: Re: How to write Arabic in dialogue for an English piece? I have a character who is a Syrian refugee to Canada. His first language is Arabic, but he's lived in Canada long enough that he's learned

@Candy753

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Unless your audience is bilingual, you always want to use the transliterated version.

When you're dealing with alphabets that are very different (or in some languages, not alphabets at all), not to mention the issue of the direction of the writing, someone who doesn't read it will get nothing from it if you use the non-translated version.

If your character says "Alaistirkha" several times over the course of the novel, the reader will figure out the rough meaning (or at least one that works for them). But an unfamiliar script won't stick in the reader's head. S/he won't even be able to tell if one phrase is the same as another.

If the look of the phrase is important, you can put in a graphic insert, but you will also need to translate and transliterate it. Sometimes you can get away without translating (like in your example, where it's not strictly necessary). But always transliterate.

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