11/29/2010

Notes: Episode 10

This post includes some notes and explanations about Episode 10. I tried to cover the areas I thought might be confusing to non-Turkish viewers.

Let me know what you think. And whether I should continue doing this.

### IMPORTANT ### Don't continue reading if you haven't watched Episode 10 yet, since the content of this post might include spoilers.

(Episode 10: Part 1 & Part 2)




The Superstition (That Rahmi performed at the beginning of the Episode)


I'm not sure if this is a common superstition in other countries/cultures. But what he did included:

1- Blowing some kind of weird kiss into the air while holding his ear lob with his right thumb and pointer finger.
2- Hitting the second knuckle of his pointer finger on a wooden surface three times.

This is believed to ward off (spoken) bad thoughts.

If you can't find a wooden surface, you can always hit your knuckle on a friends head! (Just kidding!)



"...HALACIĞIM..."

Fatmagül: Why don't you go to bed, Halacığım?
Her nephew: I waited for you, Halacığım.

In the episode, I translated "Halacığım" as sweetie in the first sentence, and as aunt in the second.

First of all, in the word "Halacığım", "Hala" is a word that means "Aunt". And "-cığım" is an affix adding a meaning similar to "my dear" to the word it is added.

So "Halacığım" can mean, "my dear aunt" and this is one of the two uses of this word.

The second use of the same word (where it means "sweetie") can be a little bit confusing to you. But for Fatmagül, as "aunt" of Murat, "Halacığım" is just another way of saying "sweetie" in Turkish.

If they were siblings, this time Fatmagül could have said "Ablacığım" when she was telling her little brother to go to bed. And Murat would have answered "I waited for you, Ablacığım."

So yes, I can say "Abiciğim" instead of "sweetie, honey, dear, sweetheart" to someone who is much ***younger*** than me. It is not very common, but still I thought I'd try and explain, in case you guys wondered why Murat and Fatmagul were calling each other "Halacığım". Perhaps this can be of some use to people learning Turkish language, too.

I shall repeat again. Halacığım means "my dear aunt" literally. But the aunt person can call her nephew "Halacığım" as well, which then means "sweetie, honey" etc. instead of "my dear aunt".

Hope you are not confused even more now :)



ON: MUSTAFA BEING "OFF THE BAR"

The guy in the dining hall who pissed Mustafa off says: "He was off the bar in the final moment."

By this he wants to imply that Mustafa was engaged and just barely missed the marriage. And explains it using Football terms.

-Mustafa was like a Football that is about to enter the goal. / He was engaged and happy with the girl he wants to marry.
-But at the final moment, the ball hit the bar and bounced back. / After the rape incident, engagement was called off, while they had been counting days to get married.



SACRIFICIAL SHEEP

A sacrificial sheep is a sheep who is used by muslims as act of worship. As the word suggests, those sheeps are sacrificed for the God, mostly in Kurban Bayramı, and sometimes as a vow (outside the Bayrams).



"... Tevbe tevbe..."

Mukaddes says that when she is annoyed or angry at something, but doesn't want to offend God. "Tevbe" is (as far as I know) a word of apology and pledge in Arabic.



"... LET ME SEE IF YOU'VE GROWN ANY TALLER..."

When Kerim returns home after meeting Vural and the others, Meryem says to Kerim "Let me see if you've grown any taller." of course in a sarcastic way... to make him understand that, meeting Vural wasn't a good idea. It did nothing good (didn't make him grow any taller) but it made everyone in the household worried.



Coffee Scene

In the scene Mukaddes finishes drinking her Turkish coffee. Says "I'm closing it, are you gonna take a look?". By this she actually asks if Ebe Nine will do a fortune-telling for Mukaddes, by inspecting the grounds remaining in Mukaddes's coffee cup.

In Turkey, fortune-telling is pretty popular. And the most interesting area they perform fortune-telling is the coffee cups. If you ever had a Turkish coffee, you know that it is a very intense drink, and the final part of it is too tough to swallow, barely liquid and tastes very bitter.

So when the drinker (in our case, Mukaddes) drinks most of her coffee and reaches the final (undrinkable) part, she "closes it" by turning the coffee upside down. Since the remains of the coffee is so intense and barely liquid, it runs down very slowly along the sides of the "upside down" coffee cup and leaves random (sometimes interesting) patterns on the way.

We keep the coffee close and still for a while, like 5-10 minutes. And when it is guessed to be dried, the fortune-teller opens the cup, looks at the shapes of the coffee remains in the cup and begins telling what she sees in there, believed to be the fortune of the person who drank from that cup.

In that certain scene, Ebe Nine refuses to look at Mukaddes's fortune. As one may expect from her.


"... Kolay Gelsin..." and "... Geçmiş Olsun..."

This phrases are used a lot, maybe in every episode. They don't have exact counter parts in English language, unfortunately. So I leave them untranslated in most cases.

"Kolay Gelsin" is usually translated as "Take it easy" although it has a slightly different meaning. Kolay Gelsin -literally- means "may your work(or whatever you do) be easy to you". But can be used in many circumstances in a similar context, mostly meaning "May you work in peace, and success", "May your work not tire you down" etc.

It can be said to a person who is working or who is about to work. By work, you can understand anything that needs any effort. It can be a janitor cleaning the floor, or a fisher who is about to go fishing, or a police officer on patrol.

"Geçmiş Olsun" is said to someone to whom an unpleasant thing has just happened. Like when Selim was back home after being arrested. They said him "Geçmiş Olsun". Meaning, "It's okay now. Whatever troubling you is over."

You also use Geçmiş Olsun to someone who has an illness. Then it means, "I hope you'll be okay", "You'll recover" , or someone whose illness is cured. Like, "You are okay, it is over".

So basicly, "Geçmiş Olsun" is used for sharing someones pain or trouble. Can be used to someone who had a car incident, someone who is out of prison, someone who just tripped and fell, or someone who has an illness.

Hope I didn't confuse you even more with those explanations. Feel free to drop a comment if you have any other questions about this episode.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice and useful topic...
About the coffee scene and fortune telling, I have seen that before, especially in some egyptian or syrian movies, I think it's pretty popular not only in Tyrkey but also in many other countries...I remember watching a movie last week with the same scene: a greec man was looking at his brother's fortune....

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for this topic it was very useful and intresting especially "Kolay Gelsin" and "Geçmiş Olsun"

i'm egyptian and we have alot in common like SACRIFICIAL SHEEP in Adha (Kurban) feast and fortune telling using coffee cups.

i think using the word SACRIFICIAL SHEEP he meant a man who will take the blame and go to prison instead of vural and erdogan.

"TEVBE" i think means the word "tawba" in arabic which means asking Allah for forgiveness after doing something wrong and regretting it.

thanks again for your work waiting for more useful notes from you and please translate episode 11 trailler.

Anonymous said...

thank so much for doing this for us and of course we want you to continue and trust me i am spreading the word about this like cnn news. i also love the translation and the high quality picture :))))

Anonymous said...

Thanks a lot !
In lebanon, as a supestition, we knock the wood like in turkey.
And we have the fortune telling inside the coffee cup, and the "growing taller" expression too
As for the "tevbe", it might come from "Tawbe" which is this arabic word of "regret"

lol there are so many words in common between arabic and turkish. I guess it's because of the 400 years of Turkey's occupation of Lebanon and the neighbour countries

Anonymous said...

many of Turkish word are smeller of Arabic word i m from UAE and i understand a lot of Turkish words also hala the same meaning in Arabic languorous which means the sister of mother but in Arabic use the letter of خ or kh in E. yany khala like my name khaili I believed that Arab and Turkish are the same kaltcher and traditional resources that my opeanyen

Anonymous said...

Ah, one more thing, in arabic we say:

Kolay Gelsin = ya3tik el 3afie (when someone is working or is about to work or finished some kind of task)
Geçmiş Olsun = 3a salama (when someone has an accident or gets sick)

They dont have exactly the same meaning than the turkish words, but they are used in the same contexts

Anonymous said...

These notes are so helpful , they make us come closer to Turkish culture .thanks a lot.

Admin said...

I am glad you like the notes. I enjoy writing them!

And yes, Turkish has a lot of Arabic words left from Ottomans era. Even our two main greeting words "Merhaba" and "Selam" have Arabic origins.

Anonymous said...

There is also
"Tamam"
"Tesekkur" comes from "Shoukran"

Anonymous said...

This is very useful and educational especially for those who are not familiar with eastern traditions and cultures. In my opinion Turkey and the Turkish ppl combine the two worlds.They share so many similarities with the eastern world, at the same time they adapted many of the western views. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and making us closer even with the language barrier.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for this posting. Are you posting subtitles for Bolum 2 to 9? Kolay Gelsin :)

Anonymous said...

Hi,
I have some questions:
in the begining Fatmagul is beging Mustafa to take her in the house of his parents, till they finish own house.
By the law can Fatmagul claime half of her own house(is she entitled as a sister?),
ask money from M&R and leave Mukaddes and Rahmi to finish her house with Mustafa. Or is it so that everything go to male inheritance? I mean, she is a modern cinderellla, but I will not stay a second longer with Mukaddes under one roof, tovbe, tovbe;)Evil woman, great acting!

Anonymous said...

Wow! what a great effort you're doing. I appreciate it and would like to thank you for it. I love your comments and explanations. I hope you will continue to the end.

Anonymous said...

These notes on culture are so appreciated.Your generosity is so wonderful. Although i lived in istanbul for 2 years, i never learned the detailed meaning of these terms so i love reading these notes. I still say Gecmis olsun or Allah seninle olsun to myself whenever an ambulance goes past here in Canada. It's such an engrained habit now. -Kanada'dan

Anonymous said...

Im from Palestine and we also do that thing with the cofee even though i don't realy belive in it but my Khala(Hala) always does it and reads her future. And ive never rrealy heard the word 'Tevbe' in arabic maybe its 'Tawbe'?

Admin said...

Yeah, Tevbe is probably how we write 'Tawbe' in Turkish.

Rusul said...

I think "Geçmiş Olsun" is similar to "Salamat" in Arabic. It also has no counter part in English. Salamat probably is closest to Afiyat in Turkish! Alos you mentioned Tevbe (we pronounce it Toba) and it is the noun of the verb Yatoob which means returning back to the correct road after committing a sin. It must be very hard work to do all this. Thank you for your great efforts.

Pastel Heart said...

like like like :)
thx a lot for this note and let me comment on 3 of it
1-the act of Rahmi is not in a lot cutural but in Egypt we have some thing a bit like it, and this coz Egyptian mixed with Turkish more than any other nation so we have a lot alike
2-tevbe it's an Arabic term indeed come from TAOUBA but Turkish converts the U to V. and it mean redemption to Allah.
3- I asked a Turkish Friend about Geçmiş Olsun he said they mean my this distress or misfortune or illness never come back :)and oh yeah about the coffee scene in the east we read the coffe cups not tea leaves ;)

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