Goodbye Gobble-Gobble

I am sure many of my fellow Turks experienced the same moment soon after their arrival at the campus of their college in the USA as I did after arriving at the University of Maryland campus back in July of 1969. Starting with the first classmate I met on campus, I was asked “where are you from?” and responded, “I am from Turkey,” and it was almost inevitable that the person you just met smiled and said, “Gobble. Gobble.”

This was almost as strange to me as checking my first roommate’s name on his nametag, which clearly said Robert, but I was told he was known as Bob. Then meeting William, who was Bill and Richard who was known as Rick, Rich or Dick! 

Well, my friends, at least the era of Gobble-Gobble is over.  

In June 2022, the United Nations agreed to change the spelling of the name of the country known in the English-speaking world as Turkey to Türkiye, heeding a request by the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In January 2023, the U.S. State Department also agreed to adopt the requested change in its written communications. "The word Türkiye represents and expresses the culture, civilization, and values of the Turkish nation in the best way," said the communique. 

Changing the name of a country apparently is not that unusual. This happens for many reasons, one of which is re-branding for international recognition. During my research for the article, I found out that as many as eleven countries have changed or amended their names over the decades.

The Netherlands dropped the name "Holland," and before that, "Macedonia" changed its name to North Macedonia due to a political dispute with Greece. Back in 1935, Persia changed its name from Persia to Iran. Iran means “Persia” in Farsi, the language spoken in Iran. Germany’s official name is now Deutschland and Burma is called Myanmar. Rhodesia is now known as Zimbabwe and Ceylon is known as Sri Lanka.

In the Turkish language, the country has always been called Türkiye. The country adopted this name after it declared independence in 1923 from the occupying Western powers and ended the Ottoman Empire, which ruled for over 600 years.

Over the centuries, Europeans referred to firstly the Ottoman state and then to Türkiye by many names. But the name that has stuck most is the Latin "Turquia'' and the more ubiquitous "Turkey."

Unfortunately, the really sad definition of “turkey” with a small “t” is found in the Cambridge Dictionary (I don’t know if anyone still uses a dictionary). “Turkey,” other than the bird, is defined as "something that fails badly" or "a stupid or silly person." Such as, “don’t listen to what he has to say; he is a real turkey.”

Apparently, the vast majority of people in Türkiye feel that calling the country by its local variation only makes sense and is in keeping with the country's aims of determining how others should identify it.

Yet, the government's announcement is only catching up with what some business associations have been practicing for decades. 

Goodbye to Gobble-Gobble then!  

We may have to let you know that the gobble-gobble turkey, “the bird” in Türkiye, is known as Hindi, a word derived from an Indic language of northern India, which derived from Sanskrit and written in the Devanagari script. It is the fourth most widely spoken language in the world, with more than 250 million people speaking it as their first language and in this language, Hindi means India. 

But does the name Türkiye change anything for anyone? It is still the same country, located at the same location with a history that goes back thousands of years. Türkiye’s last identity was the “Ottoman Empire,” which lasted from 1299 A.D. to 1923 when Mustafa Kemal Ataturk declared the country’s independence from invading Europeans, ended the Ottoman Empire and along with it the title of Caliphate and turned it into a Republic. 

It is also ironic that the word Ottoman if spelled with a small “O” as ottoman is defined as a piece of furniture that is typically used as a comfortable footrest in front of a couch or chair, though you can also use it as a stool or even a coffee table. Ottomans were first introduced into Europe from Turkey (the heart of the Ottoman Empire, hence the name) in the late 18th century. Usually a padded, upholstered seat or bench without arms or a back, they were traditionally heaped with cushions and formed the main piece of seating in the home. 

I am personally happy about the name change although it means a lot of getting used to and changing a ton of shipping documents, invoices, brochures etc., to reflect the new old name of the country.

This all reminded me of the famous words of Gus Portokalos at the wedding ceremony of his daughter Toula to Ian Miller in the great comedic movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” circa 2002; “You know, the root of the word Miller is a Greek word. Miller come(s) from the Greek word "milo," which is mean "apple," so there you go. As many of you know, our name, Portokalos, come(s) from the Greek word "portokali," which mean(s) "orange." So, okay? Here tonight, we have, ah, apple and orange. We are all different, but in the end, we are all fruit.”

What is in a name after all.  

We are all fruit.