Let’s crunch some numbers! What follows is a roundup of growth trends, from language preferences to Arabic-speakers online.
- Huge growth online. According to Internet World Stats, there are 202,687,005 Middle Eastern internet users, a 1,648. 2% increase from 2000-2009.
- Quite a social group! There are now 15 million Facebook users in the Middle East & North Africa (this figure excludes Iran, Israel, Pakistan and Turkey).
- Language Preference. 50% of Middle East North Africa Facebook users have selected their primary language for using Facebook as English, with 25% preferring French and just 23% Arabic.
- By the numbers. The Arabic alphabet derives from the Aramaic script to which it bears a loose resemblance like that of Coptic or Cyrillic script to Greek script. The standard Arabic alphabet has 28 letters and words are written right to left. It is spoken globally by more than 300 million people in several countries, including: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, and United Arab Emirates.
- Language Gap. According to FBI statistics in 2006, of the bureau’s 12,000 agents, only 33 speak even minimally functional Arabic.
- In the top five. There are approximately 6900 languages currently spoken around the world, the majority of which have only a small number of speakers. According to Ethnologue, Arabic comes in as the fifth most-spoken language, just behind English.
- U.S. Demographics. According to StrategicMarketSegmentation.com, Arab Americans are primarily in the 20-44 age group, with 47% under the age of 25. They are younger than other major ethnic groups as well as the U.S. population in general. Most (66%) are employed with 77% working in the private sector and 12% working in government.
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Tags: Arabic, demographics, Facebook, Global Communicator, online, Translation