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Proposal: Arabic Language

Since the proposal for the Arabic Language is also for learners/beginners, does it make sense to have questions only in Arabic, without any English translation, as short as it may be? This way, beginners won't be excluded from some knowledge that might be very interesting.

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  • Should they also have a French Translation? Aug 18, 2014 at 14:26
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    If this community was built on a french website, yes. IMHO. ;) Aug 18, 2014 at 14:38
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    The proposal does not say anything about limiting scope to English > Arabic. I presumed that the site and all communications would be primary in Arabic. While the proposal is on an English Language site I read the existing proposal to be for an Arabic Language site. Aug 18, 2014 at 19:16
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    @JamesJenkins I think asking your first question is a bit pedantic. Remember that English is one of the most common languages in the world and it is also the base language of SE. It is a language that most, even non-English, are quite often taught at some point in their lives, especially if they use the internet. I agree that questions should not be required to have an English edition but it could be encouraged to allow those non-native Arabic speaking individuals who are linguistically competent in Arabic to take part in all questions
    – Sammaye
    Aug 19, 2014 at 11:22

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does it make sense to have questions only in Arabic

Yes, but it could also make sense to try and promote two editions, one being English, where possible for questions that can be easily worded into English; displaying the two side by side, like: ماذا سنفعل بالمشاركات التي تنسخ العربية بحروف أجنبية؟ What to do about transliterated posts

This way, beginners won't be excluded from some knowledge that might be very interesting.

I totally agree, I am not an advanced speaker of Arabic, however, I am competent with the language enough to read with the aid of looking up word roots and the meaning of new words (I am not a native and have never even met an Arab in real life so I cannot know every verb in the language) in a dictionary.

I would feel left out if some really good information was solely in Arabic, however, you must understand that some questions and answers can only be expressed in Arabic as such there will always be questions and answers which will not be easily decipherable to learners/non-native speakers without considerable translation time spent; this is, afterall, a proposal for all Arabic speakers, including Academics.

Many Arabic speakers will be quite loathed to actually have to ask their question/answer questions in English, to reference an answer I got recently from another contributor of this proposal: https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/a/17303/112766

I am personally 70% against english questions about Arabic.

So you canot expect people to give courtesy to learners on this proposal but I do agree that some needs to be given for general topics which could be helpful and insightful to all.

Afterall is not this site about sharing?

Since English is an extremely common language that binds to so many millions/billions of internet users it is hard to say that questions on here should not be given the chance to have an English edition, side by side with Arabic (personally I would prefer that actually than plain English) in order to spread the wealth that Arabic has to offer to alll; a.k.a sharing.

So to sum up: I would really like the wealth of Arabic to be spread to a greater audience making this proposal appeal to many more people by adopting English for some questions but you cannot expect it, nor demand it.

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    This stance of 70% against will make very hard for this proposal to reach healthy beta, in my opinion. It will close the gap for beginners. Also, I really think that they wouldn't allow questions, «could you give me a good biography for this subject?». Right there, it seems as if this proposal would only be for a select few... From my experience with Mathematics community here, the more healthy the site, the more they allow in terms of range of questions. Aug 22, 2014 at 8:50
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    @Anoldmaninthesea. tbh that was one user referenced, if you look at the upvoted questions on this proposal it tells a different story. At least 60% are strictly in English
    – Sammaye
    Aug 25, 2014 at 11:31
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A very similar question was asked here, it was asking whether we should require every non-arabic post (whether it is question or answer) be translated into arabic.

While I do not disagree with the other answer, I must say that this situation/question can be flipped around. I mention in my answer here that for posts to be translated, then a group of people who are knowledgeable enough in both languages (to translated accurately) to commit to translating these posts, otherwise there will be some difficulties.

Should every question for Arabic Language have an English translation?

Quick answer: No, every question should not be translated into english, but if this proposal is successful and we get to beta, I suggest we analyze the questions we get then, then bring up a meta discussion to choose which topics/subjects should have an english translation added and go on that.

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