Given the wonderful way Turkey has nurtured its huge population of street cats, they should rename itself Turkitty, or, keeping further with their language… Turkedi.
3 Likes
I live in München, which is Munich in English and French, Monaco di Bavaria in Italian, and Mnichov in Czech. Should the city insist that all Oktoberfest visitors call it München, and Bavaria Bayern?
Nah. It’s just the sign that Erdogan is growing ever more insecure and can’t stand even a hint of ridicule. Besides, the bird was named because it resembled a fowl found in Anatolia. Turkey the region gave the turkey its name. The association is undeniable.
11 Likes
We can stay one step ahead by renaming our favorite dishes, eg Türkiye Pot Pie, etc.
1 Like
Yes. It’s now called Turkeyman.
3 Likes
At least as far as Germany is concerned it seems to be Americans who think that using the German names in a foreign language is somehow desirable. In my experience German places love their foreign-language names because they give places an air of international relevance and they go out of their way to use them whenever possible.
5 Likes
Because languages use lots of different phonemes that other languages don’t share, and unless you start hearing them before age 8-10 months, the ones your native language(s) doesn’t use become much harder to distinguish, and sometimes remain hard even with extensive training. After six semesters of Mandarin in college I had (multilingual!) classmates who still couldn’t tell apart (or reproduce) tones, and others who couldn’t distinguish certain consonants (z/c or zh/r were common problems).
(Fun fact/side note: we learn to recognize the prosody of our native languages even before birth.)
Also, because languages don’t all use compatible writing systems, do you try to transliterate to approximate Latin characters, or require everyone to memorize the actually correct names such as 中国, Россия, ٱلْمَمْلَكَة ٱلْعَرَبِيَّة ٱلسُّعُوْدِيَّة , and so on? And what do you do with a country like India that officially calls itself many different things in its various languages?
7 Likes
The same in Italy. It’s called “Turchia”, which has nothing to do with tacchino (turkey) or any other edible animal. I was amused by “internationally … instead of the English word”: “internationally” as in “in US, UK and a handful of other countries”?
7 Likes
How about that?
5 Likes
perhaps “nutritious yet tasteless bird”
certainly not “tough and bland, like the country” 
5 Likes
Since he changed his name back, and is now deceased, I read that symbol as “The former artist formerly known as ‘The artist formerly known as Prince.’”
11 Likes
Because that turkey Erdogan is in charge of this shitshow, I formally request that we re-name the bird the “Turkiye” (with an umlaut of course) as well.
I for one am looking forward to a fine Turkiye this thanksgiving.
10 Likes
I’ve got a box of old ones you can have if you’re shört. They’re üsed, but in pretty gööd conditön.
7 Likes
this was brought to us by the same folks who put a collection of kurds, sunnis, and shiites together into a pot and called the pot “iraq”.
funny how concepts like “national self-determination” never seemed to apply to non-whites . . .
7 Likes
Personally, I always thought the English name “Germany” was a bit mean; there’s no “G as in Germany” sound in the German language.
I know I know, it’s from the Latin “Germania”. I guess the Romans were kinda jerks too.
5 Likes
If they can change the name of a city, why not change the name of a whole country?
13 Likes
Oh that’s so 1947 
This year’s look is “rules-based international order”
5 Likes
Very much so, but at the time they pronounced it with the hard G sound you do find in German, and I don’t think the German tribes had a collective for themselves yet.
6 Likes
I’m sure that the Turkeys are pleased that they are no longer associated with the country that suffers under the rule of a puffed up, little dictator wannabe Erdogan, and his genocide-denying cronies.
I applaud these noble birds on their firm stance on this matter. They deserve better than such comparisons.
8 Likes
Possibly because the very same texts that promulgated the idea of a self determining “nation” also had disturbing ideas about race.
3 Likes
I’m happy to change Batman into being in Kurdistan.
Wait, that isn’t what you meant?
Batman also isn’t that small. It’s about the size of Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK (Newcastle’s urban area is much bigger though).
11 Likes
