Translation as Corpus Planning: The Little Prince in the Neo-Aramaic Minority Language Turoyo

Abstract

Although Turoyo has never been written down in its homeland, some attempts to codify and standardize the language were made in the early 1980s among immigrants in Europe. This activity also involved a linguistic modernization of Turoyo and coining new vocabulary corresponding to the new cultural reality that the speakers of the language encountered in European countries. Among the methods of enhancing corpus planning for standard Turoyo are translating practices. The main purpose of this article is thus to present various techniques of translating the terms that had no semantic counterparts in this neo-Aramaic language as well as to discuss the role of translation in spreading the literary standard among speakers of the Turoyo language.