(1) In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (2) Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. (3) And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. (4) God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. (5) God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning-the first day.
(1) Tanri once cenneti ve dunyayi yaratti. (2) Simdi dunya sekilsiz ve bostu, karanlik derinligin yuzeyindeydi, ve Tanri'nin ruhu sularin uzerinde bekliyordu. (3) Ve Tanri, "Isik olsun," dedi, ve isik geldi. (4) Tanri isigin iyi oldugunu gordu, ve isigi karanliktan ayirdi. (5) Tanri isiga "gunduz," karanliga ise "gece" adini verdi. Ve aksam oldu, ve sabah - ilk gun.
The most difficult decision that I had to make about translating these verses from English to Turkish is how to translate the word "God." In Turkish, we have two different words for God: Tanri or Allah. Since Turkish language is the official language of Turkey - that is, a largely Muslim country, we almost always use the word Allah rather than Tanri, because it is how it is used in the holy book, Quran. Also, in colloquial language, the idioms that we use, such as "God forbid," we almost always use Allah. I don't know the exact reason why we prefer Allah over Tanri, but to me using the word Tanri seems more distant and unnecessarily formal. On the other hand, Allah has a more positive connotation in my mind - it feels much closer.
The problem here stems from the fact that people from other religions often know that Allah is a word which Muslims use for the word God. Not many people know the other word (Tanri). Thus, the word Allah is closely associated with Islam. Since the terrorist attacks on September 11, the question of whether there is a relationship between Islam and terrorism has been widely disputed, and the word Allah, "the Muslim God" as people would like to refer to as, has been used many times in the media.
These reasons are why I could not decide which of the two words I should choose to translate the word God from English to Turkish. At the end, I ended up choosing the word Tanri in order to free the translation from any unintended implications.
Other decisions that I had to made while translating the verses were not this difficult, but they still left lingering thoughts in my mind. For instance, while translating the word "heavens," I was not sure whether I should translate it as plural or singular. In Turkish, we never use that word in a plural form, and it sounds very unfamiliar. Since we believe that there is one heaven, heavens sound very unbelievable. I think this also shows the relationship between cultural beliefs and language. At the end, I ended up using heaven instead of heavens.
Another issue that came up is about how to translate the word earth. In English, earth can mean the world or soil. In Turkish, however, that distinction is very clear and those two words are not synonymous. I assume that in this context, the earth is meant to describe the world, so I chose to translate the word like that.
The same issue came up with the word "day." Even though in the context it seems to describe the morning, I still was not sure. Again, in Turkish we have two very distinct words to describe a day and a morning, and they are not interchangeable. I decided to translate the word day as morning in Turkish.
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Begum, great discussion about the use of the word "Allah." It's interesting how politicized the word has become. Do you know if it had similar connotations in the past (20 yrs ago) or is it a more recent phenomenon?
ReplyDeleteI always find it interesting to read about how people translate between languages and the loss or gain of different meanings/definitions of words. For me, chinese is pretty simple because I literally can translate without having to worry about anything except the literal definition of the word. So I personally find it fascinating when there are more things to think about than just the pure definition.
ReplyDeleteWhat you wrote about Allah having new connotations since September 11th is really interesting. I never thought of that, but I do believe it's true. I, like many people, have not heard the word Tanri, and I do closely associate Allah with Islam. It's unfortunate that now Allah has a slightly negative connotation. And it's unbelievable how a whole other culture (Americans) can transform such a sacred word.
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