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In a move aimed at sparking pronunciation lessons, the UN confirmed on Thursday that it has accepted a request from Turkey to change its official name.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced this week that his country would send a letter to the United Nations and other international organizations requesting the use of Türkiye in the international arena.
Stefan Dujarric, a spokesman for the UN secretary-general, said on Thursday that the change was in effect. “It’s not uncommon for us to receive such requests,” he told The Washington Post.
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This move aligns the English name of the country with the name in Turkish. Both words are pronounced in a similar way, but Türkiye has an additional syllable at the end – pronounced “wow”.
The country has adopted its official name, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, or the Republic of Turkey since its founding in 1923. The name refers to the Turkish people, a term used to refer to people living in the region since at least the Middle Ages. The founding president of the new republic, Mustafa Kemal, later received the honorary surname Ataturk, which describes him as the “father of the Turks”.
Although the country has been known as Turkey in English for at least a century and this name has had some use in the country, there is a growing impetus for Türkiye. In January 2020, a Turkish group of exporters stated that it would use Made in Türkiye on all its labels in an attempt to standardize branding.
The move was made official by a decree by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2021. “The term Türkiye represents and expresses the culture, civilization and values of the Turkish nation in the best possible way,” Erdogan’s decree said.
The new name will take the place not only of Turkey, but also of other names used internationally, such as “Turkey” and “Turkey”.
Erdogan’s government presented the move as an economic brand exercise designed to strengthen the country’s trade position on the world stage.
Turkey’s economy has been in crisis for months due to rapid inflation amid pressure from the president to cut interest rates. The low value of the Turkish lira makes exports from the country relatively cheap, although economists say the country’s trade deficit is likely to continue due to the high price of intermediate goods.
Turkey’s general elections are due in a little over a year. The economy is a key issue for Erdogan, who has been in power since 2003.
Another motivation for changing the name may be pride. A recent article by state-owned broadcaster TRT World notes that the word “turkey” has some unflattering definitions in addition to its use as a proper noun.
Type “Turkey” into Google and you’ll get a confusing set of images, articles and dictionary definitions that unite the country with Meleagris – otherwise known as the turkey, a large North American bird – known for being served at Christmas Thanksgiving menus or dinners, ”said an article published in December. “Browse the Cambridge dictionary and ‘turkey’ is defined as ‘something that fails badly’ or ‘stupid or stupid man’.
Historians say the bird was actually named after the place – either because the merchants who first brought it from North America were from the Ottoman Empire, then colloquially known as Turkey in English, or because they thought it was similar to another bird that it has already been imported by Ottoman merchants.
States have changed their names throughout history for a variety of reasons. Only in the last few years has the Netherlands given up the name Netherlands to present its geography more accurately; Swaziland became Esvatini to celebrate the 50th anniversary of independence; and Macedonia added “North” to its name to reassure its neighbor Greece.
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Movements can sometimes cause confusion. In 2016, politicians in Prague demanded that their country be known as the Czech Republic, not the Czech Republic, although the latter will remain a conventional long-term name.
The slow adoption of the shorter name disappointed some who fought for it.
“We have to be realistic,” said Petr Pavlinek, a spokesman for the Czech Initiative, a group fighting for greater name acceptance, told The Washington Post in 2017, adding that “we can’t expect that the world and the Czechs will change to the Czech Republic overnight. ”
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