Did you know that many governments and organizations have transitioned to calling the nation located in Asia Minor from Turkey to Türkiye?

[abc3643]

Turkey is now referred to as Türkiye.

In April 2022, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan asked the international community to recognize his nation by its traditional name, spelled “Türkiye” and pronounced Tour-key-yeh.

Many nations and organizations now use Türkiye instead of Turkey. Here's an example from last month:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/02/10/fact-sheet-the-biden-harris-administrations-response-to-the-earthquakes-in-turkiye-and-syria/

February 10, 2023
FACT SHEET: The Biden-⁠Harris Administration’s Response to the Earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria

In the aftermath of the earthquakes on February 6, President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. authorized an immediate U. S. response and directed the heads of federal agencies to rapidly mobilize to assist the Government of Türkiye and humanitarian partners in Syria. ...

==========
This sort of thing is not without precedent.

For many years, anglophones have called the southwest African nation of Côte d'Ivoire as Ivory Coast. "Côte d'Ivoire" literally is the French translation of Ivory Coast. However, Côte d'Ivoire is a francophone nation having previously been a French colony in Africa. In the mid-1980s, Côte d'Ivoire requested the international community to refer to it by the name Côte d'Ivoire and not as Ivory Coast. For the most part, the international community has which is why you see on maps the name Côte d'Ivoire and not Ivory Coast anymore.

Expect the same thing to happen to maps regarding the transition from Turkey to Türkiye. It seems that Google Maps has just made the change too; I've been waiting for a few weeks.

=

==========
Thoughts?
==========
As usual, I do not permit Anonymous responses. Be an adult and take responsibility for your actions and that includes when you are giving an opinion.
==========
Today is W 08 MAR 2023.

I am not Turkish and I was aware of this.

I am not Turkish, but I was not aware of this.

I am Turkish and am happy about this.

I am Turkish, but otherwise do not care.

See results.

[WindAtMyBack]

This almost seems like a form of political correctness. Countries have always had different pronunciations, spellings and completely different words outside their boundaries. Even within national borders there can be differences by region. It's not a big deal.

There are similar differences in the names of states, provinces, cities, counties, etc. There are even sports teams like the Boston Celtics that are pronounced differently than the word's origin.

A proper noun is part of language and changes over time and location.

Personally I hate it when people call the US "America". There is no such country by that name. The usage of "America" has spread since the Internet got popular, since that name mostly came from other countries, not from within the US. But I don't think the US should have a campaign to compel everyone to use the proper name. Language doesn't (and shouldn't) work that way.

A major part of language evolved from other languages, or the same language in the past.

[Agagagagaga]

Waaah! I hate it when people call the US “America”. Waaah! It’s just been referred to that way for hundreds of years. Waaah!

Yeah. And I think it’s stupid we call Germany “Germany” and not “Deutschland” you spectacular ass.

[WindAtMyBack]

@Agagagagaga
In real life I virtually NEVER hear normal people call the country "America". The only time I hear that is when it's a politician or someone else being poetic. In normal circumstances it's been many many years since I've heard anyone use that name.

[Soteris]

Literally dont care. This is just a politician trying to be special while the rest of the world, including Turkey, is tearing their hair out in frustration. Just imagine the problem with transportation alone when people can't type the name of the country without a special keyboard or understanding of how to use the more advanced functions on the keyboard. Waste of time.

[abc3643]

What do you mean by "This is just a politician trying to be special"?

What politician?

And, while you make a good point that it is a pain in the ass to type ü, it's not difficult to programmatically not care.

For example, on most search systems, capital and small letters are treated the same unless you specify in the search "Match Case".
It would not be difficult at all to create search systems which treat accented letters as letters without accents when searching. Indeed, many of these already exist with algorithms which do compares on stripped letters.

Here's an example.
This is the Google search for the band Blue Öyster Cult; with the umlaut (right) and without (left).
No difference.

[Soteris]

Both the people who ask for this change and the people around the world who set national policies accepting this change are politicians and in this particular instance, its actually very obvious what the goal is.

Erdogan is struggling to keep his country together but more importantly, struggling to maintain public support. One thing politicians often do in his position is pointless stunts for attention and since Erdogan is supported mostly by nationalists this is a perfect example of him courting their approval by appearing to strongarm the world to acknowledge Turkey as well as tie himself to Turkeys heritage. It is the same as when Trump took a bunch of photographers and went to a church to molest a bible for a bit, it only matters in the sense that it rallies support for the leader.

As for its real world support. Sure, it might be a simple solution to it but that does not mean it will not cause endless problems. A good example is when NASA destroyed a space probe because they accidentally mixed up imperial units and SCI units of measurements. Simple mistakes born from unnecessary complexity has real world consequences.

[NamerOfStars]

Um, its traditional name would be "the Byzantine Empire". And even they only inherited it from the Romans, who stole it from the miscellaneous Celtic tribes in the area, who no doubt stole it from someone else. Sorry, Erdogan; you don't get to catered to just because your ancestors are latest to take over the area. If we DID do it that way, we'd have to refer to country in Australian, anyway.

Gambia couldn't pull it off; what makes you think YOU can?

[AviatorTom]

It makes perfect sense to use the country's native language, but English speakers will have difficulty pronouncing it

[YesterdaysChild]

I don't care what they call it, I got dibs on a drumstick!

[Leopard23]

Well we transitioned from calling constantinople to Istanbul.

[goaded]

Sounds reasonable. Bombay is Mumbai, Siam is Thailand, etc.

I didn't know about it.

[OddBeMe]

But did they transition from fatherland to motherland?

[abc3643]

In Feminist Germany, they did. ;)

[OddBeMe]

Damn those ruskies!

[Guy13]

No clue...