Cyprus-Forum.com

[turkcyp]

I am loughing to whoever made this translation to Turkish.

"Lordos is moderately heartened by these results. No fundamental blocks, nothing a few concessions from Ankara can't fix. But Europe in general may be rather less sanguine. Here's a critical decision for 25, maybe 28, countries, a momentous reaching out to democratic Islam - and 600,000 Greek Cypriots, too slow to see the big picture, seem ready to stall it for a few thousand homes in Famagusta and a few million extra compensation. Fundamental mis-match. The coming years can't all be about muscling further concessions out of Ankara. They have to put pressure to shift minds on the Greek side as well."

is translated as

"Lordos'a göre AB, önümüzdeki yılları Ankara'yı daha fazla taviz vermeye zorlayarak geçirmemeli. Aynı zamanda Rum tarafını da fikirlerini değiştirmeye zorlamalı. "

which means "According to Lordos, in the coming days EU should not spend its time trying to force Ankara for more concessions. At the same time, it should force the Greek side to change its opinions."

Not exactly the same is it. I guess somebody in the Turkish press is trying to make you a hero Alex.

p.s. This is why any internationla document, inlcuding Annan Plan, I try to read it in English, rather than in Turkish. SO many times, so many things are "Lost in Translation" (sounds like a movie. heheheh)

[insan]

Lordos is moderately heartened by these results. No fundamental blocks, nothing a few concessions from Ankara can't fix. But Europe in general may be rather less sanguine. Here's a critical decision for 25, maybe 28, countries, a momentous reaching out to democratic Islam - and 600,000 Greek Cypriots, too slow to see the big picture, seem ready to stall it for a few thousand homes in Famagusta and a few million extra compensation. Fundamental mis-match.

Hmmm... it seems they only skipped the above quoted part.

p.s. This is why any internationla document, inlcuding Annan Plan, I try to read it in English, rather than in Turkish. SO many times, so many things are "Lost in Translation" (sounds like a movie. heheheh)

But this is a totally skipped part of the article not wrongly translated....



The coming years can't all be about muscling further concessions out of Ankara. They have to put pressure to shift minds on the Greek side as well."

is translated as

"Lordos'a göre AB, önümüzdeki yılları Ankara'yı daha fazla taviz vermeye zorlayarak geçirmemeli. Aynı zamanda Rum tarafını da fikirlerini değiştirmeye zorlamalı. "


And the part you translated is the exact translation of the above lines in English.

[Alexandros Lordos]

is translated as

"Lordos'a göre AB, önümüzdeki yılları Ankara'yı daha fazla taviz vermeye zorlayarak geçirmemeli. Aynı zamanda Rum tarafını da fikirlerini değiştirmeye zorlamalı. "

which means "According to Lordos, in the coming days EU should not spend its time trying to force Ankara for more concessions. At the same time, it should force the Greek side to change its opinions."

Not exactly the same is it. I guess somebody in the Turkish press is trying to make you a hero Alex.

He he, I will soon be getting the Ankara medal for "the most agreeable Greek Cypriot"




P.S. The ideas about not insisting on concessions from Turkey, forcing Greek Cypriots and so on at the end of the paragraph are from the editor who wrote the Guardian article, not from me. I guess the translator didn't notice this ...

It's amazing how "careful" they are about what they write though: They missed out the first part of the paragraph which talked about what Turkey should be willing to concede, and only translated the second part which talked about GCs having to make concessions as well ...

[Alexandros Lordos]

Not to worry though: I'll make sure I brief you all, right after the conference

Make sure you stick to the 'chattam house rules' if you do post any brief here to avoid getting in any trouble

(Chattam house rules = you can say what was said but no who said it)

Thanks for the advice, I'll keep it ...

[turkcyp]

Actually it does Insan,

In the Turkish version where you skip a major paragraph, and only write the last two sentences in the paragraph, and put "Lordos'a gore" at the begining of sentence, you give the impression that it is Lordos's opinion that

"The coming years can't all be about muscling further concessions out of Ankara. They have to put pressure to shift minds on the Greek side as well" (Hence my comment about somebody trying to make you a hero)

In the article though, in that paragraph it only mentions that "Lordos is heatened by the results". The rest of the paragraph is the opinion and teh words of the writer not Lordos'.

So it does make a big difference.

[insan]

So it does make a big difference.

In this sense, yes it does make a big difference as you mentioned but we cannot say that whole article translated wrongly as to lost its meaning. They skipped a small part and appropriated the Preston's interpretation which you quoted above to Alexandros. That's true though

[Alexandros Lordos]

They skipped a small part

a small part which - just by coincidence - happened to mention the obligation of Turkey to make concessions ...

[insan]

Lordos is moderately heartened by these results. No fundamental blocks, nothing a few concessions from Ankara can't fix. But Europe in general may be rather less sanguine. Here's a critical decision for 25, maybe 28, countries, a momentous reaching out to democratic Islam - and 600,000 Greek Cypriots, too slow to see the big picture, seem ready to stall it for a few thousand homes in Famagusta and a few million extra compensation. Fundamental mis-match.

Edited.



The above part totally has been skipped and I'm sure not by coincidence but intentionally.

[turkcyp]

They skipped a small part

a small part which - just by coincidence - happened to mention the obligation of Turkey to make concessions ...

But the whole article and even that paragraph is actually talking about Turkey's benefits to EU. The article is not primarily about Cyprus anyway. It is about why EU should accept Turkey.

And that paragraph where they have skipped the sentences and make an opinion which doesn’t belong to you yours are still talking about GCs obligations. It basically is saying that these things can be fixed by Turkey easily, but it is the 600k GCs who misses the big picture and importance of "momentous reaching out to democratic Islam" but prevent the process for "for a few thousand homes in Famagusta and a few million extra compensation. Fundamental mis-match".

I mean even that paragraph is not talking what Turkey should do but more about why GCs are missing the big picture.

But whatever the case is you can not be making translations and skip parts of the article and change the owners of the ideas. It is either done for political reasons, (as Alex has suggested) or done simply because of inexperience and inadequacy in translation.

I tend to believe the second. Because if the writer included the whole paragraph it would be more devastating to GCs as it portrays them as people who are missing the big picture and running after small personal gains.

That is my opinion though.

p.s Alex! Did you read my latest post on the "Annan vs. 1960 subject". And please add your comments about what kind of changes you would ask for 1960 constitution.

Edited.

The above part totally has been skipped and I'm sure not by coincidence but intentionally.

I really think that this person is a bad translator. But I think he/she is not doing intentionally becuase it is continously editing out sections that would put a smile on Turk's face.

[insan]

I really think that this person is a bad translator. But I think he/she is not doing intentionally becuase it is continously editing out sections that would put a smile on Turk's face.

Now I started to believe that it might have been by coincidence. Fatigue of the translator.