36
votes
Türkiye's parliament votes to let Sweden join NATO
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- Title
- Turkey's parliament agrees to hold a long-delayed vote on Sweden's NATO membership
- Published
- Jan 23 2024
- Word count
- 183 words
I'd like to note that Turkey's standard spelling in English is still "Turkey," as used in the real headline because every major English-language media organization still uses the version with English letters and which corresponds with the pronunciation, unlike what the Turkish government would like to proscribe, much as they try to proscribe things for other governments.
In the end, it's complicated: https://www.patrickkphillips.com/grammar/turkey-or-turkiye-who-gets-to-decide/
Adoption is fairly mixed, with the UN accepting Turkiye, as well as the US state department, while uptake in the media has been slow, although not unanimous in either direction.
All that being said, I don't see this as any different than Ukraine telling people that Kyiv is Kyiv, and not Kiev, or when China pushed back against Wade-Giles and Peking became Beijing. I think countries can tell other people what they want to be called. You don't have to do anything, but it should be considered impolite to deny the request.
I don't see it as different than with names - names have always been special. If someone in your grade was named Alexzandre, which is a genuinely common spelling of "Alexander" in the US, it'd be considered deeply offensive for you insist on spelling their name as "Alexander".
Why would governments calling another country what they ask to be called be indicative of anything other than those governments choosing not to be antagonistic? As far as media sources go, to my knowledge, the English-language sources that changed their spelling were things like a news site from Turkey, Chinese state media, Singaporean state media, and like one TV channel in Australia.
It would be more like if China said we must call them Zhōngguó (with the accent marks), or if the Germans tried to make everyone do what they want again (every neighboring country has a different ethnonym based on the nearest Germanic tribe to their nation), or if the US commanded that the Turks stop using the name "Amerika Birleşik Devletleri."
But perhaps it is similar to the Peking to Beijing change, especially in that it's a demand from the authoritarian regime to try to erase what it perceives as a blemished past...except that change also wasn't an overnight change and it only changed over time as the public switched from a transliteration system based on a more southern dialect to one based on the CCP's dialect. For reference, it took the NYT from 1979 to 1986, the BBC until 1990, and the Irish Times until 1997. But the problem here is that "Turkey" isn't a transliteration of the Turkish name for the country; it's an actual word that has been in use in English for several hundred years, much like how we write "Spain" and not "Esponya."
Well, it's exactly that. It's the US State department recognizing that it would be an offense to insist on using "Turkey" instead of "Turkiye". Again, you never have to change the way you call anything, it's a matter of whether or not it's considered an offense as you do so.
If any of those countries wanted us to call them something else, I would be of the same opinion. In terms of the US asking Turkey that, I would also that it would be the respectful move for the Turkish to acquiesce. As to why it doesn't happen, no one cares to push for it. English is a special language these days, it's undeniable. It is all but the de facto lingua franca of the international community, and fairly uniquely amongst languages, it has more speakers who have it as their second language than there are people who have it as their first language. It's obvious why a country would care more about how it's name is spelled in English.
I don't see how everyone dragging their feet on recognizing pinyin is any reason we should also drag our feet for Turkiye. If the nation state says, "call us Turkiye". Fine. I have no reason not to call them Turkiye. It's not even pronounced differently.
The funny thing is that you're still not even calling them what Erdogan wants them to be called because their request was just that absurd. The other crazy thing is that no one knows how we're supposed to pronounce the name they asked for because of the spelling and the fact that there's not much reason for that spelling to be pronounced as "Turkey" other than several hundred years of momentum, which the spelling also has. Changing just the spelling and not the pronunciation is pretty weird when the new spelling clearly adds a syllable.
I mean, the pronunciation doesn't really matter. Iran insisted that we don't call them Persia anymore, and we complied. We're not actually pronouncing "Iran" correctly generally, but that's just how it goes. We did try.
Turkey's/Türkiye's going to have a roguher time because their native name derives from the Greek Τουρκία (Turkia), which is already pretty damn close to what we have already.
That said, it's not unique to demand other countries call your by your native name, even with non English marks. The most obvious example being São Tomé and Príncipe, which is always written like that: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A3o_Tom%C3%A9_and_Pr%C3%ADncipe
Kind of has a similarity with personal pronouns, or deadnaming trans people though isn’t it? Like, it’s their name, they get to choose it. Shouldn’t we be polite and call countries and people what they want to be called? It’s a fairly small ask.
Languages often alter the spelling and pronunciation of foreign place names to make them easier to say. London in Spanish is Londres, Texas in Japanese is テキサス州 (Tekisasu-shū), and Turkey in English is Turkey. It's not disrespectful, it's just how languages work. If anything, it's pretty presumptuous to expect speakers of other languages to adopt one's own alphabet and spelling conventions when talking about a place in their own language.
Names aren't as flexible because talking about (and often to) an individual person is different from talking about an abstract concept with a long history across many different cultures. (And even then, transliterating is often acceptable; see the Spanish Wikipedia article on Jorge II de Gran Bretaña).
Also, it's hard to take the Turkey rename in particular seriously because it's being decreed by a nationalist autocrat for self-interested reasons, rather than the result of a more organic movement to remove a colonial name, as most such renames have been. Same deal with Modi trying to rename India "Bharat" to pander to Hindu nationalist sentiment at the expense of other groups.
Or how about Christoffer Columbus/Christophe Colomb/Kristof Kolomb/Christoph Kolumbus/Cristóbal Colón/Kristofers Kolumbs/Christoffel Columbus/Krzysztof Kolumb/Cristóvão Colombo. And that's only major European (or Turkish) languages that use the Latin alphabet and use a name that's not just a variation on those used by other languages that come earlier in the alphabet.
Also, super proud of myself for knowing how to pronounce Krzysztof. Big ups to Coach K for that one.
That's not really how country names work. They call the US "Amerika Birleşik Devletleri" not '"United States of America" but with a Turkish accent.' International organizations like the UN or EU accept whatever names the countries choose, which is logical, but language is not proscriptive. Some watermelon-selling dictator getting offended that his country shares a name with a bird (which in their language is associated with India) is not a good enough reason for us to call it anything other than what it's been called since before it was a country.
Hmm. And calling the city Kyiv versus Kiev?
That took Russia starting a war with Ukraine and public opinion hating Russia and loving Ukraine. Plus, those names are both transliterations rather than a proper ethnonym like Turkey or China or Londres or Amerika Birleşik Devletleri. It was a change against cultural imperialism, which I would argue Turkey is engaging in when they try to change their name in another language. Note that they don't care that they're called Turquie or Tyrkiet or Turecko or Thú-ngí-khì Khiung-fò-koet.
I don't know, it seems more nuanced/varied/random than that. We changed from White Russia to Belarus, and I don't think it's because we love them.
Belarus wasn't an independent country until long after we started using essentially that name. Even then, "Belarus" is still anglicized and not the direct transliteration, and it only uses letters that exist in our language.
Country names, interesting topic! Is it reasonable for a country to make demands about what other countries should call their country in their native languages?
Türkiye wants to be spelled the same in Türkçe and English. And I get it. For one; Turkey is not very similar to the actual name of the country, and for two; it's identical to another English word. But I think it's unreasonable for them to expect us to write their name using a letter that's not on our keyboards! It's not wise either; many will for simplicity spell it Turkiye, maybe unaware that ü and u are completely different vowels. Tyrkiye would probably be closer, and I think uptake would have been a lot quicker if the country had gone for that spelling in English.
We had a similar debate here in Norway back in 2022. Until then, we'd referred to Belarus (Беларусь) as Hviterussland (White Russia), while the actual translation of the name would have been Hviterus (White Rus). The ministry of foreign affairs decided to change the name by request from the Belarusian political opposition, to distance the country from Russia.
Translations can sometimes be a good alternative to using the native name. You mentioned China in another comment (中国, Zhōngguó). They seem to be fine with us calling them China for now, and I'd argue both 中国 and Zhōngguó are completely unreasonable. As is Zhongguo, because Chinese is a really cool language where the diacritics are super important, and without them, it can be translated to Follow the Fruit or a dozen other nonsensical names. But I don't think it would be completely unreasonable for them to request we refer to them by a more correct translation, like Middle Realm.
My favourite country name is no longer in use: Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. When they gained independence, they got into a dispute with Greece over their name, because there's a region of Greece named Macedonia, with a long and glorious history. Eventually they agreed on the name North Macedonia as a compromise, and while that's silly, it's sadly not FYROM silly.
What's my point with all of this? I don't know. I'm not sure if I have one. It's just an interesting topic.
I think it's important to note that you got the White Rus/White Russia distinction from an authoritarian state's political opposition, whereas it was a dictator (or near enough to make no difference) who asked us to stop calling it Turkey for purely nationalist reasons. Given what a dick he and his government has been over the past decade, no one is inclined to honor his requests, except at the most formal levels.
Guess it was the fighter jets.