What is Mo3jam?
Mo3jam ( معجم ) is a user-generated dictionary of colloquial Arabic. Mo3jam is Arabic for lexicon or dictionary.
What?
It’s basically a website, where users can come in and share what they know about the spoken terms and expressions in the various dialects of Arabic.
Now I know, there have been multiple attempts in the past at documenting colloquial Arabic on the Web. From my initial research, most of this type of content can be found scattered around forum threads, blog posts, forwarded emails, and the occasional dialect-specific website. Mo3jam aims to address these issues, and create a central, multilingual knowledgebase of colloquial Arabic, with emphasis on usability and breadth. Anyone should be able to contribute, with no wiki-bureaucracy or red tape. Instead, quality should derive from consensus.
History Lesson
Like many of you, I always thought, why isn’t there a place like Urban Dictionary for Arabic? Thoughts like these floated in my head for a while when I graduated in June 2007, but I never acted on them until around August 2008. Initial research started then, and I registered the domain names around September. I laid out a basic framework and specification for the website, but then I placed the project on hold until March 2009. That’s when the real drama began.
For the past 4 months, I’ve been developing and designing Mo3jam to bring you a usable phase one running with basic features. What you see now on the website is a result of that effort. Most major dialects of Arabic are currently listed, with a few definitions created by me and a couple of friends. Now that I think about it, four months seems a bit long for the current feature list, but I’ve been juggling between this, a part-time job and other projects, so development took nearly double the time it required.
Benefits
- No registration required.
- You can define using Arabic (preferably), English, or French.
- In the case you decided to join, creating an account is easy through Facebook Connect, or using the regular registration process.
- If a term is already defined, you may still add your own definition. The best definitions bubble to the top through consensus on quality (via voting, and favorites).
- A proper multilingual interface (Arabic and English are currently supported).
- The website looks pretty, to my eyes at least.
- Implements transliteration of Arabic in input fields using Yamli.
- Audible pronunciation of terms.
- The list of dialects is not fixed. The system is designed such that there may be multiple levels of dialects and sub-dialects. All you need to do is suggest that a dialect be added.
- Get feedback on your definitions via a like/dislike and favorites system.
- Many more to come.
I must iterate on the fact that this is a developmental version of the site. The feature-set is not complete and bugs may surface at any point. Things like user profiles, password retrieval, commenting, refined listing of definitions are all missing, but should be up pretty soon.
The design of the user interface is influenced by the following: Facebook, StackOverflow, Vimeo, UrbanDictionary, DeviantArt, Wufoo, YouTube, Apple, Google, and my past frustrations with Arabic websites.
If you feel that you want to participate, please do not hesitate to do so. The feeling is natural.
Mo3jam thrives on your contributions, and your feedback is all but welcome.
Mo3jam is best viewed on the latest Firefox, Safari, or Chrome. If you must use Internet Explorer, then use version 8. Website is not viewable in IE 6, and I’m proud of that.
تصميم الموقع رائع وفكرته جيدة، أقترح بعض الإضافات:
- إضافة إمكانية إدخال كلمات للسؤال عن معناها؟ (كلمات وجمل سمعتها في مسلسل مثلا)
- وضع التعليقات خاصة لتنبيه مدخل الكلمة للأخطاء الإملائية فيها مثلا أو لمشاركته في تحرير معنى الكلمة أو لتوسيع المعنى أكثر أو لوضع أمثلة أكثر أو لإضافة تسجيل صوتي
شكراً لإقتراحاتك يا يحيى و هذا كله سيكون قيد التطوير بمشيئة الله.
it’s really amazing idea and I’d like to thank u v.much for that = )
I think it needs sth like add more comments for the words by the users maybe ..
and to find a way better than the current one of showin’ my words or my favorites one ..
it gonna b a long list in a while = )
again I really speechless abt this website ^_^
Thank you Saleem. I also appreciate your contributions. Again, as I stated in the article, Mo3jam is its developmental stage, and most of what users have voiced for in terms of features was already planned for the future, including your suggestions. I thank you again for your kind words, and hope to see more of your additions!
also we might need sth to suggest for the words in common between two different accents = )
there’s a lot of mutual words
Yep, this is essentially a matter of how well the dialect tags are used. I’m planning for a feedback system where one might suggest extra dialects be added for a definition, audio files, synonym suggestions, and other textual feedback for each definition.
معجب حتى النخاع :)
شكراً :)
Great job!!
What about adding a feature:
“This phrase has more meanings in other Dialects”
Since some words are said in different places, having total distinct meanings.
All in all, keep up the good work!
The current setup for Mo3jam groups definitions based on the normalized term’s letter arrangement. Syntax as opposed to semantics. An example of what you’re proposing is already in place: http://ar.mo3jam.com/term/%D8%A8%D8%B2%D8%B1
There you see بزر defined differently using several dialects. But all definitions are listed on the same page.
The next step would be to automatically or manually link meanings together. So if a meaning could be expressed using a different term in a different dialect, it would show up as navigational aid to the user.
Although I just learnt Arabic, this really seem very gd for me!Great job!So when can u expect the completed version?
Mo3jam is an ongoing project and as such, there is no definitive completion date. It will hopefully witness continuous improvement as its content grows richer and its aims become clearer.