Folān and Folāni in Translation of Persian Literary Texts

Abstract

This article deals with one of the challenging Persian words in the field of translation (especially literary translation). This word is Folān, which is noteworthy in two respects: First, it is a text-bound word which is not conceivable out of context, and secondly, it is a culture-bound word, which does not necessarily have a proper equivalent in different languages, such as English. These two issues cause the translator of the Persian texts (especially the literary texts, where this word is abundantly used) to face several problems. In this article, different samples of this word have been checked with their equivalents in different reliable translations of Divān-e Hāfez, Masnavi, Golestān and Bustān, and the results have been provided as a list of equivalents.