Not the point of the graphic at all, but this is the second time recently I saw the spelling “Turkiye” and was wondering the context behind that change, wondering if it was anything like the change in the spelling of Kyiv (which has now been so engrained in my head that I had to go look up the Russian spelling “Kiev”).

I looked it up and it appears Türkiye has been their own spelling for over 100 years, and they just petitioned the UN to update the spelling of the country’s name in 2021.

Cool, so Türkiye it is! (Plus my phone automatically adds the umlaut, so that’s handy!)

Also in Türkiye they don’t own cats, the cats own them.

[–] Stovetop 20 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Erdogan changed it because he is a nationalist and took offense to the name of his country being compared to the bird. So now the country is on a PR campaign to get the international community on board with Türkiye, which is supposedly a more accurate phonetic rendering of the country's name (if your language has the same phonetics as Turkish).

Personally, while I do think it's a bit silly for countries to try to mandate what they are called in other languages (e.g. you don't see Germany getting upset that not a single one of their neighbors save Austria calls them "Deutschland"), I know Turkey is not the first to do so and I generally respect attempts to "reclaim" identities (such as changing Kiev to Kyiv for Ukraine). But I think the umlaut is where I draw the line.

When I heard them announce Turkey during the opening ceremony of the Olympics, it sounded more like "Turkia" to me, so I don't know why we don't just use that, since my mind keeps reading Türkiye as "Toork-yay".

Plus when I type Türkiye, my phone's keyboard still auto-suggests the 🦃 emoji anyways so I'd say it was a lost battle from the start.

[–] USNWoodwork 2 points 3 months ago

For the rest of my life.. I'm going to use the emoji in place of the name of the country. Which lets be honest, even if I live another 60 years will only be like two times maybe.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The reason for its change was the names association with the animal, the gov didn't like it. But like nobody from turkey actually cares, it's just a formal thing. Funny thing: we call India Hindistan (which means land of the turkey).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Does it affect the spelling?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago

You're supposed to read it in Turkish. It is "týɾ.ci.je" in phonetic but you're better off googling its pronunciation.

[–] norimee 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Yeah, the asked the international community not to call them after a ~~water fowl~~ big chicken anymore and use their native name for the country instead. Officially it always was "Republic of Türkiye" and not Turkey anyways.

[–] Stovetop 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Just a nitpick, Turkeys are ground birds, not water fowl.

[–] norimee 4 points 3 months ago

Thanks for the correction. I honestly just assumed and didn't think.

[–] angrystego 2 points 3 months ago

The funny thing is the bird is called turkey after the country (despite being american), not the other way around.