When you first look up "Arabic alphabet" on YouTube, the top result is a hyper-religious video where each letter corresponds to a holy concept (I'm not kidding). With poor production quality, the videos that follow aren't suited for the human eye.

I'm not around kids much to confirm this, but children's educational entertainment isn't much of a thing in the Arabic language and the online results we come across attest to that. The lack is a major downer in Beirut where the competency of both written Arabic has diminished exponentially over the past thirty years.

Rouba Beydoun - mother of two - released an animation on her YouTube Channel that plays out the Arabic alphabet and teaches kids the Arabic's short vowels (or tashkil). Illustrated by Syrian artist Sawsan Nourallah, the video is both easy on the eye and the ear. They made sure to revitalize it with an adorable voiceover yet maintain the traditional melody associated with Arabic vowels. 


Rouba told me more about the animation (funnily enough, our conversation was entirely in English):

My husband and I realized that even though countries in the Levant and the UAE have been going through some form of Children's Literature renaissance, there's still a lot to do to make Arabic attractive to children and their parents, especially since parents of the upper middle class in many countries in the region don't speak to their kids in Arabic anymore. I developed an interest in Arabic resources for kids - be it books or songs or videos. I've been doing a lot of research on what's missing in online resources and books and run a Facebook group for discussion and a YouTube Channel where I publish the videos. The song you hear isn't new; it's actually a traditional melody that many people grew up listening to. I sought out a musician in Egypt, Mohamed Sami, who revived it with a new arrangement. I sing in the song with my niece Naya! Since this is all non-profit (and I didn't want to go broke) I submitted a proposal to a regional cultural NGO, Mawred, and received a grant for two songs and a book. Part of the same project is to release a second song on the names of months, which will be out soon with an arrangement and melody by Charbel Rouhana. 

Play it for a second time and you'll be chanting it all day:


In a perfect world, improved content like Rouba's animation is YouTube's top result.

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