Wzzan: Google Tashkeel With A Poetic Twist

Writing poetry isn’t an easy task or so I’ve heard. So to make the task easier on beginner Sayyab’s in the Arab world, Wzzan (pronounced wazzan; meaning poetry equalizer) attempts to put the sound on the letter of your most complicated verse by determining the “meters” (that would be “structure” for us, the untalented people) of the rhythmical poetry.

It does so using complex algorithms designed at KFUPM (King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals) by two young developers who started the project during college, but decided to finish the work and put online for the public to utilize.

The application not only displays the correct diacritics (tashkeel) of the verse you insert, but also provides detailed information of the meters of the verse itself, and differentiate the meter from the other sixteen available in Arabic Poetry, with the language being my mother tongue, it sometimes occurs to me just how complex it can be and even though I’d like to venture into what it exactly does and elaborate more, I must admit, my poetry prowess is far less than Wzzan.

So if any of my readers can make a relevant description of it in English, be my guest.

It could use some tweaking obviously since it’s still in it’s infancy days, but I sincerely believe this technology trend earlier started by Google with it’s Tashkeel service could have a serious impact on improving availability and accessibility of relevant Arabic digital content online, and perhaps having more services like this available can shed some more light on this wonderful (and sometimes confusing) language.