I found this fascinating because it is finally an attempt at using proper Arabic content. Yamli is a new Arabic search engine. When I typed my name in English, it actually immediately translated it into Arabic as I was writing. I then tried to type a whole English transliterated sentence and Yamli immediately changed the lettering from English to Arabic as I was typing. This is what Yamli calls the ‘smart keyboard‘, and I must say it is quite smart. I am impressed.
The search engine itself has a very unique and different interface that I also found quite interesting.
Yamli was created by two Lebanese men, Habib Haddad and Imad Jureidini, and the idea came during the most recent war on Lebanon in 2006. Yamli’s definition of itself is that it “is a search engine focused on providing more relevant search results for an Arabic query by expanding it to its most frequently used Latin representations.”
The word Yamli itself comes from the Arabic to dictate – or, as Yamli itself says “The word Yamli is inspired by the Arabic verb “?????” which comes from the noun “?????” referring to dictation or transcription of spoken text.” One can even embed Yamli in their website through the Yamli API.
Job well done and I look forward to how this will develop further.
