Rebuilding the Tower of Babel: Language divide, employment of translators, and the Translation Bureau in the Ottoman Empire

Broadly, this dissertation examines the Ottoman administration's efforts to overcome the language barrier which appeared at two levels. First, a language divide existed between the Ottoman imperial authorities and segments of the population who did not know Turkish. Second, there was a communication problem between the Muslim Ottoman statesmen who refrained from learning European languages until the second quarter of the nineteenth century and the representatives of Western powers. The Ottoman government solved this problem by employing translators who were largely recruited from non-Muslim groups and local population.;Specifically, the dissertation focuses on the translators who provided the diplomatic communications of the Ottoman administration with European states. Between the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the Greek Orthodox Christian imperial court translator served this purpose. After the Greek Rebellion of 1821, the Ottomans removed this Christian official, and began to train Muslim state servants in European languages. In the process, an institution called the Translation Bureau was born. This study is primarily concerned with the institutional history of the Translation Bureau and its place within the Ottoman Bureaucracy.;The first chapter outlines the translators who were used mainly in the domestic Ottoman administration, and argues that their employment was a pragmatic approach. The second discusses the history, role, and significance of the imperial court translator, under whose office the Translation Bureau developed. The third examines the birth and early development of the Translation Bureau between 1821 and 1837. The fourth covers the period between 1837 and 1883 when the administrative structure of the Translation Bureau became further sophisticated. The fifth deals with various issues, including the training of officials in the Translation Bureau, the languages covered, and the documents translated in the bureau.;In addition to revealing the institutional structure and less-known aspects of this understudied institution, the dissertation argues that the birth and development of a sophisticated government office like the Translation Bureau was inevitable parallel to the general development of the Ottoman bureaucracy and the better integration of the empire into the West through an improved communication infrastructure.