Arabic Transliteration Tools: Yamli VS Google Ta3reeb VS Microsoft Maren - Arabic Keyboards are now Dead!!
Posted on 7/06/2009
It seems like typing in Arabic letters became a hopeless case for many of us, high rates of slow arabic typing writers put this business on fire, high demand made the Technical Giants Microsoft and Google to interfere and develop Arabic Transliteration Tools following "Yamli" footsteps. [For those who are not familiar with the term, Transliteration is not the same as translation, it is converting the sound of the words from one alphabet to another, not their meaning, Arabic Transliteration example: typing "2oktob 3arabi" transliterates into Arabic as: "اكتب عربي". ]
Yamli were the pioneers in this business, in November 2007 they lunched their product as a webiste focusing mainly on two areas Transliteration and Searching, several enhancements were added later: Integration with Facebook as facebook application, Integration with Google as iGoogle Gadget, adding Yamli Script to your own webiste, and now they also provide a Firefox Extension that enables you to do transliteration anywhere in your browser. on the other hand you can also train Yamli by reporting missing words in their mapping database.
Almost a year later, The Big G - Google - did their move and lunched Google Ta3reeb, as another online service, they added some features as On-Screen Arabic Keyboard, they also provided transliteration for Indic Languages. and the ability to add Google Ta3reeb to Google Custom Search Engines.
But Now Microsoft made a shift by moving business from the Online Services (covered by Yamli, Google Ta3reeb, and Onkosh) to Offline Desktop Application, by lunching Microsoft Maren developed by Cairo Microsoft Innovation Center (CMIC), [Microsoft Maren is developed to be a Windows Extension allowing users to type Arabic in Latin or Roman characters (so called: Romanized Arabic, Arabizi, Arabish or Franco-Arabic) and have it converted on the fly to Arabic script. Maren integrates with Windows and works in most Windows applications and websites.] This means you can now do transliteration offline while typing in Microsoft Word, Messengers, and browsers ... etc.
For me I still prefer Yamli, because they have the largest DataBase (and still being enriched moment by moment from users feedback) making it easier to find the right arabic words while typing, but Microsoft Maren as offline application is interesting as i guess it's like Yamli in its first stages, so if Maren enriched their DataBase and enabled quick updates then that would be a great challenge for Yamli Team and Co-Founder Habib Haddad to keep their Product alive.
Yamli were the pioneers in this business, in November 2007 they lunched their product as a webiste focusing mainly on two areas Transliteration and Searching, several enhancements were added later: Integration with Facebook as facebook application, Integration with Google as iGoogle Gadget, adding Yamli Script to your own webiste, and now they also provide a Firefox Extension that enables you to do transliteration anywhere in your browser. on the other hand you can also train Yamli by reporting missing words in their mapping database.
Almost a year later, The Big G - Google - did their move and lunched Google Ta3reeb, as another online service, they added some features as On-Screen Arabic Keyboard, they also provided transliteration for Indic Languages. and the ability to add Google Ta3reeb to Google Custom Search Engines.
But Now Microsoft made a shift by moving business from the Online Services (covered by Yamli, Google Ta3reeb, and Onkosh) to Offline Desktop Application, by lunching Microsoft Maren developed by Cairo Microsoft Innovation Center (CMIC), [Microsoft Maren is developed to be a Windows Extension allowing users to type Arabic in Latin or Roman characters (so called: Romanized Arabic, Arabizi, Arabish or Franco-Arabic) and have it converted on the fly to Arabic script. Maren integrates with Windows and works in most Windows applications and websites.] This means you can now do transliteration offline while typing in Microsoft Word, Messengers, and browsers ... etc.
For me I still prefer Yamli, because they have the largest DataBase (and still being enriched moment by moment from users feedback) making it easier to find the right arabic words while typing, but Microsoft Maren as offline application is interesting as i guess it's like Yamli in its first stages, so if Maren enriched their DataBase and enabled quick updates then that would be a great challenge for Yamli Team and Co-Founder Habib Haddad to keep their Product alive.
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12 Response to "Arabic Transliteration Tools: Yamli VS Google Ta3reeb VS Microsoft Maren - Arabic Keyboards are now Dead!!"
To me i prefer yamli because it has the feedback loop that makes it evolving over time. Google are still in the playing stage, but we learned not to underestimate Google! MS Maren is convenient, but MS has to find a way to inroduce a feedback system that makes it evolve, and the idea of updating the dictionary every once in a while cannot compete with yamli.
Yamli has to find a way to do a desktop implementation, but still since everybody is going web, i think Yamli is prevailing so far!
كتابة عربي باللغة الانجليزية
Thank you mate, this post was very informative to me :)
I already knew about Yamli, but haven't really used it... I didn't know about the other services...
ولماذا هذه المسخرة؟؟؟؟ وكأننا ليست لدينا لوحات مفاتيح عربيه حتى نكتبها بهذه اﻷدوات!!!
very nice post...did you hear about google chrome os. i hope the next one will be about it.
This is a useful post. In particular for students who want to find a useful tool. I will recommend Yamli to a couple of my contacts. :)
I personally Love ajnad.com. It is much faster search tool than Ymli and Google
for me I prefer http://www.listenarabic.com/ta3reeb/ with their latest toolbar that enables me to type and chat directly without moving windows - and ADD to all of this the muse to listen to Arabic songs.
Google has now integrated Arabic Transliteration in Gmail. Also, they have a simple bookmarklet for Arabic Transliteration on any page.
The thing I like about Yamli is that it displays a menu of alternatives as you type. I've tried their API but I wasn't too happy with it. I went with the Google Transliteration API for dokiru.com because it also supports Persian, Urdu, and a lot of Indic languages. Plus their API is white-label. I don't have a problem with Yamli's branding; the opposite, rather. I'd like to support them, but the last time I checked, there was no easy way to configure where that branding appeared.
To me,
Yabhath.com is the best. That is http://www.yabhath.com
و الله لو حاولتم و اخترعتم ما استطعتم من الاساليب لاستبدال الحروف العربية الجميلة بحروف لاتينية فلن تنجحوا ما دام هادام هناك قرآن وما دام هناك مسلم او عربي يعشق الخط العربي
لقد حاول قبلكم الكثيرون في القرن التاسع عشر بأسم تأخر التكنولوجيا العربية و الاسلامية لنشر مثل هذه (الخدمة )عفوا الدعوة الخبيثة و لكن لم يتمكنوا من فرض افكارهم و عاشت العربية الى يومنا هذا.امازيغي الاصل و لكن اسلامي وعربي الروح
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