Nazar değmesin

Literally: May the evil eye not touch it

Example: “Bu yıl hiç hastalanmadık, nazar değmesin.” — We haven't been sick once this year, knock on wood.

English equivalent: Knock on wood

Origin: The belief in the evil eye — that envious or malicious intent can be transmitted through a look alone, causing real harm to whoever it lands on — is documented across many of the earliest civilizations, including Sumer, Babylon, and Egypt, making it far older than Turkish culture specifically. The blue glass amulet now associated with protection against it has its own long, cross-cultural material history: archaeological finds date the earliest bead-like eye-shaped charms to around 3300 BC at Tell Brak in Mesopotamia, and the specific blue glass version familiar today emerged around 1500 BC in the Mediterranean, spreading from Egypt and the Aegean into Anatolia as glassmaking technology advanced. Its distinctive eye motif, with alternating light and dark blue rings, is thought to echo the Eye of Horus from ancient Egyptian belief, representing the sun and moon together as protective, all-seeing symbols. Glass beadmaking specifically took root in Anatolia when craftsmen from Egypt settled in İzmir's Kemeraltı district, working out of the Arap Hanı and producing anklets and bead bracelets that eventually included the now-iconic nazar boncuğu.