Diagnosis: Grammar
Arabic text in question
صالة القادمون
Arabic text as it should be
صالَةُ الْقادِمِينَ
Note: You don’t use diacritics (تشكيل) in everyday Arabic. We use them here to clearly explain the grammar, spelling and meaning of words. To avoid confusion, we generally ignore auxiliary vowels that are necessary for pronunciation to avoid consonant clusters.
Analysis
The construction صالة القادمون contains a mistake.
- The word صالة means hall.
- The word قادِمُونَ is the sound masculine plural, nominative case (مَرْفُوعٌ), of the active participle قادِمٌ which means coming.
What we have here is a so-called إِضافةٌ-construction. This is a possessive construction in Arabic, where two nouns are joined to express a “of” relationship (like hall of arrivals). According to the rules, the second part (الْمُضافُ إِلَيْهِ – “added to it”) must be in the genitive case (مَجْرُورٌ).
➤ Correct: صالةُ الْقادِمِينَ. It literally means hall of the arriving (people) = arrivals.
A personal note: I was quite astonished when I saw this mistake in the main train station of Medina (الْمَدِينةُ الْمُنَوَّرةُ) in Saudi Arabia. To be honest, I somehow expected that in the holy city of Medina, the Saudi officials would pay more attention to correct Arabic.
- Source: Real Place
- Time the photo was taken: 2022-11-16
- Location: Saudi Arabia
محطة قطار المدينة الجديد
42368 Madinah
Saudi Arabia
Latitude: 24.47412479999999
Longitude: 39.6997404
Credit
Picture credit: Gerald Drißner
Added: 03/24/2025 Gerald Drißner
Wanna cite this article?
Drißner, G. (2025, March 24). Holy Smokes!. Arabic for Nerds. https://arabic-for-nerds.com/errabic/holy-smokes/
Published: March 24, 2025
Please check the citation before use, especially if your style guide has local requirements.
Publication ISSN: 3055-1730
Join the discussion: Sign in with social media for instant commenting, or register with email (comments require approval):
صالة القادمين..idafa must be in genitive
الوصول؟؟
Mona Zaki القادمين
Ashraf Hassan مضاف اليه
I am loving the Errabic section; thanks so much Gerald for these fun quizzes :)
Whoops 😅
Jessica Rugg Right, but a sign would be in MSA.
Michelle Bartels Not all signage in the Gulf follows MSA norms. You might find this short documentary by Rizwan Ahmad relevant—it explores so-called “incorrect” Arabic spelling on street signs in Qatar and raises interesting questions about what counts as a ‘mistake’ in public language use: https://youtu.be/riLecrZt7xE?feature=shared
It could be correct in the colloquial dialect. Dialects don’t always use proper grammar. الله أعلم
إن شاء الله الخير
Numbers are pronounced in different cases depending on the dialect. In some dialects, the numbers follow proper declension, in some they are always nominative, and in others they are always accusative (generally speaking).