We’ve been working on “7areef el 7uruf” for almost a year now. It’s a combination of four quick games that uses Arabic letters to create words, poems and stories; as well as guessing items within different categories. Here are some things we’ve found out through our journey.

Even though this game was not initially designed for educational purposes; we found some players wondering how certain words are spelled and discussing the double meaning of other words. Other players hear words for the first time, especially when the group playing comes from different generations. Even though Arabic is our first language, while playing we realized how little we know about it. It’s funny how we found ourselves misspelling words that we use daily and unable to think of words right away!

Trying to find dice manufacturers in Egypt was like searching for a polar bears near the pyramids. Funny right? Cause if you walk down the streets you’d find people playing backgammon in coffee shops. You would think it is part of our culture, yet it took ages to just find a dice producer!

Our language is very expressive, however, we just lost our connection with it. It  is becoming harder and harder for many of us to express ourselves in Arabic. “7areef” tries to deal with that, as well as breaking the stigma that Arabic is a serious, formal and non-playful language. We are hoping that this game will make us and all Arabic speakers connect more with our mystic language!