TRANSLATION OF COLLOQUIAL LANGUAGE AND DIALECTS: AS AN ILLUSTRATION OF “THE UNDYING GRASS”

Abstract

Yaşar Kemal is one of the prominent novelists of Modern Turkish Literature and he is commonly recognized as the writer of Çukurova. His first and best-known novel, Ince Memed, won the Turkish highest literary prize “Varlık.” In 1961, Edouard Roditi translated Yaşar Kemal’s epic novel, Ince Memed under the English title Memed, My Hawk, and it is still in print today. Yaşar Kemal’s novel gained popularity and earned literary fame outside of Turkey. As Barry Tharaud stated in his article, “Death, Childhood and Primal Fear in Yaşar Kemal’s The Wind from the Plain”, Yaşar Kemal is one of the great living authors of world literature. The Undying Grass is the third novel The Wind from the Plain trilogy and it was published in 1968, the concluding volume of the last part's translation appeared in 1969, 1974 and, 1977. The Undying Grass is Yaşar Kemal's eight book of fiction to become available in English. The representation of Kemal's style in the English translation of his novels is explicitly formed by the constancy indicated, translators; Thilda Kemal, Edouard Roditi and, Margeret E. Platon during the translation process, predominantly, Thilda Kemal has been a leading figure in spreading Yaşar Kemal's reputation as an author in the English-speaking communities. In this article, the purpose is rather than analyzing and discussing Thilda Kemal’s translation, focusing on culture specific elements such as proper names, proverbs, idioms and usage of language notably dialects.