Today's Edition
BATOOL GHAITH (ABU DHABI)
Stronger Arabic content, more engaging education and investment in locally rooted digital tools could help younger generations use the language more naturally, experts said at the Congress of Arabic and Creative Industries 2026, held in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.
They also noted that such efforts could open new opportunities across film, media and artificial intelligence.
Organised by the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre (ALC), part of the Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi), the event brought together policymakers, investors, technology leaders, academics and creators to examine ways to strengthen Arabic across the creative and digital economy.
Nay Abi Ramia, Partner at Strategy& and speaking at the Congress, pointed to a study titled “From Roots to Relevance: Making Arabic the language of opportunity for MENA's young people”, led by the ALC in collaboration with Strategy& and Ipsos, which surveyed 4,000 Arabic-speaking young people across the MENA region between the ages of 18 and 25.
She said that the study found that 90% of young people use Arabic at home, but they want the language to remain relevant to the subjects, platforms and technologies they use every day.
Abi Ramia said young people want better Arabic education and more investment in Arabic across AI and technology, with 50% of those surveyed calling for greater investment in those areas.
She noted that it is not simply about translating existing material into Arabic, but to create original content rooted in local culture.
“Investing and incentivising creators to push more Arabic content when it comes to TV series, movies, cartoons, in a way that is very interactive, relevant and engaging, would help make Arabic a more natural first choice for younger audiences,” Abi Ramia told Aletihad.
Language through Film
Khaled Alhosani, a 25-year-old Emirati working as a Development Coordinator at Image Nation Studios, said film and television can play an important role in making Arabic more relevant for young people.
“I think art is the only way we preserve tradition, culture and language through different generations,” Alhosani told Aletihad.
For Alhosani, representation is also central to that effort. Having worked across different stages of the film industry, he said he wanted young Emiratis and other Arab audiences to be able to see people and lives they recognise on screen.
“I want one day for a kid to go to the cinema and have it be normal to see someone who is Emirati, Arab, or from the MENA region on the big screen,” Alhosani added.
He noted that attracting younger audiences requires Arabic content to be engaging rather than treated simply as something they are expected to consume.
“Arabic has to be fun,” Alhosani said, noting that strong, meaningful Arabic content needs to be widely available so that children and young people encounter the language naturally through entertainment.
Fatima Aldhaheri, Development Executive and Scriptwriter at Image Nation Studios, similarly said Arabic has long had value beyond its role as a language.
“Arabic was an economic asset. It just faded away and we should bring it back,” Aldhaheri told Aletihad.
She emphasised that Arabic is a rich language that carries knowledge, history and an entire cultural ecosystem.
“This Congress and other events dedicated to Arabic and the creative industries can help bring renewed attention to that value,” Aldhaheri added.
She also pointed to the importance of creating more Arabic entertainment content that reflects what children and youth are interested in today.
Aldhaheri said her own work in film focuses closely on cultural accuracy, from the way Emirati dialect is spoken to wardrobe, makeup and other details that represent the UAE.
She said Arabic filmmaking also helps preserve the period in which stories are created, giving future audiences a record of language, culture and everyday life.
“The content preserves the time that we are living in, people will look back at it as history and learn about it,” she added.
Abi Ramia also highlighted filmmaking as an important commercial opportunity because of the scale of video consumption today.
“People nowadays watch more than they actually read,” she said, describing film as one of the easiest ways to bring a language closer to a community.
She also noted that people use AI a lot nowadays, however, Arabic-speaking AI can sound fluent while still needing stronger Arabic-first data and cultural context behind its responses.
“Building stronger foundations for Arabic AI requires models to be trained on appropriate Arabic data and fed more original Arabic content,” she added.
