THE INTERPRETATION OF GENDER-MARKED UNITS IN TRANSLATION STUDIES OF TIMURID MEMOIR LITERATURE: THE CASE OF THE “BABURNAMA”

Abstract

This article examines the linguistic, cultural, and translation-related aspects of gender-marked units occurring in Zahiriddin Muhammad Babur’s “Baburnama”, one of the outstanding examples of memoir literature of the Timurid period. The study focuses primarily on the representation in English translations of personal names, titles, kinship terms, social- status markers, and units denoting family and gender relations. The research material consists of the original text of the Baburnama and its English translations. Comparative-analytical, linguocultural, contextual, and translation-transformation methods were employed in the analysis. The results demonstrate that gender-marked units are not merely nominative devices; they also convey historical perceptions of social hierarchy, kinship relations, the social status of women and men, and the court-cultural environment of the Timurid period. In particular, the translation of such units as begim/begum, khanum, bibi, ag‘acha/agacheh, oruk, and haram raises the issue of preserving the cultural component alongside semantic equivalence.