Turkey may have officially changed its name – but it can’t make all its problems disappear

Ankara on 1 June wrapped up the paperwork to officially change the country’s name on all international documentation and organisations from Turkey to Türkiye, pronounced “toor-kee-yeh,” the way Turks spell and pronounce the country’s name.

In addition to launching thousands of Google searches on how to write the letter u with an umlaut on an English-language keyboard, the name change brings up some fascinating etymological and historical insights.

Turkish authorities have long been irked that the word for their country is synonymous in English with the clumsy-looking holiday fowl. In American slang, it’s also a slightly anachronistic though mild insult – something a dad might have called a referee making a bad call at his kid’s football game some 30 years ago.

Turkish government organs and state media have for months referred to the country as Türkiye. Even though the equivalent words Turquie in French, Turquía in Spanish and Türkei in German do not have the same connotations as in English, the Turks also appear adamant about changing the country’s name in those languages. There are even plans in the works to rename Turkey’s popular flagship airline the rather unwieldy Türk Hava Yollari.

Interestingly, the bird turkey is called such because of Ottoman traders who brought the bird to markets from the east. In Türkiye itself, the poultry is called hindi, meaning from India. In French, too, it’s called dinde, literally, from India. Türkiye is also more or less what Turkey’s Persian and Arab neighbours call the country. In fact, the “ye” in Türkiye is rooted in Arabic grammar.

Renaming the country internationally may make some Turkish nationalists feel good about themselves. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says the new name “represents and expresses the culture, civilisation and values of the Turkish nation in the best way”.

But the renaming will not make any of the country’s troubles go away. Recent press releases from the Council of Europe condemned what it described as the Ankara government’s attempts to rewrite election rules to favour the ruling party ahead of the 2023 elections.

Another drew attention to efforts to deport Syrian refugees against their will. In yet another, Amnesty International condemned the government for violently cracking down on Pride protesters with pepper balls. All the communications used the Türkiye moniker.

Yours,

Borzou Daragahi

International correspondent