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by palmotea10 hours ago |
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upvoteby dtech10 hours ago|
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Many nations/languages did not respect that rename until Turkey became an ally in the 20th century.
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upvoteby jhbadger9 hours ago|
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Yeah - listen to the narrator in the opening on the classic Orson Welles film The Third Man (1949) - he says he never cared much for Vienna before the War, preferring the scene in Constantinople instead.
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upvoteby thomassmith654 hours ago|
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The American cut of the movie has an intro narrated by Joseph Cotton, who played Holly Martins. The wording might differ (since the movie is clearly Holly's first time in Vienna)
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upvoteby jhbadger3 hours ago|
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Yeah, I'm talking about the version (which is even on my US DVD) where the narrator is some black marketeer neither Martins nor Lime. "I never knew the old Vienna before the war with its Strauss music, its glamour and easy charm. Constantinople suited me better. I really got to know it in the classic period of the Black Market. We'd run anything if people wanted it enough - mmm - had the money to pay. Of course, a situation like that does tempt amateurs but you know they can't stay the course like a professional."
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upvoteby cphoover9 hours ago|
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XlO39kCQ-8&list=RD0XlO39kCQ...

They Might Be Giants - Istanbul (Not Constantinople) (Official Music Video)

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upvoteby why_only_159 hours ago|
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The formal Ottoman name was Kostantiniyye=Constantinople until the empire's fall in 1922. The official shift happened in 1930, with the Turkish Postal Services Law changing the name to Istanbul.
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upvoteby snypher10 hours ago|
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That's nobody's business but the Turks. Why did Turkey become Türkiye but Japan didn't become Nippon (or vice-versa!)? It's all very confusing to me.
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upvoteby dhosek9 hours ago|
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Why did Turkey become Türkiye? I think mostly because they asked. I’m guessing that Japan/Nippon is enjoying the fact that English speakers use the Chinese name for Japan and the Sanskrit¹ name for China. It’s much like the Czech Republic became Czechia, although part of that was Czech speakers wanting to stop referring to their country as an adjective² (the Czech phrase for Czech Republic was often shortened to just Czech).

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1. As a kid, my dad had told me that China was the Japanese name for the country, but according to Wikipedia, the name is actually derived from Sanskrit.

2. Which reminds me of the fun challenge of Czech (and many other Slavic languages) is that unlike other Indo-European languages³, the declensions of adjectives follow a different pattern than the declensions of their corresponding nouns,

3. Or at least the Indo-European languages that I have familiarity with.

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upvoteby invalidusernam37 hours ago|
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Czech Republic didn't become Czechia, it's still called Czech Republic. Czechia is just the official English short name.
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upvoteby oofdere8 hours ago|
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Turks did not really want it to become Türkiye in English, it was a government push. Most of us prefer having the name of our country be pronounceable and writable by anyone talking about it, and no one will even notice if you call it Turkey.
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upvoteby testfoobar8 hours ago|
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People just liked it better that way.
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upvoteby petesergeant8 hours ago|
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The answer is as simple as “they asked nicely”
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upvoteby traceroute663 hours ago|
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> The answer is as simple as “they asked nicely”

Well that's a cute explanation, but strictly speaking the UN adopted the new spelling in 2022 and the ISO swiftly followed with a revision to ISO 3166.

If your "they asked nicely" was true then by that argument the people of Taiwan who constantly "ask nicely" regarding the removal of "(Province of China)" from their ISO 3166 entry would have had their wishes granted by now ... ;)

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upvoteby codeulike8 hours ago|
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Why did Constantinople get the works?
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upvoteby wazoox7 hours ago|
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It was the official name of Istanbul up until 1930 (in Turkish, Kostantiniyye).
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