Arabic at parity, not as an afterthought

Most software bolts Arabic on at the end. We started with it. IBM Plex Sans Arabic is a peer of Inter in our type system, not a fallback.

Tone travels too

Ahlan wa sahlan is not “welcome” translated — it’s warmer, and Mae knows the difference.

When Mae responds to Noura in Arabic, she doesn’t translate a generic English response. She writes in the hospitality register appropriate to a Gulf business audience: warm, respectful, specific, never mechanical.

What first-class RTL means technically

First-class RTL means more than flipping a direction attribute. It means:

• Every layout that uses flexbox considers flex-direction: row-reverse for RTL
• Logical CSS properties (margin-inline-start not margin-left)
• Icons that carry directionality — arrows, chevrons — flip when the language does
• The wordmark stays in its Latin form (it is a brand mark, not a transliteration)

Typography at four weights

IBM Plex Sans Arabic ships at weights 400, 500, 600, and 700. We use all four — body at 400, headlines at 500, UI labels at 600, emphasis at 700. Using a single weight would be like setting an English headline in the same weight as body copy: it works, but something is missing.

The type system is the first thing a reader notices. If it’s wrong, nothing else matters.

What we got right

The footer language switcher shows “العربية” in Arabic script, not “Arabic” in Latin. That’s the first test. If a brand doesn’t know how to label its own language option, it hasn’t done the work.