Nope, Not Arabic
Nope, Not Arabic
A collection of things that are not Arabic.
What is this
Nope, Not Arabic is an archive of things that are not Arabic. It documents instances of butchered<br>Arabic script in public, from major motion pictures to billboards to video games and everything in<br>between.
What is happening?
Computers are designed to handle the subset of the<br>Latin script required to manipulate American English first and foremost. Every other writing<br>system is an afterthought, and Arabic is particularly poorly served. Most of the images in this<br>archive are the result of non-Arab graphic designers pasting Arabic text into mainstream graphic design software that cannot handle anything<br>but Latin characters and not checking with a native speaker.
I have written about this at length at The<br>Increment and the Decolonising<br>the Digital Journal, and I spoke<br>at DECONSTRUCT 2019 on the subject.
What do I do if I see butchered Arabic?
Contact me on Mastodon or email<br>with a screenshot or photograph and information on where and when you saw it and I will be happy to<br>add it to the archive. You should also contact the people responsible, if possible, and tell them<br>they are embarrassing themselves and offending a billion people.
How do I avoid butchering Arabic?
My article at The<br>Increment gets into it.
Who's behind this?
Hi, I'm Ramsey Nasser and I do research into the hidden cultural<br>assumptions present in computing among other things. Arabic is my native language so I lose sleep<br>over this shit.
This archive was originally on tumblr but as that<br>platform has degraded over the years I decided to move everything to a git repo where I have more<br>control over the content.
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"These images include two banners created by Chinese guests who participated in the ELECOMP 2025 tech festival held in Tehran."
via email
Sep 28th 2025
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via signal
Jan 15th 2025
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"While I was watching YouTube videos about my childhood TV show ( Canimals ) I discovered a picture on one of the videos ( timestamp: 2:27 ) and I couldn't miss it.<br>I then discovered the source of the picture: https://issuu.com/voozclub/docs/vzc_bible_canimals_s1"
via email
Jan 7th 2025
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"Source: https://overwatch.blizzard.com/en-us/news/24160499/field-report-native-vanadium-cache/"
via email
Nov 17th 2024
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Sent in by many people.
Oct 29th 2024
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"Spotted at a halal restaurant in Tokyo, specifically "Toribushi Halal Ramen"
via email
Sep 18th 2024
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"Watched your Deconstruct 2019 talk and wanted to know more about the subject, so I looked up the paper. Rather ironically, something on the website that hosts it must have been tested only with English.
(I have already informed them, hopefully it'll get fixed soon)"
☠️☠️☠️
via email
Sep 6th 2024
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"At the Houston Children's Museum"
via email
Jul 24th 2024
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"This is at a large moving display at immigration, and I imagine people don't spend much time here as a result. This image was taken from a lounge while waiting for a flight."
At Changi Airport, Singapore
via email
Jun 23rd 2024
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"spotted on Caltrain, the regional rail line between San Francisco and San Jose"
via sapelina@social.lol
Jun 11th 2024
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"Spotted in Hamburg March 20th 2022"
via email
Jan 24th 2023
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"Spotted in Berlin on Jan 24th, 2023"
via email
Jan 24th 2023
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"I received this from the Dutch government yesterday giving info in vaccinations."
via email
Jan 12th 2023
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"Seen on a bodega in Bed-Stuy.
Bonus points — the Hebrew is also backwards, the diacritics are nonsensical, and Hebrew is not a language spoken in the neighborhood — that<br>would be yiddish, a completely different language written in the same script."
via email
Jul 30th 2022
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"the model is 'Topher DiMaggio'
he has it for ten years or more
it's supposed meaning is: the journey (of my life) means a lot"
via email
Jun 22nd 2022
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via @Shaboiiiii
May 3rd 2022
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"I saw this on a 2009 movie called 'Gamer' starring Gerard Butler."
via email
Apr 19th 2022
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via @Rowaida_Abdel (brought to our attention by @zora)
Apr 5th 2022
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via @nazihfares
Apr 4th 2022
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via email
Feb 14th 2022
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via email
Feb 14th 2022
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via @rim_aj (reported by @tha_rami)
Jan 3rd 2022
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via @M150Kendrick (reported by @tha_rami)
Dec 27th 2021
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via @MariamAboelezz (reported by @georgionic)
Dec 17th 2021
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via @JrLorian (reported by @tha_rami)
Dec 14th 2021
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That's the second one from the Cowboy Bebop. The original anime had Arabic script in it and they got it right.
via @EltaibSami (reported by @nazihfares)
Nov 21st 2021
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via @mtajri (reported by @Salamatizm)
Nov 21st 2021
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via @Salamatizm
Nov 20th 2021
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via @tha_rami
Nov 6th 2021
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via @ChiefLief420
Oct 19th...