Thursday March 28th, 2024
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Twitter Adds Feminine Arabic Language Setting

Twitter is finally adding Feminine Arabic to its language settings, which will now correctly refer to the user with feminine pronouns and word forms rather than assume that they're male.

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We've heard it said before that Siri doesn't have a female voice in Arabic. Not only was that technically true for a long time - many voice assistance apps only offered male voices in Arabic - but it represented a truly overlooked issue in tech, the idea of male as the default, and a lack of consideration for the other gender which makes up an entire half of your user base. It appears that Twitter finally got the memo by adding Feminine Arabic to its language settings, which will now correctly refer to the user with feminine pronouns and word forms rather than assume that they're male.


Gender in the Arabic language affects nearly every noun and verb, with each word changing in small ways whether they're referring to a male or a female person. In the context of Twitter, this goes from basic pronouns to the terms of major features and tabs, like 'Tweet', which previously appeared as the masculine 'gharrid', but can now appear as the feminine 'gharridy' instead.


You can make the change by going to Twitter's settings page, and accessing the Accessibility, Display and Languages list. There you can pick Languages and specify that you want to change Display Language, where you will be presented with the Arabic (Feminine) option in a drop-down menu.