When we, arabic-speaking tounges , mail/sms/chat together, we often prefer to write how the arabic word would sound like but in latin words (pronouncation rules often following English rules), which is called transliteration i think. We also represent pronouncations exclusive to the arabic tounge using numbers such as 2, 7 , etc..
More info and examples here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_chat_alphabet

I came across a new service http://www.yamli.com/ that receives transilterated arabic input and redirects the user to a google search with the query converted to real arabic. I always thought Google needed such a tool because:

1) For some, it is much more convenient to search using the latin characters. And sometimes one is even stuck with a keyboard with arabic characters.
2) A lot of webpages are _written_ in the transliterated form already, which is worth being indexed and found – perhaps through converting them.
3) It would be useful for an arabic query to be searched for using BOTH forms ..

Are there "Input Method Editors" for Arabic? I mean the kind you install on the operating system so that you can then use any search engine, entering English to be turned into Arabic...

Philipp: Never came across one. We rely more on Arabic keyboard layout..

Another interesting idea about http://www.yamli.com that i wanted to point out was something I got from their help section:

--
You can also use Yamli to write a foreign language in Arabic characters.

For example, type: "I love this tool".
--

So a user can input English text and get the way it should be pronounced in arabic. I can see how a tool like this one will have a future.

on http://exalead.com you can type soundslike:query and it will search...kind of related

BTW this site looks great on my ipod!

This sort of reminds me of the Soundex system used with Genealogy. Except that is meant more for names.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundex

very usable!
I should have thought of making such a thing before :(

I entered "Hog Cholera" and my browser crashed.

Very original idea, what i hated in Arabic is now avoidable with that stuff...
this is a proof that there still are undiscovered areas :)

Google Suggest for China version, have the same function.

http://www.zuosa.com/photo/mms/00/00/1E/7057887.jpg

The difference is Google China Suggest can not be searched on Arabic Number, for instance, 269 means "I love you", 1314 means "all the life", 8 means "rich", 88 means "See you later" ect.