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Turkey seeks to officially change spelling of name in English
- okasaki 4y agoFalsehoods programmers believe about country names?
- techdragon 4y ago1. Countries have a single unique name that identifies them.
- dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago2. Any name that identifies them has a single unique spelling.
- xeromal 4y agoThere are 85 ways to spell hummus.
- Normille 4y agoIt's not really up to Turkey [or Türkiye] how the English language spells their country's name, is it? Any more than it's England's* business how Turkish speakers spell İngiltere *[other English speaking countries are available]
- eesmith 4y agoDo you say "Burma" or "Myanmar"? There are many who deliberately use the former despite the latter being the official spelling in English. Indeed, by choosing one or the other, you could be implicitly taking a position on that country's internal affairs .. even if you aren't aware of the issue. Recently there's been a lot of support to use "Kyiv" instead of "Kiev". Almost everyone now uses "Beijing" instead of "Peking", excepting a few cases. "Bombay" or "Mumbai"? "Calcutta" or "Kolkata"? (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_renamed_places_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_renamed_places_in_Indi... .) Do you refer to the city in New Mexico as "Hot Springs" or "Truth or Consequences"? (Or as "T or C")? There's quite a few examples I could come up with, which means it's not that uncommon. And you see uptake depends on many factors.
- gtk40 4y agoBurma/Myanmar unfortunately has more scrutiny because it's a current political issue. Some see the new name as associated with the current military government. The US officially calls the country Burma (e.g., CIA World Factbook: https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/burma/ https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/burma/ )
- wrp 4y agoThere was also Cambodia/Kampuchea, with the latter name associated with the Khmer Rouge regime.
- Kon-Peki 4y ago> the government will be formally requesting the use of “Turkiye” instead of the anglicized “Turkey” in all international forums. It seems that it absolutely is something that a nation can request and other nations should comply with - unless... Is there some controversy? I mean, the timing of this request makes one think that perhaps it is a negotiating tactic with allowing NATO expansion.
- mc4ndr3 4y agoThe article does not clarify how one pronounces Turkeiyueiuriwurouuuuuu
- ldargin 4y agoThat means we'd have to change the name of the bird too, to keep up. ;)
- somedude895 4y agoI did see Erdogan's worst fears come true just a couple days ago in a Youtube survey that was likely Google translated from English to German: https://postimg.cc/PCfv6NZb https://postimg.cc/PCfv6NZb Or who knows, maybe Saudi Tourism - who I'm pretty sure are behind the survey - knew what they were doing.
- tru3_power 4y agoTurkiye has much bigger problems on its hands than how the rest of the world spells their name
- feoren 4y agoOne reason I want to see requests like this basically instantly and unquestionably accepted is because it prevents these minor issues from overshadowing the important issues the rest of the world is trying to help Turkiye deal with. It's a message of "of course, whatever you need -- we side with the people of Turkiye" that helps build cred when we go back and say "now about that Armenian genocide ..."
- rascul 4y agoIs it still pronounced like the bird? I've been reading and speaking American English all my life and would not know how to pronounce Turkiye. The last three letters are in a combination that is both unfamiliar and difficult to figure out.
- xeromal 4y agoYeah, seeing this for the first time, my brain wants to say "turk-aye". Hopefully someone can chime in if that's correct.
- ftyers 4y agoIn Turkish the /ü/ is like a French /u/ in the word "tu" so super round and front. The /r/ is flapped like in Spanish, and for the rest you just pronounce it how it looks. There are three syllables: tür-ki-ye. Turkish orthography is very good.
- rascul 4y agoUnfortunately I'm not familiar with French or Spanish, so now I'm more confused and think that I may have been pronouncing Turkey wrong all along.
- ftyers 4y agoWhich languages are you familiar with? I can potentially give examples in those.
- rascul 4y agoAmerican English. I have tried to learn others but I have failed each time.
- ftyers 4y agoOk, that makes it more difficult. For /ü/ make the sound "ooh" and then push your lips forward. For the /r/ try saying /tülkiye/ with /l/ and then note where your tongue hits the roof of your mouth. Say it again and move your tongue back a bit. That's the best I can do with a written description, you could also try listening to the song "Ölürüm Türkiyem" on YouTube ... Yaren Doğan has a fun version.
- fnordpiglet 4y agoWhat’s the background? The article only states the desire, but does it in some way reflect better it’s native spelling? It doesn’t seem to change its pronunciation.
- ftyers 4y agoTurkish Airlines has a publicity campaign going on where on every flight there is a video of foreigners trying to pronounce Türkiye. I think most of them are actors, but all of them pronounce it differently (and not like Turkish speakers would), mostly it comes out like /töğkiyey/. In any case it doesn't matter too much, write Türkiye say Turkey, English is pretty flexible with spelling.
- mrlonglong 4y agoIt's about time they corrected the spelling. Türkiye makes much more sense than confusing it with a rather stupid bird native to North America.
- iostream24 4y agoSo, the animal “turkey” is called “peru” in Portuguese… I just thought I’d put that out there, since we are implicitly dealing with disambiguating place and animal names. Portukale is, of course, the name for “orange”, the fruit, in both Turkish and Greek and occasionally Russian