English is still the most commonly-used language on Twitter, although Arabic is one of the fastest growing, ft.com reports.
A new independently published report has found that whilst English accounts for 39 per cent of the language share on the micro blogging site, Arabic is the fastest growing, seeing a 2,000 per cent rise in just one year.
Whilst on the whole, Arabic counts for just one per cent of the Twitter language share, its rank rocketed to eighth and it saw an average of two million tweets a month, up on last year’s figure of just 30,000.
Elsewhere in the study, Japanese came in second, accounting for 14 per cent of the language share, whilst Portuguese (12 per cent), Spanish (eight per cent) and Malay (six per cent) completed the top five.
The news may be of importance to international firms looking as to which audiences are turning to Twitter so they can target their social media marketing to these up-and-coming areas or languages.
Lower ranking countries (such as China which has imposed a Twitter ban) show the markets where such marketing may not make such a splash.
Speaking of the rising Arabic usage, tech blogger Nancy Messieh told thenextweb.com that the trend should not come as a surprise, with all that has gone on in the Arab-speaking world and how Twitter was central to it all.
“The boost in Arabic tweets is not a surprising change,” she explained. “Despite Twitter seeing intermittent bans at one time or another in the region, in Algeria, Egypt, Syria, Libya and more, it continues to be a popular social media tool used by the Middle East’s netizens, whether by citizen journalists or otherwise.”