Until he was 21 years old, Indian expat Qammaruddeen Najmuddeen did not speak a word of Arabic. Triggered by an "embarrassing" incident at a Sharjah family court in 2011, he vowed to learn and teach the language in most efficient ways possible.
The 34-year-old was born and raised in the UAE, and has been awarded and recognised for outstanding academic achievements and Quran recitation, but could not master the Arabic language.
“My father spoke Arabic so fluently, he assisted with his brother's business, and helped him win Arab clients,” he said. I used to dream that one day I will speak like him but never gave it a try.”
He recalled an incident in 2011 which brought him to "shame".
“I went with my sister and her husband to register their marriage at a Sharjah court, the judge asked my brother-in-law 'mata kan al zawaj', meaning when was the marriage; he was confused between zawaj (marriage) and zawja (wife) so he kept pointing at my sister – the court burst out in laughter.”
He recalled the attendees teasing him for having a beard, wearing a prayer cap, and the traditional Emirati dress, but not being able to differentiate between two basic Arabic words.
“So, the idea struck that I had to create something to help people like me learn Arabic.”
He started by creating the @GoArabic account on Twitter, where he tweeted random phrases in broken Arabic, which drew mockery by some users. He then got inspired to create another platform - @WeSpeakArabic, where he would seek local 'curators' to post content on a weekly basis.
“I used to tell people I can teach them very simple Arabic based on greetings for certain occasions, like 'yetraba fi izkum' for newborns (may he grow up in your support and care).”
The account which drew over 6,200 followers, posted colloquial, everyday usage of Arabic starting with Hanan Alfardan, Managing Director at the Emirati dialect institute Ramsa.
With more than 60 curators over the period of three years, @WeSpeakArabic has posted over a thousand phrases for both Arab and non-Arab speakers to feed off.
Mohammad AlBastaki was one of the Emirati curators who contributed to the platform teaching people how to read the time in Arabic. He said the account helped bridge the gap between traditional academic Arabic and conversational Arabic which comes in handy during daily communication.
“I found many people were unaware of the difference between telling the time in Arabic and English,” said the 37-year-old project manager in Dubai.
“We try to push people to speak Arabic because everyone speaks English nowadays; it is hard to pursue Arabic if not learnt at an early age,” he concluded.
“The whole concept of We Speak Arabic was to teach people like me, people who are married with kids and lead a busy life, who won't be able to start learning Arabic from scratch in fusha (classical Arabic) and proper grammar,” said Najmuddeen.
“So, I wanted to create something that would encourage people to speak Arabic with whatever they know, starting with basic greetings like Sabbahkum Allah Bel Khair (the local way of saying good morning) and Hayakum Allah (may God welcome you).”
The website also includes common, new phrases like 'sabah al malal', a quirky way to say, 'good boring morning'.
The twitter account eventually evolved into a permanent website, letsgoarabic.com, which divides the phrases under four categories: Greetings, time, calendar months and days, and fruits.
Each phrase is accompanied with a related image and English translation. When one clicks on the image, a voice message reads out the given phrase in proper local Arabic. Thanks to his simple means of learning Arabic, Najmuddeen says he went from zero spoken-Arabic to mastering 70 per cent of it.
“Arabic greetings are very beautiful and open way to explore the language further by learning on the spot.”
Najmuddeen was recognised for his achievements with Go Arabic and was granted the UAE Golden Visa in 2021 under the creative category. He is currently working on expanding the website to include other daily phrases from other Arabic dialects.