4 ms·
That was a very heavy-handed move that overrides traditions in many languages
by nayuki 2y ago
That was a very heavy-handed move that overrides traditions in many languages
- labster 2y agoI can’t imagine getting upset if someone wants to call my country États-Unis or 米国. Only Turks want to tell me how to speak my own language.
- FredPret 2y agoAnd Burmese / Myanmarians. Names are always bestowed, never picked.
- jltsiren 2y agoGeorgians don't seem to like either if you call their country Gruzia. And Greeks didn't like it when their neighbors wanted to be Macedonians. Names often have historical baggage, and using them may send a different message than what you intended.
- FredPret 2y agoAn interesting one is Germany. Different people call them Allemagne, Tyksland, Saksamaa, Německo, Germany, and many more; of course none of these people ever went to Germany and asked them nicely what they'd like to be called.
- guenthert 2y agoI think Tyskland is pretty close, particularly given how neighboring folks actually speak there. Allemange has reasons in history as does Germany. I suppose the others can easily explained likewise. Really, it could be much worse.
- FredPret 2y ago> Really, it could be much worse. These are the official names for Germany. It does get worse! My broader point is you can call yourself whatever you want, but you cannot tell others how to speak if they don’t agree.
- gopher_space 2y agoalt.skopje.is.not.macedonia popped into my head but I'm realizing I never read any of those posts.
- lxgr 2y agoYou're assuming that every Turk supports this decision. I'm not sure if that's in fact the case. But if it is: People generally do get to change their mind about their preferred address, and people usually oblige, so why not places? It obviously depends a lot on the case, but sometimes the “common” name has a historical association people living there aren’t comfortable with, for example.
- lmm 2y ago> I can’t imagine getting upset if someone wants to call my country États-Unis or 米国. In an international context? I remember Côte d'Ivoire asking people to please refer to them as Côte d'Ivoire for what seemed the very sensible, practical reason that their citizens were having trouble finding their country in lists when going through customs, registering at hotels etc.
- FartinMowler 2y ago米 ... lol, reminds me of a Kurt Vonnegut novel that included his rendering of a human orifice.
- temporallobe 2y agoExactly. Every language has their own names for other countries and cities. I once got into an argument with a Russian who insisted I was saying “Moscow” wrong, as apparently I was supposed to say it exactly it like they do, “Moskva” while speaking English. I asked him how Russians say Washington, D.C. and my point was immediately proven.
- lxgr 2y agoI've always wondered about the politics of that decision, and whether it was broadly supported in the population. Personally, I'm fine using whatever name a country adopts for itself, but I can't help but notice that this particular change had a bit of a Streisand effect on me. (I really can't say I've experienced a single situation where it wasn't very clear from context whether somebody was referring to the bird or country.)
- nayuki 2y ago> can't say I've experienced a single situation where it wasn't very clear from context whether somebody was referring to the bird or country Tapakapa's detailed video agrees. He also mentions that the diacritic character is needless friction in English. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiidxd5KKw8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiidxd5KKw8 (10m58s) [2024-08-10]
- numpad0 2y agoI'm 100% not used to Türkiye spelling, but find it logically useful that it undo confusion between the country and the bird. The birds as well as some verbs tend to sneak into dropdowns when devs cheap out and paste language resource files to Google Translate or ChatGPT.
- Doxin 2y agoThat only applies to english though. In dutch the country is called Turkije and the bird is called a kalkoen. I'm sure in by far most languages there's no confusion between the bird and the country, and yet everyone across the whole world gets told to spell it Türkiye.
- aguaviva 2y agoNothing heavy-handed about it at all. Plenty of countries have changed their names (slightly or entirely) over the years. The more diacritics we are compelled to learn and use, the better I say.