A Comprehensive Analysis of Arabic Natural Language Processing Research: Trends, Topic Evolution, and Research Gaps -- A Bibliometric and Topic-Based Study

Summary

A comprehensive bibliometric and topic-based study analyzed 7,120 Arabic NLP papers published between 1960 and 2026, sourced from multiple academic platforms, using BERTopic for topic modeling, regression, and network analysis. The study found a significant publication surge after 2020, driven by transformer models and LLMs, identifying 19 key themes in Arabic NLP research. Saudi Arabia, the United States, and Egypt lead in research output, with the analysis also highlighting understudied areas like summarization for Maghrebi, Iraqi, and Sudanese dialects. Why it matters: This analysis provides a crucial quantitative overview of Arabic NLP research trends, identifying significant gaps and offering recommendations to guide future research, particularly in under-resourced dialects and culturally aligned benchmarks.