Significance
Online communication, such as IRC, bulletin board systems, and blogs, are often run on systems or over protocols which do not support codepages or alternate character sets. This system has gained common use and can be seen even in domain names.
It is most commonly used by youths in the Arab world in very informal settings, for example communicating with friends or other youths through the mobile SMS, Short Message Service & Blackberry Messenger (BBM). The Arabish is never used in formal settings and is rarely, if ever, used for long communications. The length of any single communication in ACA rarely if ever exceeds more than a few sentences.
Even though the Arabic language is well integrated with modern versions of Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, people still use it in Arabic Internet forums and instant Messaging programs such as Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger and on social networks such as Facebook because they don't always have Arabic keyboards, or because they are more used to the Latin alphabet layout (QWERTY) for typing.
Read more about this topic: Arabish
Famous quotes containing the word significance:
“History is the interpretation of the significance that the past has for us.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“It is necessary not to be Christian to appreciate the beauty and significance of the life of Christ.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The hysterical find too much significance in things. The depressed find too little.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)