Folk Songs, Translation and the Question of (Pseudo-)Originals

2008

AbstractThis article examines the translation of Kurdish folk songs into Turkish, an issue which became the subject of a heated debate and controversy in Turkey during the 1990s. It outlines three areas of criticism related to the translations in question and analyzes the translation strategies used as well as the textual-linguistic makeup of the lyrics. Although criticism tended to focus on the cultural policies of the Turkish state, on the translators themselves, and on questions of ethics and economic exploitation, the translations paradoxically display loss, destruction and forgetting on the one hand, and gain, survival and remembering of Kurdish culture on the other. The translators se…