Talk:İstiklal Marşı

Translation

I would like to offer my translation of the first two verses for consideration as a way of capturing the gist of the lyrics while attempting to match the syllable count, maintain a rhyme scheme, and have the translation be singable. I am not Turkish but I hope this does justice to the original.

Fear not ye this crimson flag in the winds shall never cease to soar / Last of the endlessly blazing hearths above my motherland / That is my nation’s very own brightly shining beacon-star / That is mine, that is unmistakably my motherland’s.

Spite not, coy crescent, thy face—a sacrifice let me be / Smile on my lineage of heroes—why this anger, why this pride? / For would not the blood we shed be undeserving of thee / Freedom is my God-exalting nation’s fundamental right. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Metonyme (talk • contribs) 15:32, 7 November 2006

Woohoo! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.214.177.167 (talk • contribs) 16:55, 4 March 2006

• I am giving you the best Vandal of the week award! What does "Woohoo!" mean! When I see vandals like you, I don't erase your "interesting" writings. I let people to see the finest examples of the vandalism. With respect, the son of the nomadic warriors, Deliogul 16:12, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

• I'm disappointed to see that the English translation does not match the Turkish verses precisely and often adds some words (i.e. where is the word "proudly" on the first line of the original?) and misinterprets others ("Ulusun! Korkma." is translated to: "Recognize your innate strength, my friend" rather than the more accurate "Let it howl. Do not be afraid."). I still appreciate the effort of the translator, however, so rather than editing this translation I would like to add my own -- more accurate -- translation to the page soon. This way English readers can read Mehmet Akif purely without the interpretations of a translator. Thanks. RingOfGyges 22:00, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I would be happy to see any alternative translations and especially ones that try to take into account the original religious context within which the author was operating. But are you saying that it is impossible to capture that religiosity using modern translation-equivalents? If so, does that not render the set of religious connotations inaccessible to a secular audience, thus only sharpening the divide between secular and religious audiences? For example, in Islam one is supposed to refer to God as Allah. But the word "Allah" which means "the [one and only] God" predated the appearance of Islam in the history of the Arabic language. In fact the word is related to "ilah" which means "a/any god" which suggests that before the advent of Islam, "allah" could simply be taken to mean the god (in response to which one could ask, "well, which one are you talking about?"). Hence by insisting on one particular interpretation of the word, one ignores the rich history of the word and the myriad ways in which it has been understood over time. It seems that the person who wrote the comment below would object to such a selective forgetting of history. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Metonyme (talk • contribs) 15:48, 7 November 2006

The translation can be worked on but a commendable effort

I was disapointed with the translation because I feel it does not take into account the history of the writer of the poem, Mehmet Akif Ersoy.

We musn't forget he was a religious poet. He was known in the Muslim world as a poet who used to write poems that encouraged people. His poems were very zealious and this one is nothing short.

When reading the poem in Turkish we must remember that it was written in a time when the Turkish language was slightly different to the form it is in now. It was influenced by Arabic and Persian a lot more than it is now. Once again if we look at the history of the poet we must imagine the context he wrote it and not the context that we may understand the poem now. Turkey is a country that is very influenced by nationalism. Where as the poem was written at a time and by a guy that was very religious.

When reading the translations of the Quran which is Arabic the translator often adds commentary in brackets which was not in the original language. This is because the context of the language may be mis-intepreted with translation. The same must be done in the translation of the poem.

When readers of the poem translate this we must ask how familiar they are with the language and how familiar they are with the language of the time it was written as well as how familiar they are with the language of the Quran. I say this because a lot of people who are Turkish may translate this with their secular goggles on forgetting it was written by an Islamist.

I will add my version of the translation above the former version in hope that we can benifit from both. Of course I am only human and there may also be errors with mine. Id like to hear from people if there are. may Allah accept our efforts as noble. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kibrisli7 (talk • contribs) 15:32, 2 September 2006.

Only two verses?

All the vocal recordings I could find on the net cover only the first two verses of the Anthem. Is there a vocal version of the entire anthem out there, or are only the first two verses considered the Anthem? Inkan1969 04:54, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

♦ Yes, as it is stated in the article, only first two verses are sung. (probably for saving time) 88.228.156.112 10:38, 8 April 2007 (UTC)calasus

Why 2 translations?

I think there should be one definite translation with more clarifying notes. As it is now, I don't see how it is justified to have 2 very similar translations. 67.183.83.235 08:49, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

"Garb'ın âfâkını sarmışsa çelik zırhlı duvar,..."

As a Turk I wouldn't translate this line with "The lands of the West may be armored with walls of steel"

I think the poem has a more defensive characteric than a offensive one. After all it is written reffering to a big struggle for independence where the western countries were attacking Turkey, not the other way round.

In my opinion the words "Garb'ın afakını" (In modern Turkish: "Batı'nın dört bir yanını") could also be understood as the "western side of Turkey" which was surrounded with a lot of modernest battleships (particularly the battlefront at Aegean Sea; battles of Çanakkale and Gallipoli), therefore "walls of steel"?

Nonetheless it was also the eastern side of Turkey which was under hostile attack, so my theory could be wrong, but Ersoy was afaik especially involved at the western front, travelling from town to town, preaching and motivating soldier troops before they would strike out to the fronts - e.g. in Izmir.

But this is just a interpretation of mine. You can both agree or disagree... --85.178.155.166 02:57, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

You make a fair point, as the most costly front was by far the western one the others were resolved quite quickly. --Armanalp (talk) 15:55, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

İstiklal Marşı Bestesi Nerden Alındı

-This is Engllish language Wikipedia, remember? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.186.197.60 (talk) 14:51, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

İstiklal Marşı Bestesi Alman yahut Avusturya'nın Karmen Silva sokak Marşından alınmıştır. Kaynak:20.04.2208 Taraf Gazetesi - Ayşe Hür --212.175.115.4 (talk) 17:58, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

"Race" in the English translation

Are you sure that the right translation of "ırk" in Ottoman Turkish is "race"? In modern Turkish, "ırk" means "race", but it has a different meaning in Ottoman Turkish, and it should be. Because the poet of this poem is Mehmet Akif Ersoy who was form Albanian origin. Also, many of his poems he says that race (sometimes even nation) is a foolish concept and actually religion is important. So I think "nation" is better translate for this word. Actually even nation doesn't correspond for this word, because what Akif understands from "millet" and "ırk" words is much more different from today. "Millet" has also a religion-related meaning which is not used now. (see Millet (Ottoman Empire)) As you can see, he never used "Turk" word in İstiklâl Marşı, and neither any of his poems. For one of his poems that he opposed nationalism and the menaing of these words Akif used check [1] (Turkish)--Cfsenel (talk) 22:41, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

[2] Another English translation of the İstiklal Marşı which also has the original Ottoman Turkish text of the anthem. "Irk" is translated as "nation" here which I think better than "race". --Cfsenel (talk) 22:47, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Sound file with Lyrics

It would be nice to embed a version with chorus to accompany the the purely orchestral version. If anyone has a usable source, please contribute.Mavigogun (talk) 05:52, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Music

Is the same music/melody for the Turkish anthem also used for that of Azerbaijan? --71.111.194.50 (talk) 01:57, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

No. The melodies were composed by different composers and are completely different. You can listen to a sample of the Azerbaijani national anthem on our page Azərbaycan marşı.  --Lambiam 06:51, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

İstiklâl Marşı → İstiklal Marşı – The circumflex accent is no longer used to show palatalization of "l" in Turkish. According to the spelling dictionary here by the Turkish Language Association, it is written without the circumflex. amateur (talk) 11:46, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

• Questions - Amateur55, am trying to understand the page history. You did a move already on 27 April 2012 and then 15:11, 29 September 2012‎ Aguzer (talk | contribs)‎ . . (18,161 bytes) (+18,130)‎ . . (İstiklal is wrong. İstiklâl is trust.) (undo) reverted it by cut and paste, but left the Talk page? Is that about right. Anyway, can we have some evidence for the spelling change please. tr.wp is still at old spelling and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Turkey doesn't have any discussion. Thanks In ictu oculi (talk) 14:32, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
  • The reason why the Turkish Wikipedia is at the old spelling is because the people there don't recognize the official TDK spelling and use their own spelling rules instead. This page here clarifies the functions of circumflex in Turkish: It is used for showing long vowels where they are phonemic (1), it is used after k and g to show they are palatalized (2), it is used to show the Arabic nisba suffix in loanwords (3). It is no longer used to show palatalization of l, and as the first link shows, the official spelling is İstiklal Marşı. amateur (talk) 16:04, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Not exactly. See TDK guide in Turkish p.7. However altough İstiklal is of Arabic origin TDK dictionary doesn't use caret for the word.[3] Thus it seems the issue is not settled yet. Still taking the dictionary as the reference the move â → a can be done. Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 20:38, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

This is the 2000 edition. The change was made afterwards. It is no longer used for palatalized l. See the link above at the official TDK website. amateur (talk) 22:25, 18 December 2012 (UTC)