Throughout the world, thousands of expressions are used to voice love and affection, and how it’s communicated varies greatly from a culture to another. Yet, in the Levant, colloquialism and idioms tend to differ profoundly as people communicate their endearment towards others in a very particular way; in a way that foreigners find absurd and sometimes morbid. “May you bury me”, or in Arabic “To’oborne”, is a very common phrase expressed very often to adored ones such as children or very close friends or family members. This literal translation into English is absolutely nonsensical and irrational and would sound as gruesome in any other language though its beautiful meaning is only comprehended by Arab speakers. This deathly kind of love actually reflects unconditional love; quite the opposite of what it appears to say. “To’oborne” indicates one’s desire to die before their loved one so they won’t have to live a day without them or suffer the pain of losing them, thus, hoping they would be the ones burying them and not the contrary. This expression reveals more than just love, it’s about adoration and attachment, because Arabs love with passion and to death. 

From the etymology, the English language is inherited from Proto-Germanic (Indo-European), while the Arabic language is inherited from Proto-Semitic (Afro-Asiatic). In addition, the structure of language commonly shows its characteristics, and these characteristics can only be found in a relative language as the similar transfer is difficult to find in a non-relative language. In other words, when there is no lexical or syntactical substitute in the target language that can replace the source language expression or phrase, it is linguistically untranslatable. In this case, the Arabic locution “to’oborne” does not have any English equivalent, thus, its literal translation changes the whole meaning which is rather disturbing in the English sense and not something commonly said. Actually, Arabic is remarkably expressive in figures of speech and many words wouldn’t make sense out of context or if translated into another language. “To’oborne” is, in fact, one of the most vivid and interesting figure of speech in the language as it consists of many concepts crammed into one word such as “Love”, “life” and “death”. This poetic combination holding a deep and complex meaning does not exist in any other language in spite of the fact that the word itself does. “To’oborne” literally means “bury me” which sounds a little spooky and has nothing to do with endearment. 

Usually, colloquialisms and idioms are the hardest part of a language for foreigners to understand as they are deeply rooted in the culture. “To’oborne” mainly refers to death, a prime concern for the living, in particular in the Arab society. It is true that this phrase can be expressed toward any loved person, but it is mainly said by family members, especially to kids. Families tend to be close-knit and loyal and the parent-child bond is the strongest in one’s life, because in the Arabic culture “family comes first” and it is one’s major responsibility and duty to take care of their family. Parents live for the sake of their children, to watch them grow and succeed in life. Actually, an Arab’s main purpose in life is having children. And owing to the fact that that’s the standard cycle of life, children aren’t supposed to pass first and from here comes the desire to die before, so they can elude the agony of their loss. Furthermore, funeral ceremony usually lasts one or two days, sometimes longer, because the Arab culture attaches great importance to it. To bury a loved one is the last act of affection and esteem carried for them and that’s how central that short statement of endearment is. Therefore, it has become a habit for young people to bury the elderly. In traditional practice, there are often no such words in target language, and the translation must find the similar codes or make some new codes to replace, so when these culturally loaded words are translated into another language, the cultural connotations are lost and the statement remains culturally untranslatable. 

To conclude, “to’oborne” belongs to the long list of untranslatables due to the lack of word connotations and the differences in the cultural background. The impact of this Arabic statement is altered completely when translated into English, and some have suggested that “I can’t live without you” or “I love you to distraction” could be an alternative and the closest it can get to the original expression but it carries on being vague and inappropriate. Even so, the phenomenon of untranslatability is not absolutely untranslatable and to resolve this problem, translators use a special method known by ‘compensation’ so they can reach the equivalence when no suitable concept or expression exists in the target language. In the case of this lovely but gloomy colloquialism, an adequate equivalent is ought to be found by using one of the compensation’s methods. Nowadays, the world has become more and more interconnected, and the barriers between different languages and cultures have been greatly reduced, resulting in increased communication, similarity and understanding between them. Probably someday, “to’oborne” will shift from the untranslatables list to the borrowed words list just like many other Arabic words such as “Sheikh” and “Kohl”.