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As questions should be asked in English, I find it irrelavent that foreign language words get included in questions, this does not seem to be moderated which makes me think, should it be?

I find it annoying where words like Namaz, Pak get used while they could easily be translated into English, this makes it hard for everyone to understand the question. I understand that due to the nature of the Arabic language there may not be an equivalent English word but for simple words can we start regulating this?

Example words: Sawm, Salat, Talaq, Dua, Narration, etc.

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  • Part of this was answered here: How can we make this site more friendly to non-Muslims?
    – Rebecca J. Stones
    Jun 18, 2017 at 0:36
  • @RebeccaJ.Stones I agree with System Down's answer and I think it would solve the problem Gold referred to in his answer, however most of the moderators that were involved in that discussion are no longer active, should I keep this question live to get input from current active moderators? or should I delete it as technically its's a duplicate?
    – Aboudi
    Jun 18, 2017 at 0:55
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    I wouldn't feel obliged to delete. The community has changed almost entirely, so it's arguable that it's worth re-asking and gauging the community opinion again. (And it's good to have an active meta.)
    – Rebecca J. Stones
    Jun 18, 2017 at 1:07
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    I've been down-voted for commenting on that while answering when i started at ISE islam.stackexchange.com/questions/25885/… it is not only non-Muslim or new-Muslim unfriendly, it is not helpful to answer questions if some terms which are known in some regions are used...
    – Medi1Saif Mod
    Jun 18, 2017 at 1:55

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You need to think in terms not only of "easy to understand the question", but also "easy for future users with the same question to find the answer". Given how often people are asking using these terms, how often do you think they're searching using these terms as well? And if they are using these terms, then would those searches pick up the questions which aren't, those which were changed after asking into being English-only?

I know a number of people in my local community who speak fluent English, yet still commonly use terms like "roza" and "namaz" instead of "*fasting" and "prayer", or even "sawm" and "salat". These are common terms among certain groups — English-speaking groups — to refer to specific Islamic concepts; at this point they're not even really "non-English words" so much as a type of jargon.

Experts, for the most part, understand jargon in the fields they're expert in; and if they don't, they typically understand the value in learning it rather than eliminating it. As Robert said back in the early days of the site, dumbing down the language used to make it easier for non-experts to understand is counterproductive, since you're basically making it easier for non-experts to answer the question rather than attracting actual expertise.

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  • Good points, how about if we primarily use English words and include Arabic and Arabic only terms in parenthesis.
    – Aboudi
    Jun 18, 2017 at 19:14
  • @Aboudi I think that's ugly and looks unprofessional, and basically treats the readers as if they're not smart enough to know complex terms. But that's just my opinion.
    – goldPseudo Mod
    Jun 18, 2017 at 19:17
  • I think what annoys me the most is that questions seem to contain made up words that don't actually exist or perhaps exist only within a small groups of various cultures, I am not complaining about words that are complex or have comprehensive meanings behind them, some words as I mentioned don't really have an equivalent in other languages
    – Aboudi
    Jun 18, 2017 at 19:23
  • Perhaps I need to be more patient and tolerant
    – Aboudi
    Jun 18, 2017 at 19:24
  • I understand the need to use Arabic terminology but I don't understand the need for terms of other languages
    – Aboudi
    Jun 18, 2017 at 19:26

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