13 Comments
Sep 9, 2022Liked by Selim Koru

And now we have the following problem: Should Turkey change its Turkish word for turkey? Hindi it means Indian from India (Hindistan). Or Hindu.

Although this Hindi really means American (it comes from the Spanish misconception of the travel to "Indias" when they travelled to the Americas, and other languages also call turkey as "Rooster from Indias").

A complete mess ;)

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Aug 31Liked by Selim Koru

I’ll adopt this as soon as everyone in Turkey stops saying “Amerika Birleşik Devletleri” and starts saying “the United States of America” whenever referring to the USA. I’ll put it in the queue behind Deutschland, Nederland, Espana, Nippon, and so on.

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Sep 10Liked by Selim Koru

And how dare you write Espana while it is España?

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Sep 10Liked by Selim Koru

Ooh, look who got the fancy keyboard! (I’m sure there’s a way for me to do that, I’m just a caveman.)

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Sep 12Liked by Selim Koru

I won’t quit calling Turkey ‘Turkey’ cold turkey.

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Sep 1Liked by Selim Koru

‘Of course the name of our countries is important to us. I notice my eyes dart across pages as I read anything political, looking for that capital “T.” Hearing my country’s name is a bit like hearing my own.’ - I would do this when I moved to the US from India in the 80s. Except I was disappointed almost all the time because Native Americans hadn’t been given that designation yet.

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author

Ha, I love that. I'm guessing you stopped beyond some unmarked point of assimilation.

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Sep 1Liked by Selim Koru

Nah, I still do it. I’m rewarded with more relevant pieces but now they elicit more complicated feelings that fall into the eye rolling category.

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Very interesting! One quibble from this Dutchman: Holland was never the official name of the entire country (except from 1806-1810, when the French occupiers called it Kingdom Holland with Napoleon’s brother Louis as king). Holland was and is only a part of it.

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Greatly enjoyed your writing style (and expose into the hallowed chambers of Turkish politics)!

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author

Thanks Stanislav, glad to hear you liked it. You might also be interested in my follow-up post on the subject here: https://kulturkampftr.substack.com/p/revisiting-turkey-vs-turkiye

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English-language outlet cites the Cambridge Dictionary to say that “turkey” in English can mean “something that fails badly” or “a stupid or a silly person.”

I'm pretty sure that no one has actually used it that way since my great-grandfather died. Also, if they were really hung up on it, why not just change the country's name to "Eagle" or "Hawk?"

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author

Or just cut to the chase and call it “super-awesomeland 3000 💪”

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