Dept. Of Nah, I'm Not Going To Do That: Turkey Now Identifies As Türkiye
01/06/2023
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From The Guardian:

Türkiye, not Turkey: US diplomats agree to spelling change

State department says it will stop writing the word Turkey and use preferred spelling of Türkiye in public communications

Thu 5 Jan 2023 15.37 EST

The US state department has said it will largely stop writing the word Turkey and instead call the country Türkiye, agreeing to a request by the Turkish government, which resents the inadvertent association with poultry.

In a statement announcing measures to disrupt financiers of the Islamic State group, the state department wrote of joint action between “the United States and Türkiye”, written with an umlaut over the u. …

The Pentagon has been writing Türkiye since an August statement on a call between the Nato allies’ defense chiefs, and the state department has occasionally used the spelling on social media.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2021 ordered the consistent use of Türkiye in languages that use Latin script.

Turks have long been upset by cartoons and other references that associate their country’s name in English with the bird – believed to be so named because the British thought the species, indigenous to North America, came from the east.

In a recent article, Turkish public broadcaster TRT World noted that a “turkey” can also be slang for a “stupid or silly person”.

“Type ‘Turkey’ into Google, and you will get a muddled set of images, articles and dictionary definitions that conflate the country with Meleagris – otherwise known as the turkey, a large bird native to North America – which is famous for being served on Christmas menus or Thanksgiving dinners,” it said.

[Comment at Unz.com]

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