Texts Migrate Too: A Descriptive Study of the English Translations of Karamanli Poetry

As a result of the population exchange agreement signed between Türkiye and Greece in 1924, approximately 1.5 million people had to relocate on both sides of the Aegean. The Karamanli, who used Greek letters as a written language but had for centuries produced works in Turkish, were also included in...

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Main Author: Özgür Bülent Erdoğan
Format: Article
Language:deu
Published: Istanbul University Press 2023-12-01
Series:İstanbul Üniversitesi Çeviribilim Dergisi
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Online Access:https://cdn.istanbul.edu.tr/file/JTA6CLJ8T5/7F4E920EEE5C4D44B7C9B958FD64EC6F
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author Özgür Bülent Erdoğan
author_facet Özgür Bülent Erdoğan
author_sort Özgür Bülent Erdoğan
collection DOAJ
description As a result of the population exchange agreement signed between Türkiye and Greece in 1924, approximately 1.5 million people had to relocate on both sides of the Aegean. The Karamanli, who used Greek letters as a written language but had for centuries produced works in Turkish, were also included in the exchange and expressed the difficulties they encountered in their new homeland in poems. A rare example of the Karamanli migrant literature, these poems were originally published in Karamanli Turkish between 1924-1927 in Athens. Twenty-five poems from this collection were republished in 2016 under the title Muhacirname [The Poems of the Migrants] in Istanbul. The English translation of these poems almost a century later facilitated their international circulation. This study analyzes the English translations of the book and its paratext (i.e., preface, notes, articles, interviews with translators) in terms of translation norms. The first stage of the analysis shows the classification of the poems in terms of translation categories to suggest that they are after all interlingual translations. The second phase uses the concept of translation norms (Toury, 2004) to identify the explicit translator decisions regarding the challenges of poetry translation. These translations of Karamanli poems have capital importance in terms of providing historical information on the migration process of literary texts in nearby geographies as well as in terms of how the ethnolinguistic repertoire of Karamanli has been conserved across borders.
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series İstanbul Üniversitesi Çeviribilim Dergisi
spelling doaj-art-b03b946b7af74b3eaf699270bbea375b2025-08-20T02:58:38ZdeuIstanbul University Pressİstanbul Üniversitesi Çeviribilim Dergisi2717-69592023-12-011914215210.26650/iujts.2023.1230365123456Texts Migrate Too: A Descriptive Study of the English Translations of Karamanli PoetryÖzgür Bülent Erdoğan0https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4949-4841Fatih Sultan Mehmet Vakıf Üniversitesi, Istanbul, TurkiyeAs a result of the population exchange agreement signed between Türkiye and Greece in 1924, approximately 1.5 million people had to relocate on both sides of the Aegean. The Karamanli, who used Greek letters as a written language but had for centuries produced works in Turkish, were also included in the exchange and expressed the difficulties they encountered in their new homeland in poems. A rare example of the Karamanli migrant literature, these poems were originally published in Karamanli Turkish between 1924-1927 in Athens. Twenty-five poems from this collection were republished in 2016 under the title Muhacirname [The Poems of the Migrants] in Istanbul. The English translation of these poems almost a century later facilitated their international circulation. This study analyzes the English translations of the book and its paratext (i.e., preface, notes, articles, interviews with translators) in terms of translation norms. The first stage of the analysis shows the classification of the poems in terms of translation categories to suggest that they are after all interlingual translations. The second phase uses the concept of translation norms (Toury, 2004) to identify the explicit translator decisions regarding the challenges of poetry translation. These translations of Karamanli poems have capital importance in terms of providing historical information on the migration process of literary texts in nearby geographies as well as in terms of how the ethnolinguistic repertoire of Karamanli has been conserved across borders.https://cdn.istanbul.edu.tr/file/JTA6CLJ8T5/7F4E920EEE5C4D44B7C9B958FD64EC6Fgreek-turkish population exchangekaramanli poetrymigration literaturemuhacirnametranslation norms
spellingShingle Özgür Bülent Erdoğan
Texts Migrate Too: A Descriptive Study of the English Translations of Karamanli Poetry
İstanbul Üniversitesi Çeviribilim Dergisi
greek-turkish population exchange
karamanli poetry
migration literature
muhacirname
translation norms
title Texts Migrate Too: A Descriptive Study of the English Translations of Karamanli Poetry
title_full Texts Migrate Too: A Descriptive Study of the English Translations of Karamanli Poetry
title_fullStr Texts Migrate Too: A Descriptive Study of the English Translations of Karamanli Poetry
title_full_unstemmed Texts Migrate Too: A Descriptive Study of the English Translations of Karamanli Poetry
title_short Texts Migrate Too: A Descriptive Study of the English Translations of Karamanli Poetry
title_sort texts migrate too a descriptive study of the english translations of karamanli poetry
topic greek-turkish population exchange
karamanli poetry
migration literature
muhacirname
translation norms
url https://cdn.istanbul.edu.tr/file/JTA6CLJ8T5/7F4E920EEE5C4D44B7C9B958FD64EC6F
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