The idea for Yamli came to us in the summer of 2006, during the war in Lebanon. Most of the up-to-date information about the war was available only in Arabic. Getting fresh news meant typing search queries in Arabic, which is not easy without an Arabic keyboard. At the same time, we were communicating with friends and family in Arabic, but using Latin characters (Arabizi).
This is when the idea for Yamli was born. Taking an existing and widespread skill, Arabizi, to enable users to type real Arabic words. We set out to see if converting Arabizi to Arabic was feasible with enough accuracy to be useful. After several months of work, Yamli.com was born on November 15, 2007.
We quickly realized that there were many unsolved problems that faced the Arabic language on the web and prevented its expansion, and decided to make it as our mission to find solutions.
The word Yamli is inspired by the Arabic verb "يُملي" which comes from the noun "إملاء" referring to dictation or transcription of spoken text.
