Core Equivalence and Calibrated Exoticism in Borrow’s The Turkish Jester

Abstract

This article examines the Nasreddin Hoca anecdotes in George Borrow’s 1884 compilation The Turkish Jester through comparison with Turkish and Ottoman-Turkish reference variants. It asks how far the comic core of the Hoca repertoire is retained in nineteenth-century English transmission and what representational shifts accompany that retention. Methodologically, the study treats the comparative variant, not a single authoritative source text, as the unit of analysis because Nasreddiniana has no stable canonical corpus; its anecdotes circulate through manuscripts, printed booklets, oral tradition and cross-cultural transfers. The article proposes core equivalence as a diagnostic framework based on three dimensions: the complication-resolution route of the action sequence, the functional distribution of actor roles and the logical rupture that generates the punchline. Twelve core-equivalent pairings are identified within Borrow’s 112-item collection and checked against the 1837  Letâ’if and scholarly corpora. The findings show that, within these 12 matched pairings, Borrow’s English versions frequently preserve the comic mechanism while reducing social density, softening satire or re-staging cultural difference for English readability. Here, this representational position is defined as calibrated exoticism: the co-presence of retained foreign markers and target-side adjustments that make cultural difference legible without erasing it.