So alive that you forget you’re running out of time.
Not today. Not tomorrow.
But someday, grief shows up one morning and just moves in.
And love?
Love stands by the curtains.
Not handing out comfort to everybody.
Just watching. Waiting.
Seeing what you actually need.
This isn’t a biography I’m trying to list its dates.
This is just a heart that kept going after it got broken.
A soul that figured out the ground is cold,
But still decided to sit in the chair anyway,
Behind the curtains.
This isn’t really about the chairs or the curtains.
It’s about how still you learn to be,
To sit in your grief without letting it crush you.
Like no matter what cracks underneath,
That chair holds.
Except, death…
We call it the uninvited guest,
A weight that settles in the hollow of the chest.
Death is the one crack that swallows everything.
No sounds.
Just a hole that takes the sorrow and the love both at once.
But here’s what I’ve learned:
Death took the person,
The creative mind,
The talented hands.
But it didn’t take what they left behind.
Grief teaches you something If you let it.
Not right away. It beats you up first.
But eventually,
It shows you how to pay attention.
How to hold things tighter without squeezing too hard.
How to sit in the quiet and still find something worth making.
Maybe we don’t get over it.
Maybe we just learn to build around it.
We take the loss and turn it into something.
A poem, a meal, a small kindness,
Or a minute of patience we didn’t have before.
And when the poem forgets it’s a poem
And becomes a room,
It becomes a room where loss finally takes off its coat.
Where love doesn’t just visit anymore,
It sits down to stay.
Where grief and gladness walk in together,
Like they always do, and for once,
They don’t have a single thing left to ask.
Except…
What does the poem say about us?
It says we are the ones who need it.
We’re the ones who take these little black marks,
These little arranged scratches on a page,
And we make them bleed.
We make them bleed with our own blood.
We make them sing with our own throats—
The ones that get tight.
The ones that crack.
We make them hold everything we cannot hold by ourselves.
And then… somehow… we can.
Because we are the creatures who build bridges out of breath.
We are the ones who go looking for our own faces in the ink.
We let the poem teach us death.
Not by lecturing.
Not by explaining.
But by showing us how to live.
And it’s not about filling the hole.
It’s about learning to live around it.
Knowing it’s there.
And still… still creating.
And maybe, that’s enough.
Amina Kasim Muhammad is a Nigerian writer and spoken word poet with a deep passion for storytelling. She finds herself drawn to the way stories can transport readers to different worlds and how ideas can be shaped and shared through the power of writing. Valuing her pen and book as essential tools of expression, she is also an advocate for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Amina is an active member of the Minna Literary Society (MLS) and Open Arts Kaduna, where she engages with fellow creatives and contributes to the literary community. Her work has been published; one of her poems appeared in Synchronized Chaos Magazine. You can connect with her on Instagram: @meena_kasim.
In the New Uzbekistan, the Voice of a New Generation
Why should I not praise you before the wide world, calling you “my Uzbek,” When my era has granted me the chance to know my true self, my Uzbek.
— E. Vohidov
As I write these lines, two drops of pearl-like tears roll down beneath my glasses. Recently, I traveled to the Tian Shan mountains. Those three days felt like three years. On my way back, the very moment I set foot on my beloved Homeland, my chest filled with the scent of serenity. I felt the taste of peace and happiness. As I got into the car, these lines echoed in my heart:
My Homeland, you are my pride,
The soil where traces of my childhood remain.
You see me off when I leave and wait until I return,
I feel your love like a mother’s embrace.
I have seen many lands, I have seen the Tian Shan,
Yet I understood your true worth even more, my dear motherland.
I do not need Paris and its Eiffel Tower,
A handful of your soil is honor and glory for me!
With these thoughts, I continued my journey. At one moment, I noticed a girl sitting nearby, quietly reading a book. Again, I sank into reflection:
In which country does a president give a car simply because someone reads a book?
In which country does the state reward you by funding six months of education if you learn a foreign language for just two months?
In which country is an entire Olympic town built freely, solely for young people?
The answer to all of these questions is one: Uzbekistan.
Indeed, today Uzbekistan is a country of youth. For the first time in history, practical solutions are being implemented to support the dreams and initiatives of the younger generation — solutions that nurture their pursuit of knowledge, creativity, sports, and a rightful place on the international stage. As a result, every young person today has the opportunity to make their voice heard, to present their ideas, national values, and identity to the world.
Yes, today’s generation is educated, healthy, and confidently proving itself on the global stage. Young Uzbeks are studying at the world’s most prestigious universities — Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, Stanford, and many others. And if we speak of sports, you have surely seen our flag proudly waving atop the world’s greatest arenas at least once. Our young innovators, meanwhile, present their inventions at renowned platforms such as the International Innovation Expo and UN & UNESCO Youth Forums, consistently being in the spotlight of international investors.
Let us speak through simple facts from 2024–2025:
For the first time in history, UNESCO’s General Conference was held outside Paris — and that city was Samarkand. Uzbekistan became the first country to make this happen. Moreover, Uzbekistan became a member of the UN Human Rights Council.
International education standards were introduced. Transparency and openness were promoted in politics. For the first time in history, our female karate and judo athletes stood atop the podiums, bringing chains of medals back to the Homeland. For ten consecutive years, our boxers have once again proven that they are among the world’s strongest. In 2025, our footballers carried the Uzbek nation onto the FIFA stage. At just 20 years old, Sindarov once again proved to the world in 2025 that he is the “King of Chess.”
When we analyze these developments, it becomes clear that in recent years Uzbekistan has secured a strong position internationally as an open, reform-oriented country that ties its future to its youth. Remarkable victories in sports, achievements in science and innovation, young men and women studying at leading global universities, and active participation on international platforms are tangible results of this transformation. State-led youth policy, investments in education and sports, and cooperation with influential international organizations such as the UN and UNESCO have elevated Uzbekistan’s global standing.
Particularly, initiatives that bring youth rights and opportunities to the international level clearly demonstrate the country’s strategic vision.
Shokhida Nazirova was born on March 22, 2004, in Andijan.
She serves as a representative of Uzbekistan for nearly ten international organizations. She is fluent in German, Russian, Turkish, Italian and Kyrgyz. She is a young leader who has made nearly ten social projects in the region.
CHALLENGES IN THE TRANSLATION OF IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS BETWEEN ENGLISH AND UZBEK: A LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS
Kurbanova Mohinur Abdumuxtor qizi
2nd-year Master’s Student
“English Language and Literature” program
Faculty of Foreign Languages, Uzbekistan
Pedagogical University named After Nizami
Abstract: This study explores the challenges involved in translating idiomatic expressions between English and Uzbek languages. Idioms reflect cultural values, historical context, and figurative meanings that often do not have direct equivalents in another language. The research highlights linguistic and cultural barriers that complicate accurate translation and examines various strategies such as literal translation, adaptation, and contextual interpretation. The study emphasizes the importance of cultural awareness and linguistic competence in achieving effective and meaningful translation of idiomatic expressions.
Keywords:
idiomatic expressions, translation challenges, English language, Uzbek language, cultural differences, figurative meaning, equivalence, translation strategies
Annotatsiya: Ushbu tadqiqot ingliz va o‘zbek tillari o‘rtasidagi idiomatik iboralarni tarjima qilishda yuzaga keladigan muammolarni o‘rganadi. Idiomalar o‘zida madaniy qadriyatlar, tarixiy kontekst va ko‘chma ma’nolarni mujassam etadi, shu sababli ularni boshqa tilga to‘g‘ridan-to‘g‘ri tarjima qilish qiyin. Tadqiqotda lingvistik va madaniy to‘siqlar tahlil qilinadi hamda so‘zma-so‘z tarjima, moslashtirish va kontekstual talqin kabi strategiyalar ko‘rib chiqiladi. Shuningdek, samarali tarjima uchun madaniy bilim va til kompetensiyasining ahamiyati ta’kidlanadi.
Kalit so‘zlar:
idiomatik iboralar, tarjima muammolari, ingliz tili, o‘zbek tili, madaniy farqlar, ko‘chma ma’no, ekvivalentlik, tarjima strategiyalari
Аннотация: Данное исследование посвящено изучению трудностей перевода идиоматических выражений между английским и узбекским языками. Идиомы отражают культурные ценности, исторический контекст и переносные значения, которые часто не имеют прямых эквивалентов в другом языке. В работе рассматриваются лингвистические и культурные барьеры, а также анализируются различные стратегии перевода, такие как дословный перевод, адаптация и контекстуальная интерпретация. Особое внимание уделяется важности культурной осведомлённости и языковой компетенции для достижения адекватного перевода.
Ключевые слова:
идиоматические выражения, трудности перевода, английский язык, узбекский язык, культурные различия, переносное значение, эквивалентность, стратегии перевода
INTRODUCTION
Language is not merely a tool for communication but a reflection of the sociocultural landscape of its speakers. Among the various linguistic elements, idiomatic expressions stand out as complex units whose meaning cannot be derived from the sum of their constituent parts. In the context of English and Uzbek, two languages belonging to distinct families—Indo-European and Turkic respectively—the translation of idioms presents a unique set of challenges. The research gap lies in the scarcity of systematic analyses that address the structural asymmetry between these languages. While English relies heavily on prepositional and phrasal idiomatic structures, Uzbek utilizes agglutinative morphology and distinct metaphorical frameworks derived from Central Asian cultural traditions. This study aims to explore the strategies employed by translators to maintain the pragmatic force of idioms during cross-language transfer. The primary research question addresses how translators navigate the conflict between semantic literalism and cultural equivalence. By examining a corpus of literary and journalistic texts, this research establishes a framework for understanding the mechanisms of idiom translation, moving beyond simple lexical substitution toward a more nuanced, context-dependent approach. The objective is to highlight the necessity of cultural competence in translation, ensuring that the target audience receives not just the literal meaning, but the intended emotive and stylistic impact of the original expression.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This study utilizes a qualitative comparative methodology, focusing on a descriptive analysis of idiomatic expressions collected from contemporary literary works and media outlets. The sample consists of 50 English idioms and their corresponding translations in Uzbek, categorized by their level of semantic transparency—ranging from transparent (where the meaning is somewhat inferable) to opaque (where the meaning is entirely non-compositional). The analytical framework is based on Nida’s theory of dynamic equivalence, which prioritizes the effect on the target audience over formal word-for-word accuracy. Data collection involved a systematic comparison of source texts against their target translations to identify instances of ‘translation loss’ or ‘pragmatic shift.’ We utilized a model of cross-linguistic mapping to visualize the conceptual distance between English idioms, such as ‘to break the ice,’ and their potential Uzbek counterparts. The analysis was conducted in three phases: (1) identification of the idiom in the English text, (2) categorization of the idiomatic structure (e.g., verbal, nominal, or adjectival), and (3) evaluation of the translation strategy used (direct, functional, or descriptive). By calculating the frequency of specific strategies, we aim to provide a quantitative perspective on how translators prioritize cultural preservation versus readability. The study also considers the role of context-dependency, analyzing how the surrounding discourse influences the choice of equivalent in Uzbek.
ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
The analysis revealed that 65% of English idioms lacked a direct lexical equivalent in Uzbek, necessitating the use of functional paraphrasing. For instance, the English idiom ‘to beat around the bush’ does not have a direct structural equivalent in Uzbek. Translators often resort to the descriptive phrase ‘gapni aylantirmoq’ (to spin the conversation), which captures the pragmatic intent but loses the original metaphorical imagery of the ‘bush.’ Our data indicates that opaque idioms represent the highest level of translation difficulty, often resulting in literal translation errors when translators fail to recognize the idiomatic status of the phrase. In 20% of cases, translators successfully identified a culturally equivalent idiom, such as translating ‘to be in the same boat’ into the Uzbek conceptual frame of shared circumstances. However, the remaining 15% demonstrated a tendency toward ‘over-translation,’ where the translator added unnecessary explanations, thereby diluting the conciseness of the original. We observed that the agglutinative nature of the Uzbek language allows for creative compounding, which occasionally permits the creation of new idiomatic structures that mirror the English original’s stylistic brevity. These findings suggest that the most successful translations are those that prioritize the communicative function of the idiom rather than the preservation of its metaphorical components. The results highlight that the semantic gap is not a barrier but a creative space for the translator to bridge cultural differences through linguistic innovation.
CONCLUSION
The translation of idiomatic expressions between English and Uzbek is a complex task that demands a high degree of cultural and linguistic synthesis. This study has demonstrated that literal translation is largely insufficient for conveying the essence of idiomatic language, as the metaphorical foundations of the two languages are rooted in different cognitive and historical contexts. Our findings confirm that functional equivalence, rather than formal identity, is the most effective strategy for maintaining the pragmatic integrity of idioms. Future research should focus on the impact of digital translation tools and artificial intelligence on the translation of figurative language, as these technologies often struggle with the nuances identified in this study. Furthermore, there is a need for a more comprehensive dictionary of English-Uzbek idiomatic correspondences to assist translators in navigating these challenges. Ultimately, the translator must act as a mediator, ensuring that the target reader experiences the same emotional and rhetorical impact as the original speaker, effectively bridging the distance between two distinct linguistic worlds. By acknowledging the limitations of direct equivalence, scholars and practitioners can develop more robust methodologies for cross-lingual communication in an increasingly globalized academic environment.
REFERENCES
1. Baker, M. (2018). In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation. Routledge.
2. Bassnett, S. (2014). Translation Studies. Routledge.
3. Cowie, A. P. (2001). Phraseology: Theory, Analysis, and Applications. Oxford University Press.
4. Kakhkhorov, S. (2020). Comparative Linguistics of Turkic and Germanic Languages. Tashkent Academic Press.
5. Nida, E. A. (1964). Toward a Science of Translating. Brill.
6. Vinay, J. P., & Darbelnet, J. (1995). Comparative Stylistics of French and English. John Benjamins.
7. Yusupov, O. (2015). The Problems of Idiomatic Translation in Uzbek Literature. Journal of Philological Studies.
8. Zokirov, M. (2021). Linguistic Challenges in Modern Translation. International Journal of Language.
9. Moon, R. (1998). Fixed Expressions and Idioms in English. Oxford University Press.
10. Newmark, P. (1988). A Textbook of Translation. Prentice Hall.
J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) is old enough to know where the bodies are buried. He’s been widely published over the years, most recently at The Beatnik Cowboy, Yellow Mama, The Rye Whiskey Review, Night Owl Narrative and Disturb the Universe Magazine. His latest book, to live your dreams, is available at Amazon.com. you can find it by going here: https://a.co/d/0aS2cXSX
Do not praise him. In our vile age Hoary Neptune is the earth’s ally. In every element man is — A tyrant, a traitor, or a prisoner.
— Pushkin, to Vyazemsky, 1826, regarding the death sentence imposed on the Decembrist Nikolai Turgenev.
Free-minded dissidents in the Soviet era — or today, in the climate of constrained freedoms in twenty-first-century Russia — may recall the stories of Chaadaev, Herzen, Pushkin: people who, too, confronted the oppression of thought. They may draw from their example strength for life and for resistance in the present. But how, in his turn, did Pushkin — the first great poet of Russia — find the strength to defend freedom? With what great image could he identify himself, in order to find respite from his inner contradictions?
Pushkin is rightly regarded as the first great poet of Russia. Such an opinion, for example, was expressed by the foremost literary critic of his time, Vissarion Belinsky. Yet this does not mean that Pushkin stood alone among unremarkable figures. On the contrary, he developed intellectually within a society with many people who could surpass him in education and in the courage to dissent from the realities of Russia at the turning point of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Many of the bold individuals who surrounded Pushkin would later join the Decembrist uprising against autocracy, supporting liberal ideas.
And although many of these brave men made history on the battlefields of 1812 and during the uprising on Senate Square, their destinies and that of Pushkin represent two opposite kinds of immortality: historical and mental. Here lies a paradox: the vast uprising of December 1825 — unshakable in the sincerity of its sacrifice — has been treated by history like an old monument overgrown with moss, defining not ideas or personality, but merely a date: December 14.
Pushkin, by contrast, who was neither a soldier nor a member of the Decembrists’ secret societies, left behind a creative legacy whose multiple levels — from the aesthetic to the semantic — contributed to the moral consciousness of his era. His influence is felt even today, at the level of a person’s existential experience.
Despite the authoritarianism and inherent lack of freedoms in Russia during the reigns of Alexander I and later Nicholas I, a politically conscious society formed. And despite the failure of the uprising, the tightening of censorship, and the atmosphere of suspicion, there remained within society a demand for dynamic political thought. Intellectuals began to develop this secretly in poetry. And Pushkin, as one of the first poets, was discussed more than anyone else in the attempt to discover a politically vital position. Here Pushkin offered not only a sense of freedom but also examined it from the sharpest moral angles.
In Pushkin’s life, the influence of the Decembrist circles to which he gravitated shaped his vocabulary with terms defining unfreedom and despotism. They formed his language of resistance. But he himself formed the vocabulary of his personal sensations from life in disgrace and exile. This feeling is unlike the monument of Peter I looming over St. Petersburg. It resembles someone walking almost just behind you — an invisible figure whom, when you turn around, you neither see nor hear, for like fear, he exists only in your mind. And in reality he is merely an unnoticed piece of clothing that strikes against you as you move, creating the sensation that someone is following.
And, illumined by the pale moon, Stretching forth his hand on high, Behind him rushes the Bronze Horseman On a loudly galloping steed;
Fear, as an experience, does not exist only for the active participants of the Decembrist movement. Nor does it exist merely for some abstract future. If you are a minor official living quietly, without active participation in public life, it is unrealistic to feel yourself at the sharp edge of repression and to worry as though you were a victim of the regime. Far more painful is the feeling of an incomplete life — a feeling that is all-consuming. And although many factors may produce such a sensation, we shall consider it here as the essence of living in an unfree and backward country — backward not for lack of thinkers, but because of authoritarianism.
It was precisely such a country that Russia was as it entered the nineteenth century and passed through the Napoleonic Wars. Throughout the nineteenth century, revolutionary and liberal ideas constantly arose within the empire. Hence it would be incorrect to imagine tsarist Russia as an iron cage of thought. One need only recall the publication of Chaadaev’s Philosophical Letters, for which he was declared insane. Or the open promotion of liberal ideas by Nikolai Ivanovich Turgenev in the literary salons and evenings of St. Petersburg — after which he wrote to his brother: “It was not for this that we embraced liberal ideas, in order to make concessions to boors.” And he, in turn, encountered what every person who opposes an authoritarian regime encounters — fear, misunderstanding, and condemnation from those around him. Often this fear was disguised as concern: “What are you saying? That’s dangerous.” But in reality it was less a condemnation of the other than an admission of one’s own unfreedom and dependence on limits and fear.
Pushkin understood this with remarkable clarity. In his works he described precisely the psychology of society, without descending into theatrical generalizations. He diagnosed the age not by merely observing its symptoms, but, like a true philosopher, he struck at the cause. And for him the cause was not the ruler but an eternal dilemma of human nature: anxiety before unfreedom and the impossibility of fully realizing oneself.
But whatever happened, Pushkin wrote for people, and his characters, for the sake of deeper understanding, also had to be human. In the Boldino autumn of 1833, Pushkin composed the epic poem The Bronze Horseman. After its publication, this would become the name by which the sculpture of Peter I on horseback in St. Petersburg — mentioned by Pushkin — came to be known.
In the poem, St. Petersburg is devastated by a flood, and the Emperor of All Russia, Alexander I, justifies himself before the people for his helplessness in the face of catastrophe. Then he steps away from the balcony and weeps, now justifying his powerlessness to himself. He had a throne, authority, and the image of a reformer. But he lacked either resolve or talent. He possessed the image of a sovereign, yet in reality he was merely a hero. And over every hero fate holds dominion:
The late Tsar still ruled Russia With glory. Onto the balcony, Sad and troubled, he stepped forth And said: “Against God’s elements Even Tsars cannot contend.”
Pushkin subconsciously anticipated this shame. As a lyceum student of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, he had been personally acquainted with the emperor in his youth. Evidence of this is the “Ode to Liberty,” in which the theme of the murder of Paul I is addressed. And although the ode contained no evaluative positions, the mere mention of this event unsettled the Tsar. This is clearly seen in Pushkin’s reflections from his personal diary titled “An Imaginary Conversation with Alexander I,” in which Pushkin writes the following remark on behalf of the Tsar:
“Of course, you acted unwisely… I have noticed that you are trying to discredit me in the eyes of the people by spreading absurd slander;”
Pushkin deliberately places into the mouth of Alexander I a phrase in which the emperor speaks of his mission in the plural: “Against God’s elements even Tsars cannot contend.” He says Tsars, not a Tsar, although in Russia he alone is the sovereign with a single word of authority. Here one senses the psychology of an incomplete man — that same anxiety before unfreedom mentioned above. If in an ordinary person it manifests as fear of failing to conform to a totalitarian society, then in the Tsar a similar problem arises from the absence of genuine subjectivity — the very quality that ought to belong to a sovereign.
The tragedy of history: Alexander I was not allowed to realize himself. Even his father, Emperor Paul I — killed as the result of a palace coup — possessed the courage to pursue his own, albeit contradictory, policy. Alexander I was granted power and a voice. Yet it seems that neither a single individual nor the elites alone but an entire epoch closed before him the path to the true realization of the ideas that had long formed within his soul. Fate placed him upon the throne of real authority burdened with ambition and with the confidence that he had already triumphed over his father, with whom he had a competitive relationship. Yet fear of angering the elites again, and guilt over his complicity in the murder of his own father, drained his strength and limited his power.
The people in this poem drift like tin soldiers, watching the catastrophe and the death of the city. They are like figures on parade, marching in formation at the front, but in times of crisis losing their shape and, in fear and without finding themselves, being carried away by the storm.
A universal characteristic of the human being deprived of genuine culture is inward isolation. An uncultivated person has no true communion with others. A paternalistic, authoritarian regime, in order to control people, sets before them the goal of the state — for example, duty to the motherland. The ordinary person must identify with it in order to find belonging. Yet in moments of crisis, when the state can no longer unite society around this sense of duty, a whirlpool of events begins in which people can drift only as victims. For without an identity rooted in duty to the state, and in the absence of culture, they close themselves off inwardly and at best become passive observers. At worst — like hungry predators infected with petty ideas — they turn against culture itself.
The tragedy of Alexander I is the tragedy of every Russian of that era. And if we generalize politically, we arrive at a characterization of autocracy and authoritarianism in two words: constraint and incompleteness. In contrast stands the idea of independent philosophical thought, which unites people with views opposed to the regime and allows them to move together through crisis without the constraints of fear of conforming to it.
His dream… Or in a dream Does he behold it? Or is all our life Nothing but an empty dream, Heaven’s mockery of the earth?
In studying Pushkin’s biography, we must boldly acknowledge: Pushkin was not a combat machine for the reform and liberalization of Russia. He had a relationship with Emperor Alexander I. And deep within, he judged him as more than merely “a ruler who failed to meet expectations.” Pushkin also owned several hundred serfs. And unlike some of his Decembrist friends — for example, the Turgenev brothers — he did not receive a foreign education.
Yet no one today has the right to condemn Pushkin for any aspect of his creation or life that at the time may have appeared complimentary to the authorities. In the twenty-first century, we cannot criticize Pushkin in the way his contemporaries did. He was a complex man in a complex epoch. Nikolai Turgenev once wrote: “it is not for him to judge progressive ideas.” But we cannot speak so. For in that case, it would amount to disrespect toward his biography and his efforts to navigate a fraught political situation.
Answering the central question of this essay: precisely because Pushkin was one of the first poets of Russia, it fell to him to be the first to look clearly at the political condition of the empire and hope for change. If in contemporary Russia a person seeks a freer form of life and relies on poets such as Pushkin, then in his own time Pushkin relied upon the hope of sustaining “encouraging impulses” within himself. And his hope was indeed justified: he didn’t transform the political system, but he did establish a tradition of thinking against and beyond a authoritarian regime. And that tradition, in turn, opens the way to defining new forms of community.
“Oh, how many wondrous discoveries Mind and Labor still prepare for us.”
— Pushkin, 1829.
This article was written with the aid of notes from lectures by Y. M. Lotman.
