# Bir gün, İstiklâl ve Cumhuriyeti müdafaa mecburiyetine düşersen



## modus.irrealis

Hi,

I'm having a little trouble understanding exactly how the following phrase works.

Bir gün, İstiklâl ve Cumhuriyeti müdafaa mecburiyetine düşersen

After some online searching, I found the translation "If some day, you are compelled to defend your independence and your republic" but I'm not sure how to get this.

I can see how _mecburiyete düşmek _can mean "be compelled" and I'm okay with the "if" meaning of the verb (and of course _bir gün_ is "some day"). My problem is with _İstiklâl ve Cumhuriyeti müdafaa mecburiyetine_. The translation has "your", but I don't see where that's coming from. And I don't see what the _-i_ at the end of _Cumhuriyeti_ signifies here. Plus, I would expect _müdafaası_ here because it seems to be modified by the previous words, so I also don't see why it is _müdafaa_. Any help would be really appreciated because I've been trying to puzzle it out and I'm not getting anywhere on my own.


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## kardorion

1. I don't see where "your" comes from either. Probably it's the interpretation of the translator. (However,   we automatically think that it’s *our *indipendence and republic rather than the indipendence and the republic because it was Atatürk’s speech to his people.

 2. the -i here is a kind of preposition we have to use with the verb müdafaa etmek (and savunmak, come to that, which has the same meaning). 
So it is _birşey*i *müdafaa etmek _NOT birşey müdafaa etmek. For example: Askerler kale*yi*
müdafaa ettiler. (The soldiers defended the castle)
3. You don't see _müdafaası_ because it's used as a verb - it actually should be _müdafaa etmek _but either that's how it used to be used (in Atatürk's times) or it's like that because it was a speech. So it should be interpreted as  "... müdafaa _etmek _mecburiyetine düşersen..."

http://www.turkiyecumhuriyetidevleti.com/ - You can see the modern Turkish and English version here, if it helps at all but I think you've already found that.


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## modus.irrealis

Thanks. That makes sense about the "your." And viewing _müdafaa_ as if there were an _etmek_ there makes everything perfectly clear now.

I'm actually reading the passage in a reader I have, but I went searching online for a translation and there are a number of sites but it's all the same translation.


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## KAR17

I think the 'your' is from mecburet*in*e if the müdafaa means müdafaa etmek but I might be wrong


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## RimeoftheAncientMariner

Bir gün, İstiklâl ve Cumhuriyeti müdafaa mecburiyetine düşersen

If one/some day, you fall into the responsibility of defending the Freedom and the Republic.


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## RimeoftheAncientMariner

Or ,into the the obligation of ...


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## analeeh

_müdafaa_ is an Arabic verbal noun. Arabic verbal nouns can often be used in Turkish with the force of an infinitive ('defending') without the need for _etmek_.



> If one/some day, you fall into the responsibility of defending the Freedom and the Republic.



This doesn't really work. _düşmek_ in these sorts of cases is usually not idiomatically translated into English as 'fall'. _mecburiyetine düşürsen _is probably best translated as 'be compelled to' or perhaps 'if it falls to you to'. And 'the freedom' is wrong - I actually think 'your freedom and your Republic' or 'our freedom and our Republic' works quite nicely.


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