# Levantine Arabic: منقبر نايم



## Softmint

Hello!

What does: *Mene2ber Nayem...*  mean?
Is Nayem a name?

Thanks in advance


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## clevermizo

Moderator's Note:

Please provide the context in which you found this phrase so that the users on the forum can help you better (Rule #3 | Click here to review the rules |). Also the dialect or dialect family should be stated.


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## Softmint

sorry there is no context that's the problem :/
It was someone's status on facebook...
I think it's lebanese but not sure


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## clevermizo

Softmint said:


> sorry there is no context that's the problem :/
> It was someone's status on facebook...
> I think it's lebanese but not sure



Thanks. If you think that it is Lebanese Arabic, then "Levantine Arabic" should suffice for the dialectal context. 

Did anyone reply to the status on Facebook? This could count as well as context. 

_Mene2ber_ could be منقبر which would mean _we bury _(as in burying the dead in a grave) (_enterramos_).

_Nayem_ could be نايم which means "asleep" (in the singular). However together I'm not sure. Perhaps this is an idiomatic expression that someone can help explain, but I've not heard it.


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## Softmint

No one replied yet...
Google translates this as: Naim platform  (I know google isn't accurate). 
If Mene2ber = enterrar (to bury)
and Nayem = asleep

Maybe it could mean: _Dead sleepy_ or something like that? Like very exhausted?


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## Mahaodeh

They come together - منقبر نايم, sort of like an idiom; it's a rude or harsh way to say he's asleep. It's like saying ولّى راح - اتسسم\اتزقنب أكل = the first is rude and the second has the same meaning but using the normative word.


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## CZAREK

Softmint said:


> No one replied yet...
> Google translates this as: Naim platform (I know google isn't accurate).
> If Mene2ber = enterrar (to bury)
> and Nayem = asleep
> 
> Maybe it could mean: _Dead sleepy_ or something like that? Like very exhausted?


 


> Google translates this as: Naim platform (I know google isn't accurate).


 
I would never  use google  for  translating something like that ,cos as you see this is dialect not classical Arabic and google will not handle with that.


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## rayloom

Just a note on منقبر, here it's not the verb (equivalent of نقبر = we bury), here it's an active particple of انقبر.

The rest is as Maha said.


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## CZAREK

rayloom said:


> Just a note on منقبر, here it's not the verb (equivalent of نقبر = we bury), here it's an active particple of انقبر.
> 
> The rest is as Maha said.


 


> here it's an active particple of انقبر.


 
I  think that Levantine countries use it as a conjugated verb,however I might be wrong .

When you say "mne2dar"(we can) ,"mneshbrab"(we drink),mne7ke"(we speak),it is not an active particple form .


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## rayloom

CZAREK said:


> I  think that Levantine countries use it as a conjugated verb,however I might be wrong .
> 
> When you say "mne2dar"(we can) ,"mneshbrab"(we drink),mne7ke"(we speak),it is not an active particple form .



You can see how these differ from the active participle form of انفعل in Levantine Arabic. 
Consider:
مْنِقْبُر vs مِنْقِبِر

men2eber (in question) vs mne2bor
The latter being (we bury/we're burying)


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## CZAREK

rayloom said:


> You can see how these differ from the active participle form انفعل in Levantine Arabic.
> Consider:
> مْنِقْبُر vs مِنْقِبِر
> 
> men2eber vs mne2bor
> The latter being (we bury/we're burying)


 

Thank you rayl for explanation.


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## clevermizo

rayloom said:


> Just a note on منقبر, here it's not the verb (equivalent of نقبر = we bury), here it's an active particple of انقبر.
> 
> The rest is as Maha said.




Thanks Rayloom, makes perfect sense. I was thrown off by seeing the vowel before the 2 in the original spelling .

This might be similar to the English "dead asleep" though I think it's a little harsher perhaps in Arabic based on Maha's comments above.


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## إسكندراني

clevermizo said:


> Thanks Rayloom, makes perfect sense. I was thrown off by seeing the vowel before the 2 in the original spelling .


It's just their way of pronouncing (munqabir) seemingly


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## clevermizo

إسكندراني said:


> It's just their way of pronouncing (munqabir) seemingly



Actually it would be _min2*i*ber_ but I think it's just a spelling "mistake" (although we know in colloquial there are no mistakes - maybe a spelling "imprecision."  ) (The basic pattern is _minfi3el_ مــِنــْــفــِــعــِــل. I presume it's the same in Egyptian?)


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## cherine

clevermizo said:


> This might be similar to the English "dead asleep" though I think it's a little harsher perhaps in Arabic based on Maha's comments above.


That's exactly how I understood it (even though I'd never pretend being an expert of any dialect).
Seeing also that it's a Facebook status, I don't think it's that harsh either (Maha surely knows better than me, but allow me to have a different opinion here  ).
An Egyptian would put mayyet ميت (dead), and that wouldn't be harsh when describing oneself as too tired and too sleepy.
Edit: I just remembered (!) that we say نايم مقتول and نايم قتيل for dead asleep. 


clevermizo said:


> (The basic pattern is _minfi3el_ مــِنــْــفــِــعــِــل. I presume it's the same in Egyptian?)


I think we use maf3uul much more than menfe3el.


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## إسكندراني

cherine said:


> That's exactly how I understood it (even though I'd never pretend being an expert of any dialect).
> Seeing also that it's a Facebook status, I don't think it's that harsh either (Maha surely knows better than me, but allow me to have a different opinion here  ).
> An Egyptian would put mayyet ميت (dead), and that wouldn't be harsh when describing oneself as too tired and too sleepy.
> Edit: I just remembered (!) that we say نايم مقتول and نايم قتيل for dead asleep.
> 
> I think we use maf3uul much more than menfe3el.


طبّيت ميّت


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## Silky_Sword

It means like in Egyptian: metnayyel nayem متنيل نايم.

It's definitely Shami / Levantine, and he wrote it while annoyed or bothered by something, it's like he's cursing himself (no, it's not like "dead asleep" in English, no).

It's like how in today's English slang they insert the 'f' word to indicate severity or harshness before an adjective, with the 'ing'...

It's like he was wishing death while asleep due to something he had gone through before going to bed, or as in "don't bother me now, I'm f-ing asleep!", you know?

Sorry I had to bring up that 'f' word like that, but that's the closest and perhaps ONLY equivalent in English so that you guys understand what the famous sleeping Lebanese here is saying :/

There are many words to be used other than men2eber (which would translate here to: buried in my grave / qabr / 2aber in Shami Arabic), the Egyptian equivalent 'metnayyel' is one. Other non-Lebanese Shamis say other things like metsa55em / متسخم


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## Mahaodeh

clevermizo said:


> This might be similar to the English "dead asleep" though I think it's a little harsher perhaps in Arabic based on Maha's comments above.



I don't think so, it's not about describing the sleep, it's about expressing it in a not so nice way.




cherine said:


> I don't think it's that harsh either...
> 
> An Egyptian would put mayyet ميت (dead),




OK, I think you didn't get the idea, an Egyptian equivalent would be something like (I think) نايم متخمد; or similar to something like قاعد مترزع.

Maybe harsh is not the best word to use, but it is something that might be said to you when whoever said it is mad at you. It's not particularly insulting but it's not very nice to say either.

In the context above, it's obviously said sarcastically.


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## إسكندراني

Silky_Sword said:


> It means like in Egyptian: metnayyel nayem متنيل نايم.


We would say منقبر as well, or ميّت - it doesn't seem as strong as متنيّل.

EDIT: نايم قتيل not منقبر


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## cherine

Mahaodeh said:


> OK, I think you didn't get the idea, an Egyptian equivalent would be something like (I think) نايم متخمد; or similar to something like قاعد مترزع.
> 
> Maybe harsh is not the best word to use, but it is something that might be said to you when whoever said it is mad at you. It's not particularly insulting but it's not very nice to say either.
> 
> In the context above, it's obviously said sarcastically.


Yes, I was talking in the light of this particular context. The person is obviously speaking about himself (it's his FB status, and apparently he's discribing himself not someone else). This is why I understood it as feeling too tired.
In which case, wouldn't you translate it as "dead asleep" or something like that? If not, how would you translate it?


Silky_Sword said:


> It means like in Egyptian: metnayyel nayem متنيل نايم.


This is harsher that نايم مقتول/قتيل . It's like someone was too depressed/angry, not too tired.
Different.


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## Silky_Sword

I think I got it spot on, guys, with the English equivalent I mentioned. Why is it so hard for people here sometimes to agree with someone who reached for the right answer before them or after them?!?!

In Palestine we say متنيل نايم and no, neelah is not harsher than qabr. Neelah in Egyptian comes from the color 'blue' of the Heksus' eyes (they invaded Egypt in ancient times and that invasion was a disaster "neelah" for Egyptian -the word derived from the Heksus' eye color, hence 'blue' became 'synonymous' in Egyptian language to 'disaster'. And obviously disaster isn't worse than 'death' or being buried in a grave!


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## Softmint

thank you everyone for the explanation and details 

*@Silky_Word*: I understood what you meant. So if *mene2ber* is written alone, it means: _don't bother me_ ?


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## Silky_Sword

It really acts as "f-ing" in the vulgar English slang, that's the closest I can think of. It's not even like "I'm damned (or) dead tired", no. I guess you can't literally translate it because every language will have its peculiar expressions no matter how hard we try, but like I said, that's the context it would be used in.

If written alone it means exactly what it literally means usually, 'buried in his grave' (unless you know the person is alive for sure, then whoever would have said that would be just mad at the 'mene2ber' dude, doesn't want to see him, etc, as if he were indeed buried in a grave, lol!


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## Softmint

Silky_Sword said:


> If written alone it means exactly what it literally means usually, 'buried in his grave' (unless you know the person is alive for sure, then whoever would have said that would be just mad at the 'mene2ber' dude, doesn't want to see him, etc, as if he were indeed buried in a grave, lol!



 Lolthanks but he doesn't mention anyone, so I don't know if he's mad at someone or whoever.
His next status was "yatasamam". Could it be somehow linked?


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## Silky_Sword

LOOOOOL, the new word 'yatasammam' means literally 'swallowing poison'!!!  He's mad again while eating, wishing if his food was poisonous so that he may die afterwards and rid himself of whatever he's going through at that moment! Very similar to wishing if his bed were his grave in the earlier example 'men2eber' 

In my last comment I wasn't saying he was referring to anyone necessarily. If he has the word 'men2eber' beside a present-continuous verb, it means like I said: "I'm f-ing (then the actual action he's doing)" -if he's men2eber sitting in front of TV, then he's mad and he's saying I'm f-ing sitting in front of TV wishing I'd never get up from here alive", something like that. Or if only 'men2eber' then he means 'I'm asleep, may I never wake up from my sleep', like that,  lol.


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## Softmint

lol thanks for the explanation XD
it cannot be said in a _humoristic_ way? I mean does the person necesseraly has to be mad?


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## Silky_Sword

Don't think so  no humor about wishing death like that by referring to the grave  Humor would require different vocabulary altogether!


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## Softmint

Silky_Sword said:


> Don't think so  no humor about wishing death like that by referring to the grave  Humor would require different vocabulary altogether!



I meant leaving aside the "yatasamam".
It's weird because this person isn't suicidal at all, nor depressive.


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## إسكندراني

It's very likely *sarcasm*; he seems to be making jokes.
X is buried asleep.
X is poisoning himself.


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## Silky_Sword

Don't understand what you mean in the first line of your last comment...

Doesn't have to be really suicidal. It's just a habit in Arabs when they speak from ancient times (we have a record of Prophet Muhammad commanding us not to wish death when we are in despair from life or annoyed by its troubles. I guess it's one of those things certain languages and people have a habit of saying or doing while others don't). It may be hard for a non-Arab to grasp the mere mention of grave in such a context but it's not surprising for Arabs to hear from someone fed-up with any troubling worldly task he has or a worldly affliction.

It's like our names. Arabs' names have meanings all the time, and I read once that only Arabs have the name Saber (which means one who has patience). Ancient Arabs had given their children names like Rock, Dog, War, harsh names for their kids are directed at their enemies, while they'd give their own slaves pleasant names because, their explanation was, "we name our slaves for ourselves" (because it is them who will be calling them most often, more than strangers, so they'd rather be uttering a pleasant name frequently). This is just an example of how some peoples have their own way of thinking about expressions and names


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## Silky_Sword

إسكندراني said:


> It's very likely *sarcasm*; he seems to be making jokes.
> X is buried asleep.
> X is poisoning himself.



C'mon bro, we're Arabs, we know what we mean when we say that. He's definitely not really acting on what he's expressing there, but he's clearly mad and deeply bothered!

Why don't we ask the guy? LOL


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## Softmint

Silky_Sword said:


> C'mon bro, we're Arabs, we know what we mean when we say that. He's definitely not really acting on what he's expressing there, but he's clearly mad and deeply bothered!
> 
> Why don't we ask the guy? LOL



 Lol no! I'm not supposed to have him in my list! XD xD
(thanks for the "arabic names" section  )


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## إسكندراني

Silky_Sword said:


> C'mon bro, we're Arabs, we know what we mean when we say that. He's definitely not really acting on what he's expressing there, but he's clearly mad and deeply bothered!


Bro you're not even presenting an argument! In my view he's clearly kidding. But it's not our concern in any case  so long as we've helped the asker with the meaning.


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## Silky_Sword

He's not serious. That's different from saying he's kidding. He's Shami, so I'd understand what he means more than you, maybe, because you guys don't have that expression. I explained it in light of my knowledge of Levantine Arabic, it being my 'mother tongue'.

Or do you claim to now my dialect more than me?


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## Softmint

it's ok I got what it meant now, no need to get mad at eachother 
it was really helpful


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## Kinan

Silky Sword has explained it all I guess.
Also, a mother sometimes say it to her kids, for example : يالله, انقبر و نام
She doesn't hate him of course but he might be bothering and annoying her at that time, so it's not as harsh as you people think.


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