The producers wanted to present the characteristics of the Arabic language and its alphabet. Because pre-production research showed that, although many dialects are spoken in the region, 90% of Arab children were able to understand Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), it was chosen as the show's language. Linguist Kees Versteegh stated that the language used in "Iftah Ya Simsim" was "based on an explicit didactic and linguistic concept". The show's developers decided to use specific aspects of the language. Despite the absence of case endings in the dialects spoken by many of its users, the producers used them and other indispensable features of MSA. They also spelled out what features should be used sparingly, like passive verb forms, and what features they wanted to completely avoid, such as some prepositions. According to Versteegh, "These principles have been followed rather closely". Children who appeared on the show made few grammatical errors in MSA, and although colloquialisms were used rarely, there was an informal quality in their conversations and speech patterns. Versteegh postulated that it was due to the use of intonation patterns and interjections, instead of the use of grammatical and lexical items from the vernacular use of the language. He also said that "Iftah Ya Simsim" proved that it was "possible to use an informal register of Modern Standard Arabic". Versteegh reported that although the show was criticized in some Arab countries, Egypt in particular, for containing too many colloquialisms, he thought the criticism was biased and that "the selection of lexical items in any pan-Arabic programme will probably never satisfy everybody".