Meeting with linguist and translator Izzet Erten

During Eberhard Zangger’s lecture tour inTurkey in November 2019, a fortuitous meeting with Izzet Erten, the Turkish translator of Zangger’s (and various co-authors’) scientific work of of the past years, came about. Izzet Gokhan Erten works most of the time as a project manager in Myanmar. Thanks to his background and career as a linguist, he has the competence to precisely translate complex scientific publications involving a wide range of fields from linguistics, to archeology, astronomy and other natural sciences. For the past few years he has been producing these translations with great dedication and accuracy – and entirely on a voluntary basis in his free time. The elegance and precision of his texts receive much respect and praise. The Luwian Studies Foundation is extremely grateful to Izzet for his great commitment!

Having Turkish translations of the scientific publications gives the research that is advocated by Luwian Studies an enormous boost. The papers are available in full (and of course free of charge) as PDF from academia.edu. The latest paper – on the Hittite rock sanctuary Yazılıkaya – was downloaded more than twice as often in Turkish as in English. Thanks to a generous permission from the publisher Ege Yayınları, the book “The Luwian Civilization – The Missing Link in the Aegean Bronze Age” can also be downloaded completely in Turkish, English and German. The book was translated by Leyla Tonguç Basmacı, whom we would also like to thank for their work.

During a stay in Istanbul, Izzet heard through social media from Eberhard Zangger’s lecture on November 22, 2019 at the Galatasaray University – and so he decided to take the opportunity to meet in person. The picture shows Dr. Olcay Akdeniz, the head of the committee for the Caria Symposium in Milas, Prof. Nilüfer Pembecioğlu, the host of the lecture at the Galatasaray University, Dr. Eberhard Zangger and Izzet Gokhan Erten at the Bosphorus.