The company said in a blog post Wednesday it has made sure tweets and hashtags will work in right-to-left languages. It also says it's "made changes behind the scenes to give right-to-left language speakers a localized user experience," although it doesn't specify the changes.
As someone who often types in a right-to-left language, I can attest that programs often have alignment/justification bugs with oppositely-oriented text. It will be interesting to see how Twitter's hashtags adjust.
The company's translations program, powered through a network of 425,000 volunteers, has helped make Twitter available in 22 languages to date -- Traditional Chinese, Indonesian, Portuguese, Italian, Filipino, Finnish, Norwegian, Polish, Turkish, Danish, Malay, English, French, Korean, Swedish, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, German, Russian and Dutch -- all of which are read from left to right.
Aside from Thai, the four right-to-left languages added to Twitter are the only languages in the translation center for which Twitter is not available.
Twitter does not need to be available in a specific language for you to tweet in that language. All you need to do is type your message in your language of choice. For example, many people tout Twitter's organizing power in the Arab Spring; however, those Arabic-speaking and tweeting users must interact with the site in a non-native language.
Are you looking forward to Twitter in Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew or Urdu? Do you think it will help grow the microblog's member base in the Middle East and South Asia?
BONUS: Twitter Tools for Language Lovers