The Ottoman Translation Tradition as an Untouched Field of Research

Abstract

Studies on translation activities in Turkey continue to increase in number, especially after the 2000s. Most of this research focuses on the Republican era, while a few focus on translations based on Western sources after the Tanzimat. In the long period from the thirteenth century to the Republican era, the Turkish translation tradition, whose sources in Islamic civilization were largely written in Arabic and Persian, did not attract much attention. In the first part of this article, which is intended to be a new invitation to researchers of Ottoman translation history, the previous studies on Ottoman translation history are arranged according to scientific disciplines, and we attempt to describe them by mentioning some representative studies. Following this section, some research questions related to the topic are listed, highlighting the areas of the Ottoman translation tradition that are open for fruitful research and investigation. It is emphasized that the Ottoman translation tradition is available to researchers as a untouched field, in such a way that it will expand and diversify the field of Translation Studies and it will be possible, going forward, to conduct more qualified research and studies on such translation texts in the field of Turkology. The last part of the article mentions the minimum level of qualifications expected of a historian of Ottoman translation.