Twitter announces full support for Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew and Urdu.

You know, it’s pretty incredible what a company can achieve when it has millions of loyal users, and particularly when they’re spread out all over the world.

Twitter is truly a global enterprise when it comes to social networking, and lately the company has been adding support for new languages at an increasingly fast pace. The social media giant has a translation center where it submits requests for its community to localize Twitter in specific languages. But here’s the amazing thing - those users then actually set out to do this on a volunteer basis!

Back in January, we reported that Twitter had begun work to support right to left languages. Now, by adding Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew and Urdu, Twitter supports right-to-left languages for the first time. The company says that it currently has 13,000 volunteers actively localizing all of Twitter’s sites, emails, and apps into different languages. This is much like the way Facebook handles its localization.

Here’s Twitter’s take on the efforts of its hard-working and dedicated volunteers:

These 13,000 volunteers are a vibrant and diverse group. Among those who donated their time and translation skills to make right-to-left languages a reality on Twitter: a Saudi blogger, Egyptian college students, a journalist at the BBC, IT professionals in Iran and Pakistan, an Israeli schoolteacher, the co-founders of the grassroots #LetsTweetInArabic campaign, academics specializing in linguistics, and teenagers in Lebanon.

Some of these volunteers live in regions where Twitter is officially blocked. Their efforts speak volumes about the lengths people will go to make Twitter accessible and understandable for their communities.

With 28 languages under its belt, and thanks to the ongoing efforts of its devoted volunteers, Twitter is well on its way to achieving global business domination.

Alex Dupont

See Also

• More on localization
  Software localization is the process of adapting software for a specific region or language by adding locale-specific components in the process of translating text.
• Language Translation, Inc.
  Translating, interpreting and localization since 1989.