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Some Turkish city names translated directly into English (lemy.lol)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

12 comments fedilink hide all child comments

There’s also “you may enter” 🙂

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

Quite a number of mistakes here:

"Kocaeli" translated as "husbands hand" comes from "Koca ili" named after Akça Koca. "Koca" in this context means "Great" as in "highborn" and "il" means province so this is better translated as "Koca's province" or "The highborn's province".

"Aksaray" translated as "white fortress" is better translated as "white palace".

"Ağrı" here translated as "pain" is named after the Turkish name of Mount Ararat which is "Ağrı Dağı". The name has been in use for a very long time and the exact etymology is not known as far as I know, possibly meaning "fiery".

How "Afyon" is translated as "Opium black fortress" I cannot even understand, it just means "opium". The provinces name is literally just "opium". Maybe the only one that could have been directly translated, no research needed.

"Aydın" comes from the name of a historical person, so it's either still "Aydın", or the meaning of that name which is better translated as "enlightened" since "intellectual" doesn't really make sense in the context of the 14th century.

There are probably others. I would guess that "Kırklareli" is also from smushing "ili" at the end of another word. No offense intended but this reads as some Turkish learners attempt at translating city names by just literally looking up the words in a dictionary with no regard for the actual etymology or context.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Question: several of the places listed here have the word "hand" in the name: fortys hand, husbands hand, bronze hand. What does "hand" mean in this context?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

The turkish word for hand is "el", and if for example I talked about your hand I would say "Athos77'un eli". Ignoring the "un" suffix there, which I believe is rather modern, the translation of "Athos77eli" as "Athos77s hand" would be correct.

I know for Kocaeli and think also for the others it however comes from smushin two words together, "Forties" or "koca" with the word "il" which means "province". So it's not surprising to see it in the names of provinces. So if I was talking about a province named after you I woud say "Athos77 ili". As in "Athos77s province". The change from "ili" to "eli" happens when the last vowel of the first word is an "a" (Just taking "kocaeli" and possibly "kırklareli" as an example here). In turkish vowels are distinguished between "deep" (aoıu) and "high" (eiöü) and "wide" (aeoö) and "narrow" (ıiuü). The jump from a deep and wide vowel (in this case a) to a high and narrow vowel (i) sounds very jarring in turkish so the high and narrow "i" is changed to a high and wide "e" to make the transition from "a" less jarring as it only breaks one category instead of both at the same time. I hope that made sense.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Thank you, that was a very comprehensive and informative explanation!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It's been a decade and a half since I had to use that knowledge lol Kind of suprised what I remember from 7th grade I think?? 😂

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

I think it's fantastic!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Karahisar

[–] [email protected] -2 points 10 months ago

As the title says, it is direct translation without context. But good info 👍

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

...is this legit? I was on board until I saw 'Has a badass name'.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

It's a literal translation attempt. The problem with words used as names is that they grow seperately from the rest of the language. Take "Dick" as short for "Richard" vs "dick" as in dick. "Adıyaman" does literally mean "It's name is badass" if you read it as the two words "Adı yaman" put together. But it's likely that the name was imported from a different language altogether namely the one of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luwians who lived in that region.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

Would have liked to see the turkish name also

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Love this. Cross posted to [email protected]