PROBLEMS OF TRANSLATION OF ARCHAIC WORDS IN THE NOVEL “BYGONE DAYS” BY A. QADIRI

Аннотация

This article reflects the difficulties and methods of translating historical and archaic words into English in the novel “Bygone Days” byAbdullaQodiriy, oneofthe representatives of the Uzbek Jadid movement, which is considered the crown jewel of Uzbek national novelism, to what extentthearchaic words have found their equivalents in thethree English translationsof the novel. The article presents the translation methods used to solve the difficulties in translating archaisms into English using examples from all three translation options of the work using a comparative-analyticalmethod. Keywords: archaic words, transliteration, English, historicism, historical words, translation methods,historicwords. Introduction. In the novel “Bygone Days” by A. Kadiri, the skillful and masterly use of stylistic devices and expressive means determined its artistic and aesthetic value, while the archaic words and word combinations used in the work “clearly and vividly embodied the life, customs, spiritual insight, conditions and appearance of the Uzbek nation in a specific historical context and situation.”1 Language is a dynamic phenomenon characterized by constant change and renewal. As a result, the objects and phenomena expressed by a particular word fall out of use, the word itself becomes obsolete. An analysis of special literature on the lexicology of the Uzbek literary language2 shows that such obsolete words which have already fallen out of use in the lexicon of the language, are classified as historical and archaic words according to the coefficient of obsolescence and the nature of their use. Archaic words are used only because of the need to create an image of a certain historical period and are associated with the loss of the concepts expressed by them, social events, military weapons, and certain industrial equipment becoming obsolete and out of use. For example, words such as hark (listen), morrow (tomorrow), beseech (to ask earnestly), betimes (in good time), bruit (to spread rumours), and knave (a dishonest man)are archaicwords. The main difficulty encountered in translating archaic works is related to preserving the historicity reflected in them and fully conveying it in the translated text. In such cases, ambiguities cannot be allowed. After all, this leads to a distortion of historical reality and the creation of a false image of the past in the mind of the reader. “Naturally, such a (historical) work is filled with countless historical and archaic words in accordance with the needs of the era, which, in addition to reviving the spirit and breath of the era in the eyes of the reader, also increase theartisticand aesthetic impact ofthework.”3 1KarimovB.Theworld’sgreatnovels:AbdullaQodiriy.BygoneDays.WorldLiterature,2013,Vol.№4 2LexicologyoftheUzbeklanguage.Tashkent.Fan.1981. 3MusayevK.FundamentalsofTranslationTheory.Tashkent.Fan.2005.p.111. https://ijmri.de/index.php/jmsi volume 4,issue4,2025 782 The historical lexicon inthe original, and in general, the translation of historical works, is mainly governed byfour principles: 1.Themethod ofexplanatory translation; 2. The method of adaptation (in which a specific historical word or concept in the original text is replaced bysucha nameorconcept inthetarget language); 3.Themethod ofillustration; 4. The method of searching for and replacing an equivalent word or phrase in the target text that exactlycorresponds to ahistorical word or phrasein theoriginal; 5.Themethod oftransliteration. As G. Salomov put it, “Each translation should be studied in relation to the period in which the translation was created, based on the principle of historicity. Failure to adhere to such a rule can lead to serious errors orbias in assessing thequality of thetranslation, thetranslator’smerits, and the main trends in translation of each period.”4 So, one of the main tasks set before the translator is to fully reflect the spirit of the period in the translation text, which is originally intended in the translation ofhistorical words and, ingeneral, historical works. Let us pay attention to how some historical words used in the novel have found their equivalents in the translations of the novel by I. Tukhtasinov, M. Reese, and C. Ermakova. In Part I of the work, Chapter22,entitled “AStranger andaPoor Man”thefollowing sentence isquoted: “Dahlizdan ichkariga qaralsa bir munaqqash va muzayyan zol, ikki tomonida xonning shogʻovul boshilari, yasovul boshilari, dasturxonchi va oftobachilari, tunqator va parvonachilari otaliq va mehtarboshilari va tagʻi alla qancha vazir-vuzarolari qator tizilishib oʻlturmakda edilar.”5 In this passage alone, archaic words such as munaqqash, muzayyan, shogavul bashilari, yasavul bashilari, dasturkhanchi, aftobachi, tunqator, parvanachali, otaliq and mehtarbashilari are used to describe the khan’s horde in Kokand. These archaic words are translated as follows in theEnglish translations ofthenovel: Tranlstion byI. Tuxtasinov, O. Muminov, A. Khamidov: “If you lo