Translation - Turkish-English - İstanbul kent merkezi yakın çevresindeki tarihi...

"gecekondular" are not slums. They're really quite different (I've seen both).

Maybe you can say "squatters", please see here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gecekondu

No - they're definitely not squatters. Squatters are occupying houses built by others and abandoned. It's a phenomenon not translatable into other languages, which is why I put the explanation right into the translation.

Well, "illegal settlements" would be clear enough for the underlying meaning. Because they're illegal whatever material they are made.

I hate that kind of Turkish sentences...very badly writen...and congratulations on translating it...

smy, do you think that the term "gecekondu" includes the concept of being illegal?

it's the term itself what makes us think automatically an illegally built house.

I never realized that the concept of illegality was what people thought of first. When I lived in Turkey, this phenomenon was in the news all the time - I was under the impression that most people thought first about the fact that the houses were shoddily and hastily built, and in areas where nobody would otherwise want to live, and that the people who lived in them were usually new transplants from villages in (mostly) Eastern Turkey.

Well, that's normal of us to think so because that's what the term means in fact, but we also think about an illegal settlement besides that.

I don't think that's an incorrect translation but as you said it's too literal.

Anyway, I changed it according to your suggestion to "hastily built" instead of overnight, and I put a link that wikipedia page in the comments.

yakın zamanlarda açılmış iki vakıf üniversitesinin....etkileri" = the effects of the two recently...."

That's why I had originally written "their effect", but you suggested I change that. I think it's OK as is - the fact that it's the universities' effect that's being talked about is clear (it's implied).

that was the last sentence and Tantine suggested you to change it. I was talking about the first sentence

Hi all

This looks ok now. Can I validate?

Bises
Tantine

hi everybody! you don't use to translate the term "gecekondu". It's now legally accepted to use "gecekondu" in english.

Not yet Tantine after what basaku says!
Regards!

Basaku, this is only true if the reader is familiar with the Turkish situation. I don't agree.

Hi Basaku

I can't find the gecekondu in either of my English dictionaries.

Maybe Basaku could give us the reference of the English dictionary where this word has been accepted as English.

Even if Basaku does give references for this word, I prefer a translation of the word until it becomes more of a "household" term.

Most English speakers would need a copy of Basaku's dictionary close to them in order to understand the text if we use the Turkish term, which would rather spoil the reading as the "gecekondu" are essential to the translation.

If there are no other problems, I will validate

Bises
Tantine

Please do! Thanks.

I will

Forthwith