Linguistic Errors in Shop Signs in Erbil City

This study aims at investigating the language of business in Erbil city – the capital of Kurdistan region- to figure out how often shop signs fail to convey any relevant information to target language readers. These errors are classified into three categories: spelling, grammar, and word choice with the second having the highest frequency. This study supposes the reasons behind these sorts of errors include translator’s language incompetence, translator’s carelessness, and the socio-cultural differences between English, Arabic, and Kurdish.