This is why I think Turkey's insistence it be called "Türkiye" in English is dumb. English doesn't use umlauts, most English speakers can't even pronounce "ü" properly. English doesn't use "iye" sounds. They should be happy that the country is more-or-less pronounced the way it sounds in Turkish.

I mean, look at some of Turkey's neighbours. Georgia, pronounced "sakartvelo" by the locals. Armenia, called "Hayastan" by the people who live there. Greece, called "Elláda" by people who speak Greek (sorry, speak "elliniká").

People aren't speaking your language when they're talking about your country, they're speaking their own language, and "Turkey" is about as close as English gets to "Türkiye"

[–] RedAggroBest@lemmy.world 37 points 3 months ago

Because it's solely an "issue" that exists to stoke nationalistic thought in the populace. It's propaganda

[–] nawa@lemmy.world 11 points 3 months ago

Honestly Sakartvelo sounds so much better than Georgia, everyone should be using that instead. Others are equal in my opinion but Sakartvelo is just great.

[–] feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago

Yes, it's ridiculous. Different countries have different languages, including the words for other countries. Turkish for England is İngiltere, that's not a problem.

[–] people_are_cute@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 3 months ago (2 children)

They probably just want people to stop confusing their country for a bird.

[–] abraham_linksys@sh.itjust.works 16 points 3 months ago

We need to start calling the bird türkiye

[–] vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 15 points 3 months ago (2 children)

The bird got its name from the Turks. If they keep bitching ill start calling them foot rests.

[–] luciferofastora@lemmy.zip 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Careful, don't wand JD Vance developing an ethnic fetish

[–] vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 months ago

Wouldnt be the first time a fascist weakling had a fetish for certain minorities. Looking at the Neo-Nazis who like east asians for some fucken reason.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 months ago

Oh, you mean the "From India"?

[–] NIB@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

The exonym doesnt have to be identical to the endonym. Some countries try to align the terms, most countries dont care.

I think the main reason Greece hasnt tried to change its exonym is because Hellas is similar to hell. Still, Norway calls Greece Hellas, mostly in order to show how different they are from Sweden. (H)Ellas is so much better sounding, more airy and refined to my Greek ears. Greece sounds too rough and barbaric.

You could drop the H(it is just there for accent/spirit), using just Ellas and/or use the longer Ellada variant but ultimately Greece doesnt care.

Turkey are just assholes so they decided to use a name that most people cant type. They could have chosen Turkia(which is basically the same thing), kinda like the Czech Republic chose to be Czechia but Turkey is not a normal country.

[–] Comment105@lemm.ee 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Nobody could possibly argue with a straight face that Cstzeczchia is a reasonable International English name for a country.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 months ago

To me, "Hellenic Republic" and "Helliniki Dimokratia" sound pretty great, and don't really sound like "hell". But, I can see it for Hellas / Hellada.

On the other hand, an exonym that's a variant of one used for the country thousands of years ago is also really cool. Even though there are a lot of places that have been inhabited for thousands of years, not many of them can point to a continuity like that, going by the same name for that long.

I also agree, Turkia would have been a decent compromise name. But, I'm just going to keep using Turkey.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

English doesn’t use umlauts,

Oyē, cünt. Yèr âbùt tû.

[–] Wanderer@lemm.ee 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

No one ever demands all languages should use the English word for an English speaking country. It's really stupid.

Like if your country was "Everyonehereisacunt" and that country wanted a different name, fine but if it's just sounds like surely people have the right to use their own language.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 months ago

Nice choice, using the Canadian name for Australia in your example.