# Denizi doldurmak



## sufler

Hello!
I have a problem translating a press article, whose final part seems ambiguous to me.



> Vali Cengiz, gazetecilere yaptığı açıklamada, Sinop tarihi yarımadasının yüzyıllar önce zaten bir ada olduğunu, denizin Selçuklular döneminde doldurulduğu söyledi.



My attempt to translate is: _Governer Cengiz said in the statements which he made to the journalists, that historical peninsula of Sinop was already an island hundreds of years ago, (and that) the sea was filled in the Seljuq period.
_
Let's take a closer look at the this part: "...denizin Selçuklular döneminde doldurulduğu söyledi."
Basing on my knowledge that_ doldurmak_ is "to fill", I figured out that _doldurulmak_ must be "to be filled",
however they suggest that "the sea was filled": _denizin doldurulduğu_ and now the question arises what was the sea filled with?
I would rather expect that the island was covered with sea... but what is the sense here?


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## Rallino

Sometimes they pour cement or a similar substance to the coastal lines in order to increase the land surface. This is called *denizi doldurmak*_ (to fill the sea). _The sentence says that the Sinop peninsula was an island centuries ago, but the sea was filled during the Seldjuks era, and it became a peninsula.


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## sufler

Thanks, that explains  I just didn't know that method of "filling" the sea.
By the way, I wonder how they were able to do it in the Seljuks era, it was so long ago in the Middle Ages...


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## ancalimon

sufler said:


> Thanks, that explains  I just didn't know that method of "filling" the sea.
> By the way, I wonder how they were able to do it in the Seljuks era, it was so long ago in the Middle Ages...



I guess they were very advanced. Knowing that they even built a primitive submarine.

Sometimes Turkish is a bit weird for non native speakers.

For example the verb used for "translate" is "çeviri" which means "turning, spinning, flapping".   So some Turkish guy translated "rotisserie chicken" (the chicken that cooks while turning on a device. which is named "tavuk çevirme" in Turkish) as "chicken translation".

There's another similar expression like "denizi doldurma".  We say "sel baskını".  Sel means "flood" and in this case "sel baskını" means "flood raid", "flood incursion" or "domination of flood"


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## kalamazoo

A few English language suggestions:  Drop "already" and I think in English you would say the sea was filled in (then maybe adding "to create a land bridge" or something like that).


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## Guner

kalamazoo said:


> A few English language suggestions: Drop "already" and I think in English you would say the sea was filled in (then maybe adding "to create a land bridge" or something like that).



The process is called *"l**and reclamation"* or simply "*reclamation" *in Town Planning*.* It can be done by creating new land from sea or riverbeds.
 The new land reclaimed is usually called "*reclamation ground" *or "*landfill"*.


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## serbestnazim

sufler said:


> Vali Cengiz, gazetecilere yaptığı açıklamada, Sinop tarihi yarımadasının  yüzyıllar önce zaten bir ada olduğunu, denizin Selçuklular döneminde  doldurulduğu söyledi.



It should be _doldurulduğu*nu*_. Probably the spelling mistake of a careless journalist.


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