# My blood is Turkish but my soul Islamic



## rupertbrooke

How can this be ttranslated into Turkish. It is a slogan used by Turkish supporters of Prime Minister Erdoğan from the Black Sea region of Trabzon. It is supposed to 'pun somewhat (?)' according to an article in English on the current disturbances in Turkey.


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## Nihilus

"Kanım Türk, ama ruhum Müslüman"


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## rupertbrooke

I don't see any pun but it is a concise & powerful slogan, obviously controversial in some circles. Thanks for the help.


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## Nihilus

I just translated the topic title to Turkish myself. The original slogan might be different and there might be a pun in it.


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## Reverence

I would be awfully dishonest if I said whoever invented that slogan exhibits the tiniest bit of brilliance. Although that sentence is all sorts of wrong, I will brush aside all other aspects and address the linguistic problems that come with it.

What is "but" doing there?

Is Islam another nationality now? Or is it that Turkish became a new religious identity when I was not looking? "My blood is Turkish but my soul Patagonian", I can understand. But I cannot understand what is so unusual in being both Turkish and Muslim. Islam is the dominant religion in Turkey, for crying out loud.

"My blood is Turkish and my soul is Islamic" would make much more sense. The way it currently is, it does not. Whether intentional, that is a discussion to be made elsewhere.


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## rupertbrooke

My thread was 'my blood is Turkish but my soul Islamic' & I got it from a well-known website in the UK. See:-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...s-a-symbol-of-defiance-to-Tayyip-Erdogan.html [paragraph 13].
This article has a strong liberal western bias but,as instructed by the moderator, I'm not entering into any cultural/religious discussion. I am merely interested in the possible linguistic pun, which the above article mentions en passant in the same paragraph. That is why I added the addendum that it is obviously controversial in some (many) circles. Thanks as ever to Reverence.


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## Reverence

Just checked out the article. The slogan directly translates into what Nihilus posted, and I couldn't observe any puns. The article mentions the slogan being encountered in the Black Sea region, but the closest thing I can come up with that comes out of that region is "Ruhum Müslüman, kanım Türk" by Suna Vidinli, and as you can see, her version doesn't include any "but"s.

You're welcome; I'm afraid I'm unable to help any better with the pun thing. It just isn't there.


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## rupertbrooke

Thanks so much, Reverence, for pointing out the asyndeton (bağlaç kullanmama) in the slogan & for finding the author of it viz. Suna Vidinli. The UK newspaper article is clearly tendentious, making of an innocent statement a controversial issue. Suna Vidinli is a socialite & a model as well as having political aspirations. Her statement is no more a statement of defiance than a Greek saying 'my blood is Greek, my soul Orthodox'. Could our journalist  have confused with Ms Vidinli's statement the saying 'RUHUM İSLAM BEDENİM TÜRK'TÜR BENİM'. Now that does have a pun!!


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