Allah analı babalı büyütsün

12:07 Jul 30, 2012 

You're welcome, Eser! I'm only sorry I couldn't help you come up with anything more useful - but it is always interesting to discover places where something that can be said in one culture can't be said in another culture.

Do let me know if you find a good translation for the phrase. In the meantime, best of luck with the rest of the novel!

19:58 Jul 29, 2012 

Thank you very much for all your help, Alvin. I think you are right about ditching the literal meaning. I've been thinking about that but in the mean time I was trying to find something with similar intent at least. After wrecking my brains (and of all who participated here), I can't come up with anything. So I suppose it will have to be something similar to what you suggested in the end. Thank you very much to all who tried to help.

16:19 Jul 28, 2012 

It's unfortunate that the expressions that take the least thought to say are often the ones that require the most thought when it comes to translating them!

If it is just formulaic, I'd be inclined to ditch the literal meaning (as there does not seem to be a natural English equivalent), and go with the functional meaning. But what do English people say when they see someone's child?
You know how the characters speak better than I do, but here are some random suggestions that a native speaker might use after "Oh what a lovely daughter you have!":

You must be very proud of her - I'm sure she'll be very pretty when she grows up - She takes after you - You make a lovely family - She's ever such a polite/nice/sweet girl - I can see you've brought her up well - She's a credit to you...

They're all pretty formulaic in my opinion, but as you can see, they're all quite far from the Turkish inasmuch as none of them specifically wish for the child's (and the parents') welfare, and I don't know if they'll be of any use to you or not... but barring a sudden stroke of inspiration, that's the best I can come up with unfortunately.

11:06 Jul 27, 2012 

It really is "a throw-away formulaic expression" as you put it. It has no function other than expressing a well wish. So it is one of those phrases people utter almost mechanically without putting too much thought in it. It is similar to saying "Bless you!" to someone who just sneezed. So the scene in question is simply this: The client woman sees and finds the little daughter of the seamstress very cute and says "Oh what a lovely daughter you have! Allah analı babalı büyütsün!"

10:16 Jul 27, 2012 

I'm trying to imagine the scene and what someone would say, but unfortunately the only things I can come up with are variations on "What a lovely daughter you've got". "Hasn't she/Haven't you grown" is also common if the speaker has seen the child before. But of course neither of these are lexically close the Turkish!!

One thing worth thinking about is what the function of the utterance in the novel is. Is it just a throw-away formulaic expression? (In which case something like the above might be OK) Or is there a note of dramatic irony inasmuch as the mother and father will die before the child grows up? (In which case, something like "You make such a lovely family" might work...)
One reason why all of these are so far from the Turkish is that anything more literal (e.g. I hope nothing happens to your mum and dad) implies that the speaker has reason to believe that something bad will happen to them!

Sorry to be of so little help!

08:41 Jul 26, 2012 

Thanks a lot for everyone who are trying to help. The characters of the novel are non-Muslim couple who lived in Istanbul during the years following the WWI. The wife is a seamstress working from home. The couple has 3 children. This particular sentence is uttered by a client of the wife, directed at her daughter who is about 10-11 years old (4th grade).

08:26 Jul 26, 2012 

There is no exact cultural equivalent in English. Although it's not quite the same, "Congratulation on the birth of your baby boy / girl / little bundle of joy" seems to be the most commonly used expression in English-speaking countries.

21:18 Jul 25, 2012 

Off the top of my head, I can't think of a similar saying in English - my guess is that you'll have to use something much more general or something tangential (e.g. "I hope s/he'll make his/her mum and dad very proud/happy/..." - implying that the parents are going to live long enough...)

All the answers suggested so far, although lexically correct, sound decidedly odd - either old-fashioned or else oriental/exotic - in a contemporary English-speaking context, so much so that you risk having an inconsistency in the tone of that character's speech, which a reader would find jarring (depending of course on how the character has been speaking throughout the rest of the novel). Ideally, we would need more information about the context (e.g. time/place of action, age/sex/social background of the character and the rhetorical situation...) to be able to come up with something convincing functional translation.