Şubat
Withdrawal symptoms after a week immersed in watching all 32 episodes of the Turkish fantasy Şubat. Loved it (though it would have been a lot better if it had ended at episode 31). Loved the Istanbul setting, the total lack of anything resembling realism, or sense - all rules of verisimilitude and plot logic suspended. The way that even the villains stopped every now and then for a serious discussion on morality and the soul. The way that Crazy Ibrahim's gang of street thugs didn't bat an eyelid when he suddenly broke into song, just joined in on the chorus. (Well, I suppose the clue is in the nickname 'Crazy'...)
Şubat Müzik [Harun CELEP] · ŞUBAT - Deli İbrahim [Bir Derdim Var Bin Dermana Değişmem]
From the soundtrack to Şubat, Crazy Ibrahim's song Bir Derdim Var Bin Dermana Değişmem 'I have a trouble I would not exchange for a thousand cures'.
Apparently I am not the only one left bemused by the million sub-plots and the unanswered questions in Şubat, not to mention the random use pronouns in the sub-titles:
Mr. Aziz is our oracle in the series Subat. He looks to be about sixty years old, a small trim man with a perpetual frown of concern. He introduces each episode with a hypothetical question or a monologue about the nature of big ideas like love, forgiveness, or truthfulness. He talks to us for a couple minutes and, thanks to the general crappiness of the subtitles, his talks seldom make sense. There is never a tougher time for translations than in the deep discussion of abstract subjects, and the translators for Subat have a tough enough time just keeping their pronouns straight (they don’t, by the way, keep them straight)...
Apparently after [a tragedy], Mr. Aziz ran away to live on the streets of Istanbul as a homeless trash-collector. He made a hobby out of saving orphan boys. From what I can tell, he has rescued and raised something like fifty orphan boys, as both Salkut, Shubat, Crazy, Double, everybody in Crazy’s gang, and everybody in the “Angels”, who are the trash-collecting gang, claims that Mr. Aziz is their father. I swear I don’t know when he had the time... But anyway, somehow Mr. Aziz has rescued so many orphan boys that he is considered the top authority for, um, homeless, er, orphans, in Istanbul. They all call him “father” and all do what he says. Crazy is so envious of Mr. Aziz’s clear favoritism toward Shubat that Crazy is hatching some multi-layered plot to kill off Shubat out of spite. Orphans are a big business in Istanbul. Uncle Samim needs them for medical testing, Mr. Aziz needs them for trash collection, hell, someone may even want to adopt one someday...
http://www.themovieorphan.com/uploads/3/4/4/0/34405309/subat_mr._aziz_sidebar.pdf
I had no problems with the subtitling. There's a vein of mysticism in Şubat, and having the subtitles make only peripheral sense just adds to this: if you understood it, was it really an oracle?
And the mystery of the random subtitle pronouns is at least easily solved:
"There is only one Third person pronoun in Turkish, o, for he, she, and it. While English speakers are still debating gender-neutral pronouns, the Turks have had one from the start. This pronoun can lead to confusion about who did what, so writers use personal names more often than we do in English." https://www.theguideistanbul.com/ten-turkish-words-dont-exist-in-english/
Of the two forms of 'No':
Hayır means 'no', it’s an answer to a yes-/no-question and is formal.
Yok means 'there is not' in a formal context, but informally it is often used instead of hayır.
How to say 'Yes' in Turkish:
Evet - Yes
Tamam - Okay
Olur - Yes / Okay
Hı hı - Yes / uh-uh (informal)
Hayhay - Yes / Of course (Informal - use it only when someone asks for a favour)
Şubat Müzik [Harun CELEP] · ŞUBAT - Deli İbrahim [Bir Derdim Var Bin Dermana Değişmem]
From the soundtrack to Şubat, Crazy Ibrahim's song Bir Derdim Var Bin Dermana Değişmem 'I have a trouble I would not exchange for a thousand cures'.
Apparently I am not the only one left bemused by the million sub-plots and the unanswered questions in Şubat, not to mention the random use pronouns in the sub-titles:
Mr. Aziz is our oracle in the series Subat. He looks to be about sixty years old, a small trim man with a perpetual frown of concern. He introduces each episode with a hypothetical question or a monologue about the nature of big ideas like love, forgiveness, or truthfulness. He talks to us for a couple minutes and, thanks to the general crappiness of the subtitles, his talks seldom make sense. There is never a tougher time for translations than in the deep discussion of abstract subjects, and the translators for Subat have a tough enough time just keeping their pronouns straight (they don’t, by the way, keep them straight)...
Apparently after [a tragedy], Mr. Aziz ran away to live on the streets of Istanbul as a homeless trash-collector. He made a hobby out of saving orphan boys. From what I can tell, he has rescued and raised something like fifty orphan boys, as both Salkut, Shubat, Crazy, Double, everybody in Crazy’s gang, and everybody in the “Angels”, who are the trash-collecting gang, claims that Mr. Aziz is their father. I swear I don’t know when he had the time... But anyway, somehow Mr. Aziz has rescued so many orphan boys that he is considered the top authority for, um, homeless, er, orphans, in Istanbul. They all call him “father” and all do what he says. Crazy is so envious of Mr. Aziz’s clear favoritism toward Shubat that Crazy is hatching some multi-layered plot to kill off Shubat out of spite. Orphans are a big business in Istanbul. Uncle Samim needs them for medical testing, Mr. Aziz needs them for trash collection, hell, someone may even want to adopt one someday...
http://www.themovieorphan.com/uploads/3/4/4/0/34405309/subat_mr._aziz_sidebar.pdf
I had no problems with the subtitling. There's a vein of mysticism in Şubat, and having the subtitles make only peripheral sense just adds to this: if you understood it, was it really an oracle?
And the mystery of the random subtitle pronouns is at least easily solved:
"There is only one Third person pronoun in Turkish, o, for he, she, and it. While English speakers are still debating gender-neutral pronouns, the Turks have had one from the start. This pronoun can lead to confusion about who did what, so writers use personal names more often than we do in English." https://www.theguideistanbul.com/ten-turkish-words-dont-exist-in-english/
Of the two forms of 'No':
Hayır means 'no', it’s an answer to a yes-/no-question and is formal.
Yok means 'there is not' in a formal context, but informally it is often used instead of hayır.
How to say 'Yes' in Turkish:
Evet - Yes
Tamam - Okay
Olur - Yes / Okay
Hı hı - Yes / uh-uh (informal)
Hayhay - Yes / Of course (Informal - use it only when someone asks for a favour)