السمك اليوم أغلى من الدجاج في هذا السوق.

Because Arabic often uses a verbless sentence in the present tense.

So السمك اليوم أغلى من الدجاج في هذا السوق literally looks like:

The fish today more expensive than the chicken in this market.

In natural English, we must add is, but in Arabic present-tense nominal sentences, that verb is usually not spoken.

If you wanted the past, then Arabic would use a verb, for example: كان السمك اليوم أغلى من الدجاج... = The fish was more expensive than the chicken...

اليوم means today, and here it works like an adverb of time: it tells you when the statement is true.

So the sentence means: Fish is more expensive than chicken today in this market.

It does not mean today’s fish. If Arabic wanted to say today’s fish, the structure would be different.

In this sentence, اليوم modifies the whole idea, not just السمك.

أغلى is the comparative form of the adjective related to expensive / dear.

The basic adjective is: غالٍ = expensive

Its comparative form is: أغلى = more expensive

Arabic often forms comparatives with the pattern أفعل. So this is similar to how English changes expensive into more expensive.

Also, أغلى can sometimes mean most expensive, but in this sentence it clearly means more expensive because it is followed by من.

Because من is the normal word used after a comparative in Arabic, like than in English.

So:

أغلى من الدجاج = more expensive than chicken

This is a very common pattern:

• أكبر من = bigger than
• أصغر من = smaller than
• أفضل من = better than

So whenever you see comparative + من, think more/less ... than.

In Arabic, general categories are often expressed with the definite article ال.

So:

• السمك can mean fish in a general sense
• الدجاج can mean chicken in a general sense

This is more natural in Arabic than leaving them indefinite here.

So even though English may say: Fish is more expensive than chicken Arabic naturally says: السمك ... من الدجاج

This does not necessarily mean a specific fish and a specific chicken. It can still mean the food categories in general.

Grammatically, السمك is often treated as a collective noun. It can refer to:

• fish as a type of food
• fish in general
• sometimes fish collectively

So even though English distinguishes fish and fishes in some contexts, Arabic often uses السمك for the general category.

In this sentence, it most naturally means fish as a food/product.

Here الدجاج means chicken in the general sense, especially as a product or category.

Like السمك, it often functions as a collective/general noun.

So in this sentence, the comparison is between two food categories:

• السمك = fish
• الدجاج = chicken

It is not necessarily talking about one individual fish and one individual chicken.

Because سوق is grammatically masculine in Modern Standard Arabic, so it takes the masculine demonstrative:

هذا السوق = this market

If the noun were feminine, you would normally use هذه instead.

So this is a gender agreement issue:

• masculine noun → هذا
• feminine noun → هذه

It is a prepositional phrase meaning in this market, and in Arabic it is very normal to place this kind of phrase near the end of the sentence.

So the full structure is roughly:

• السمك = topic
• اليوم = time expression
• أغلى من الدجاج = main statement/comparison
• في هذا السوق = location

Arabic word order is somewhat flexible, so you could move parts around for emphasis, but this order is natural and clear.

Yes, Arabic has some flexibility, especially with adverbs and prepositional phrases.

For example, you may also see things like: في هذا السوق السمك اليوم أغلى من الدجاج

That would put more emphasis on in this market.

But the original sentence is a very normal neutral order: السمك اليوم أغلى من الدجاج في هذا السوق

So yes, word order can change, but the original is perfectly standard.

A fully vocalized version could be:

السَّمَكُ اليَوْمَ أَغْلَى مِنَ الدَّجَاجِ فِي هَذَا السُّوقِ

A rough breakdown:

• السَّمَكُ: nominative, because it is the subject/topic of the nominal sentence
• اليومَ: accusative as an adverb of time
• أغلى: predicate of the sentence
• منَ الدجاجِ: الدجاجِ is genitive after من
• في هذا السوقِ: السوقِ is genitive after في

In normal modern writing, these endings are usually not written, so learners usually see: السمك اليوم أغلى من الدجاج في هذا السوق

It is pronounced approximately aghlā.

The final ى is alif maqṣūra, and here it gives a final long a sound.

So the word sounds like: agh-laa

That final letter does not represent a y sound here.

Yes, أغلى can function as either:

• more expensive
• most expensive

The context tells you which meaning is intended.

In this sentence, because أغلى is followed by من, it must be comparative:

أغلى من الدجاج = more expensive than chicken

If it meant most expensive, it would normally appear in a different structure.

It most naturally describes the whole situation:

In this market, fish is more expensive than chicken today.

So the idea is not just: the chicken in this market

It is the broader claim that, in this market, the price relationship between fish and chicken is this way.

In other words, في هذا السوق sets the location for the comparison as a whole.

Actually, it does — that word is من in comparative sentences.

English says: more expensive than

Arabic says: أغلى من

So من is doing the job of than here.

The only difference is that من has other uses elsewhere in Arabic too, including meanings like from, depending on context.

A useful way to see it is:

السمك — the topic
اليوم — time
أغلى من الدجاج — the comment/predicate
في هذا السوق — place

So the sentence is a nominal sentence built around a topic and a predicate, not around a finite verb.

That is one of the most important patterns in Arabic, especially for present-tense statements.