• merc@sh.itjust.works
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    3 months ago

    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
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      3 months ago

      Because it’s solely an “issue” that exists to stoke nationalistic thought in the populace. It’s propaganda

    • nawa@lemmy.world
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      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.

    • NIB@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      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.

      • merc@sh.itjust.works
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        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.