Explained: Why Turkey now wants to be called Türkiye | Explained News,The Indian Express

Why does Turkey want to be called Türkiye? What is the government doing to advocate the new name? Have other countries changed their names before?

Turkey will now be known as Türkiye at the United Nations, after the intergovernmental body agreed to a formal request for the name change from Ankara. The UN said it had received a request from Ankara this past week, and the change was made soon after. The UN’s acceptance of this name change marks the start of the similar process of adoption by other similar bodies and international organisations.

The process of rebranding the country’s name started last year. In December 2021, the country’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a statement saying the “word Turkiye represents and expresses the culture, civilisation, and values of the Turkish nation in the best way.”

Domestically, citizens refer to the land as Turkiye, but its anglicised version ‘Turkey’ was adopted internationally.

State broadcaster TRT had published a report last year explaining some reasons why. It said ‘Turkey’ was adopted following the country’s independence in 1923. “Over the centuries, Europeans have referred to firstly the Ottoman state and then to Turkiye by many names. But the name that has stuck most is the Latin “Turquia” and the more ubiquitous “Turkey,” the report said.

But curiously, there were more justifications. Apparently, the country’s government was not pleased with the Google search results that came up for the word ‘Turkey’. Some of these results included the large bird that is served for Thanksgiving and Christmas meals in North America.

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/turkey-name-change-turkiye-explained-7952091/

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