Strategies of translating toponyms in the glorious Qur’an

Abstract EN

This study deals with the strategies of translating toponyms, or place names, in five well-known translations of the Qur’an.

Each culture has its own specific place names or place features which distinguish it from other cultures.

Since toponyms are culture-specific, they constitute a main problem for the translators of the Qur’an.

The present study seeks to answer the following questions: Are there any problems faced by the translators of the Qur’an in transferring toponyms? What are they? What are the types of strategies used by the different translators to deal with these problems? Are these strategies conservation or substitution strategies? Foreignizing or domesticating? To find the answers to the previous questions, the study adopts Aixelá’s model (1996) for describing these strategies.

The study concludes that there are seven strategies used to render toponyms in the Qur’an.

The extratextual gloss has proved to be the most commonly used strategy followed by the linguistic strategy/ orthographic adaptation, naturalization, intratextual gloss and finally absolute/ limited universalization.

Strategies used by the five translators are mostly foreignizing.