Great, another tech blog. How is this one different?

In the last couple of years, I have reflected on my life and career journey as an immigrant software engineer. I made a mental map of all the connections, experiences, and knowledge I gained over time. I found many connections between these, but the main one was that they all happened in English.

I am an Arab, born and raised in the Middle East. I speak English fluently, but it is not my first language; unlike many, I have been fortunate enough to learn it from a young age. Would my life and career be much different had I not had that chance?

Of course, everyone’s life is unique– it would be impossible for me to answer that question for myself. I could, however, try to understand whether there was a problem at large.

The Internet Speaks English…

The lingua franca of the age, underpinning global business, pop culture, and academia. It is hard to imagine the internet without English; after all, it did start in an English speaking country.¹ As an English speaker, I can find almost any piece of information I need on the internet: the latest news, a particular recipe, or even the migration patterns of the Alpine Swift.

Information is much less available in Arabic. The number of native Arabic speakers on the internet has ballooned 9000% since the year 2000, amounting to about 5% of the internet population in 2021. Yet only 0.6% of internet content is written in Arabic, and that figure is diminishing.

So what gives? Is it that Arabic speakers at large are learning English (and choosing to use that on the internet)? The EF English Proficiency Index 2023 report might indicate otherwise:

The average level of English proficiency in the Middle East has improved over the past decade, but only due to the addition of higher proficiency countries to the index. […]

[…] Stability would not be problematic if proficiency levels were higher, but as it is, the level of English in the region is insufficient for most professional and higher education settings.

So, most of the content on the internet is in English, and the English proficiency of Arabic speakers at large is not improving, yet more Arabic speakers are on the internet than ever before… What does this all mean?

…and Only English

An excellent Guardian article about the digital language divide points out that the language we use to communicate affects what is communicated. The cultural context of a language colors the conversations we have when using it. More often than not, this color becomes a filter: phrases, ideas, and even entire topics of conversation get thrown out– this, I can attest to personally. The article expresses this problem poignantly:

“The internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow,” said Bill Gates. […] what will speakers have to sacrifice to be heard in the “digital town square”?

Wait, What About Cloud Native?

The Cloud Native Computing Foundation community has always been a champion for accessibility and inclusivity. The CNCF has dedicated, and quite successful efforts to localize the CNCF glossary and Kubernetes documentation to different languages. The Arabic versions of these are still on the way, so it’s not possible to gauge their success just yet. I decided to do my best Google-Fu to derive some heuristic as to how well Arabic is represented in the Cloud Native world:

A quick Google search for the term “Kubernetes” in different languages returned:

• 285,000,000 results in English
• About 185,000,000 results in Chinese (“庫伯內特斯”, “库伯内特斯”)
• But only 2,500 in Arabic (“كوبرنتس”, “كوبرنيتس”, “كوبرنيتيس”)

While it’s probably not very accurate, I found that this result says enough. Arabic has not gained enough traction yet. We can do something about this!

A Tiny Dent

We return to what I call my humble corner on the internet™. It’s my hope that by writing here, I can encourage someone, somewhere in the Arab world to get involved in cloud native technology.

This article, along with my first, will serve as sort of living charters for this blog. While I intend to write up every post both in English and Arabic, the content will likely differ to accomodate for the cultural contexts.²

I will leave you with this parable my friend Mark beautifully explained to me once:

Everyone has their own boulder to push over the hill. It can be exhausting–you keep putting effort in, but it will be so long before before you see any results. If you invest a little bit of time pushing other people’s boulders, you get to see results much more often, and that’ll energize you. It’s a cycle–it all feeds into itself.

If you like what you’re reading or have any feedback, shoot me a message or follow me on LinkedIn.