Emirates is celebrating UNESCO International Mother Language Day by showcasing its linguistic diversity on board, from its diverse cabin crew to the wide selection of in-language content on its inflight entertainment system, ice. The UNESCO initiative, observed on February 21st each year, highlights the significance of cultural and linguistic diversity for the development of sustainable societies.

Emirates hires cabin crew members from multicultural backgrounds who can speak numerous languages, selecting them based on their hospitality style of conversing with passengers in their preferred language. This results in a team of cabin crew members from over 130 countries who can speak more than 70 languages combined.

Passengers can access the extensive content on ice in up to 40 languages, including movies, TV shows, music, poetry, and podcasts, in languages such as English, Arabic, Hindi, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, German, and Mandarin. The selection also includes popular English language comedies and dramas with dubbed versions in various other languages. Passengers can indulge in up to 40,000 hit songs across various genres, including K-pop (Korean), Afrobeat (Yoruba, isiZulu, etc.), Reggaeton (Spanish), and Opera (French, Italian, etc.), among others.

Passengers can also use the uTalk Language Learning feature on ice TV to brush up on essential phrases in new languages, which is presently available in Arabic, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, German, and French. Emirates’ website supports 28 different languages, while the Emirates App for iOS and Android accommodates 19 languages, with all information available in the chosen language.