Contemporary European translations of Ottoman documents and vice versa (15th–17th centuries)
Contemporary European translations of Ottoman documents and vice versa (15th–17th centuries)

Summary/Abstract: Ottoman documents that were to be sent to rulers or officials of other states often were accompanied by translations made by the Ottoman dragomans at the Porte. Some others were translated at the addressee’s court by interpreters engaged there. There also are some examples of translations of European documents into Ottoman Turkish. The authorship of many translations thus being known, individual habits and abilities can be associated to specific dragomans, whose names and biographies, education and careers have been established long ago. On the basis of several published pairs of originals and translations, the focus of the present article lies on the way the dragomans tackled the texts, the level of their fluency, the accuracy of their translations, and political implications of deliberate and/or accidental misinterpretations.

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