New website simplifies Arabic web

US-based internet startup Language Analytics launched the beta version of Yamli.com, a web-based tool that will revolutionise the Arabic web.

The founders of the company are of Arab descent and have been grappling with a problem that has limited the growth of the Arabic web. Although the Arab world has one of the highest internet usage growth rates, access to and development of Arabic content has been difficult, mainly because of the complexity of typing Arabic. While Arabic keyboards are available, the vast majority of Arabic-speaking Internet users are accustomed to typing on an English (QWERTY) keyboard. Users often resort to spelling Arabic words out phonetically using English characters, a process known as transliteration. Yamli allows users to convert these English characters into Arabic.

Cofounder Habib Haddad said: "I would often experience frustration trying to find Arabic news on the web. Like millions of users, I could easily express my Arabic words using English letters, but I had difficulty typing them in Arabic. The need for a technology that efficiently converted those phonetic spellings into meaningful Arabic words seemed natural to me. It would have to be so seamless that users would be able to write Arabic text and forget they were using English characters. This is how Yamli was born."

Yamli's initial release encompasses two tools: Yamli Search and Yamli Editor. Yamli Search allows users to search the web using Arabic keywords with Google. Users can search for general web content, videos, news, images and blogs. Yamli Editor allows users to write Arabic text that can then be copied into any electronic medium.

Yamli can be found at http://www.yamli.com.

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