, but no one thought to ask one of them to write this Christmas sign outside Notre Dame.” via @ConorMichael28
Dec 21st 2017It’s not like your business model involves people from other countries or anything. via @sandsubramanian
Dec 4th 2017¡̣̥̫͎̼͍͝ǝ̰̙̲ǹ͖̩u̱̝̠̳̪ǝ̭ʌ̛̫̹̻̰̪̻u̩̺̥͓̟͠ͅǝᴉq̳͝ͅ via canttouchthisifyouaintblack
Dec 4th 2017Treasures are usually rare, but this butchered Arabic is all too common. via @JamilAlio
Aug 31st 2017More like “don’t forget to hoplessly butcher this language” via @AhmedElGabri
Aug 21st 2017via aleadras: “In Málaga, Andalusia. Campaign against sexual harrassment. “No” means “no”, but “al” means… ?”
Jul 15th 2017via Nick D: “I was putting together Arabic examples for a presentation and happened to notice this restaurant Did you mean قبلة ?”
Jul 11th 2017via Nick D: “From the trailer for the new ‘The Mummy’ movie” We’d need a whole other blog to address the tired racist stereotype of a masked Arab firing a rocket, but for now, no, that sign in the background is not Arabic.
Jul 11th 2017via hellpe: “From Legion S01E01. Not Arabic, am I right?” you are as right as they are wrong, my friend.
Jul 11th 2017From the national broadcasting corporation in Spain, RTVE: القسم العربي via aleadras
Jul 11th 2017The only thing worse than the lazy butchering of a language cast into metal is the fact that they were trying to say “Heritage Walk” via @porglezomp
Jul 8th 2017You should get a refund on whatever you paid for that sign, because that’s not Arabic. via @sygma
Feb 2nd 2017Sorry, CBS’s Madam Secretary, that’s not “another Benghazi” because that’s not even Arabic. via @Rowaida_Abdel
Dec 31st 2016My “shopping” won’t be “happy” until you get the “Arabic” right. via moustafachamli
Dec 31st 2016Four year old Russian girl knows more Arabic that whatever adult designed that t-shirt. via @tha_rami from this video
Oct 25th 2016This video opens with a touching montage of names and falls flat on its face in the first two seconds. via @kamalmarhubi
Oct 5th 2016We’ll use blockchains and modern cryptography to reimagine DNS and shed all its problems! Well, not all its problems…
Aug 16th 2016A wild POKÉMON GO appeared!
It used COMMON ARABIC RENDERING BUG!
It’s SUPER EFFECTIVE!
ARABIC SPEAKERS have FAINTED!
The Future of Language Publishing is a lot like the present. Full video. via @publishergeek, @KhaledGhetas
May 29th 2016Can’t tell what you were going for, but you didn’t arrive at Arabic, friend. via @sygma
Nov 12th 2015This image was used as the banner for the original tumblr blog.
via @edeng. Original article is on Aljazeera, photo © Getty Images, Sajjad Hussain
Aug 29th 2015You wanted مقاتل, which means fighter, but you got م ق ا ت ل, which just means ignorant motherfucker.
Aug 29th 2015HEAR Asbestor? THINK Prevention! READ Something that isn’t close to Arabic via Twitter
Mar 29th 2015The word ‘chocolate’ in a variety of languages, except of course Arabic, which is no where to be found. Via Salman Aljammaz
Feb 2nd 2015It may be the best website of 2015, but that’s not Arabic. Appreciate aligning it to the right, though!
Jan 12th 2015Sublime Text is my editor of choice, and a brilliant piece of software, unless you’re developing an Arabic programming language in it…
Dec 21st 2014UPDATE This has been fixed! Thank you for caring! Twine is a great story telling platform, unless your story is in Arabic
Dec 21st 2014