صَديقة
root: ص-د-ق / feminine noun / plural: صَديقات / definition: friend
Has it really been over a year since I last wrote an Arabic headline analysis? My archives nod “yes” and guilt sinks me into my chair.
I think of my friend who was the inspiration behind both the headline analysis and literature translation series—posts with word-by-word breakdowns and guidance for putting everything together to get something that resembles a logical sentence.
Because between un-vowelled words and Arabic grammar complexities, meanings can sometimes get lost for us students.
I don’t know if that friend of mine keeps up with all the posts I write. But I’m still committed to creating an archive for her and other learners to go through, if and when life allows.
Today, I selected the following headline from Al Jazeera‘s Arabic site:
ـ 11 تشرين الأول / أكتوبر 2025
“شركات تتجسّس على الإنسان وتحوّله إلى “نقطة بيانات
As always, we’ll go through the headline word-by-word before putting it all together and coming up with an appropriate translation at the end:
شركات
root: ش-ر-ك
plural noun
شَرِكة = “company”; شَرِكات is its plural—formed with the sound feminine plural ending, ـات
(remember: as شركات is a non-human plural, it’s treated grammatically as the feminine singular)
this noun is the subject of the clause, which means that it has to be in subject/nominative case, i.e. it must be مرفوع
as this sound feminine plural is indefinite and مرفوع, it has to take a dammatayn as its case ending: شركاتٌ (for more on this, see Case Endings of the Sound Feminine Plural)
we usually don’t find Arabic sentences beginning with an indefinite noun, but it’s a common style in headlines to highlight the main subject; it’s similar to how we find non-sentences in English headlines, like “Boy Finds Treasure“
تتجسّس
root: ج-س-س
form V present tense verb, third person, singular feminine
تَجَسَّسَ / يَتَجَسَّسُ = “to spy”
the subject of this verb is the non-human plural noun شركات, therefore, the verb must be conjugated for the feminine singular (تَتَجَسَّس)
you could interpret شركات تتجسس as a noun-verb phrase (“companies spy”), but it’s more easily read if you consider that the verb is the start of a جملة صفة (adjectival clause)
looking at it from the second perspective, we’d translate شركات تتجسس as “companies that spy”
على
preposition
على = “on”
this preposition follows the verb: تتجسس على = “spy on”
الإنسان
components: الـ + إنْسان
root: ء-ن-س (read more in Uncommon Arabic Words for Mankind)
(collective?) noun
إنْسان can be read as a regular noun (“a person”) or as a collective noun (“people”)—let’s assume it’s the collective for now, and we’ll see if we change our minds for the final translation
الـ = the definite prefix
الإنسان follows a preposition, which means it has to be مجرور in terms of case; as it’s definite and مجرور, it must take a kasra ending: الإنسانِ
وتحوّله
components: وَ + تُحَوِّلُ + ـهُ
root: ح-و-ل
form II present tense verb, third person, singular feminine
حَوَّلَ / يُحَوِّلُ = “to transform something”
the subject of this verb is again the non-human plural شركات, so we have to conjugate it for the feminine singular which gives us تُحَوِّلُ
وَ = “and”
ـهُ = the masculine, singular object suffix, “him” or “it”
this object suffix, ـه, is referring to the noun الإنسان (which is grammatically singular and masculine)—seeing as we’re translating it in the collective sense (“people”), we’d translate the object suffix as “them” instead of “him”
together: وتحوّله = “and transforms them”
إلى
preposition
إلى = “to” or “into”
this preposition follows the verb: تحوّله إلى = “transforms them into”
نقطة
root: ن-ق-ط
noun
نُقْطة = “point”
this noun follows a preposition, so it’s مجرور
but note that نقطة is the first word in a two-word indefinite إضافة (idaafa, possessive construction)—so while it’s indefinite, it can only take kasra and not kasratayn (remember that non-final words in the إضافة can’t have tanween!)
بيانات
root: ن-ق-ط
noun
بَيان = “information”, “announcement”, etc., but its plural form بَيانات means “data”
بَيانات is the final word in the إضافة so it’s مجرور—as it’s indefinite and مجرور, its case ending would be kasratayn
together, نقطة بياناتٍ = “a data point”
Okay! It’s time to put all of that together:
“شركات تتجسّس على الإنسان وتحوّله إلى “نقطة بيانات
Companies that spy on people and transform them into “a data point”
I think it needs a little edit to make it make sense:
Companies that spy on people and transform them into “data points”
Seeing as we translated الإنسان as the collective “people”, it follows that we should translate نقطة بيانات as the plural “data points” rather than “a data point”.
Hmm. It’s still looking a bit clunky for a headline…
How do you think we could improve it? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
!مع السلامة
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