Learn Turkish: Yıllar boyunca ha çare bulduk ha bulmadık, kimsenin umurunda olmadı. - For years, whether we found a cure or not, nobody cared.

Ha ... ha ... is a correlative conjunction meaning 'whether ... or ... (it makes no difference)'. To show that two opposite outcomes lead to the same result, it is very commonly used with the positive and negative forms of the same verb. Here, ha ... bulduk ha bulmadık means 'whether we found a cure or we didn't find one'.

Why are the verbs inside the ha ... ha ... structure in the past tense (bulduk and bulmadık)?

The tense inside a ha ... ha ... clause usually aligns with the main clause of the sentence. Because the main result happened in the past (olmadı, meaning nobody cared), the hypothetical situations of finding or not finding the cure are also conjugated in the past tense.

What is the literal breakdown of the phrase kimsenin umurunda olmadı?

The noun umur means 'care' or 'concern,' though it is almost exclusively used in this specific idiom. Kimsenin umurunda literally means 'in nobody's concern'. By adding olmadı (it was not), the phrase literally translates to 'it was not in anyone's concern,' which is the most natural way to say 'nobody cared' in Turkish.

Could we use the similar conjunction ister ... ister ... instead of ha ... ha ... here?