Sick Hamza

Even at 30,000 feet, Arabic grammar rules remain subject to gravity. On a flight with Emirates, a sharp-eyed passenger might have noticed that the text on the air sickness bag was, well, a little sick itself.

Diagnosis: Spelling

The “Air Sick Bag” manages to make two distinct errors in just two words. It seems the designer was confused about the rules of the Hamza, omitting it where it was needed and adding a “chair” for it where it wasn’t allowed.

Arabic text in question

Arabic text as it should be

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 text suffers from two opposite problems regarding the Hamza.

1. The Unnecessary Chair: The word for “vomiting” (الْقَيْء) is written as لِلْقَيْئ – adding a “seat” or Nabira (نَبِرَة) at the Hamza. The term نَبِرَة in Arabic orthography refers to the همزة القطع, the cutting hamza. It is the written hamza sign (ء) that is always pronounced when it appears at the beginning of a word, unlike connecting Hamza (هَمْزةُ الْوَصْلِ).
   
   The rule for the Extreme Hamza (at the end of a word) depends on the vowel before it. Since the letter ي has a Sukun (stillness), the Hamza must sit alone on the line (عَلَى السَّطْرِ), resulting in قَيْء.
2. The Missing Headgear: The word for “bags” (أَكْيَاس) is written as اكياس without the Hamza symbol on top – but here, we do need the Cutting Hamza (هَمْزَةُ قَطْع). Nouns that follow the pattern ‘Af’āl (أَفْعَالٌ) always carry the visible symbol. By removing it, the word looks like it starts with a Connecting Hamza (like the one in ابْن or اسْم), which is grammatically incorrect.

Deep Dive: The Verb Behind the Vomit

To understand the spelling, we have to look at the verb family. The word قَيْء is the verbal noun of the following form-I verb:

• Past Tense: قَاءَ – He vomited.
• Present Tense: يَقِيءُ – He vomits.

Notice that in the present tense (يَقِيءُ), the Hamza is preceded by a long vowel ي. In Arabic orthography, long vowels count as having a “dead” ending (سُكُونٌ), in our example: يَقِيْءُ. Therefore, the Hamza sits on the line.

The designer likely confused this with words where the Hamza sits on a Yā (like شَاطِئ – beach) because they look similar, but the rules are different.

Cheat Sheet: The “Extreme Hamza” Rule

When a Hamza comes at the end of a word (Extreme Hamza – هَمْزَةٌ مُتَطَرِّفَةٌ), you only look at the vowel of the letter before it. شَيْء (thing) is the poster child for this rule, and it is the word most frequently misspelled by native speakers for this exact reason.

Here are the most important rules for writing the Hamza at the end of a word.

The Airline

The irony here is cruising at a high altitude.

The code at the bottom of the bag begins with EK, the IATA designator for Emirates. This isn’t a budget carrier from a non-Arabic speaking country; this is the flag carrier of Dubai (UAE).

Emirates is renowned for its attention to detail, luxury, and being a global ambassador for the Arab world. Yet, on the one item you hope never to use, the Arabic orthography is queasy. It suggests that the text might have been typeset by a computer system or a designer who treated the strict rules of the Hamza as merely optional suggestions.

Source: Real Place
Time the picture was taken:  2025-01-13

Location: United Arab Emirates; airline: Emirates (indicated by EK code)

Latitude: 25.2048493
Longitude: 55.2707828

Credit
Picture credit: Paul Ammann
Added: 2015-12-08

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