Earlier this month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a statement saying he was changing the country’s internationally recognized name from “Turkey” to “Turkiye”, the television explained.
“The word ‘Turkiye’ represents and expresses the culture, civilization and values of the Turkish nation in the best way,” the statement said.
Changing the name of the country is not as rare as it is thought, world media report.
National rebranding can happen for a whole range of reasons, to rise above the cliché, to present oneself in a more positive image, or even for the sake of politics. TRT cites examples of Holland, which changed its name to the Netherlands, or Macedonia, which recently became North Macedonia due to a dispute with Greece.
In 1935, Persia changed its name to Iran.
‘Turquia’, ‘Turkiye’ i ‘Turkey’
In Turkish the country is called Turkiye.
The country accepted the name after gaining independence from Western powers in 1923, which temporarily occupied it. Throughout history, Europeans knew it as an Ottoman state, and then they knew it under many variations of the word “Turkiye”.
The name that remained the most was in Latin “Turquia”, and the most ubiquitous was “Turkey”.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the word “Turkey” is defined as “something that fails badly”, or “stupid” or “silly person”.
The vast majority of people in Turkey believe that naming a country according to its local variation makes sense and is in line with the country’s goals to determine how others should identify it.
Accordingly, a recent statement made it clear that “in the context of strengthening the ‘Turkiye’ brand, in all types of activities and correspondence, especially in official relations with other countries and international institutions and organizations, the term ‘Türkiye’ will be used instead of terms such as ‘Turkey’, ‘Turkei’, ‘Turquie’ and so on”.
So, for example, the Turkish state news agency, which has its regional headquarters in Sarajevo, has started calling Turkey “Republika Turkiye” few days ago.
Source: Al Jazeera
