OKI defines standard Arabic for digital printing and colour communication

The OKI Arabic Glossary is being made widely available by OKI as an open standard definition and has already been shared with a number of key stakeholders in the region.

"The teams at OKI Middle East have found that there is little comprehensive definition of the terms, acronyms and technical phrases that have built up around the digital printing revolution in English, let alone in Arabic. We first started to develop this glossary to meet our own needs for a standardised set of Arabic definitions and the project has grown from that. We believe it is important to define a widely accepted Arabic nomenclature for this industry and hope this will inspire other industry groupings to follow suit," said John Ross, general manager of OKI Printing Solutions Middle East.

The OKI Arabic Glossary is backed by several key authorities, including the Dubai Chamber of Commerce Special Interest Group on Printing, the American University in Dubai IT faculty and renowned and respected Arabic language technical writers including Mr. Waleed AlAsfar, formerly Managing Editor of Byte Middle East Magazine and the IT Editor of Al-Sharq Al-Awsat Newspaper. The glossary defines and explains over 120 technical phrases in English and Arabic, giving standard translations for each phrase, term or acronym.

"This is an important effort to establish elements of a living, technical Arabic in an area of technological innovation, movement and growth. We see it as an inspirational project for others to adopt and follow," said Dr.Khalid Khawaja, Chair of IT program at AUD. "We are discussing AUD's role in acting as a repository for this and similar industry-led efforts to define a standard technical Arabic for other areas of informatics.

OKI has posted the Glossary on the Internet at www.oki.com/arabicglossary.htm. The OKI Arabic Glossary is intended as an 'open source' endeavour, to be made available to all stakeholders on an open, copyright free basis. "In the short term, OKI will keep the core glossary and update this according to input from around the region, but in the longer term we foresee bringing the glossary to an independent body to own and manage as a standard Arabic lexicon," said Ross.

The OKI Arabic Glossary is also being made available to academic institutions around the region through AUD's own partner programme.

According to AlAsfar, one of the most respected technical writers in Arabic today:

"This is, of course, just a first step in the development of a standardised technical Arabic. There's more to do, but it does point the way forward in terms of public/private sector co-operation in defining the language of technology in Arabic."