What was the name of the country of Türkiye in English?
Turkey.
And what does it mean? turkey in English?
There.
Well, the Turks got tired of their country being associated with these cute, meaty, tasty birds. And you know what they did? What any sane person would do: they changed their name.
Now the official name of this country is… Türkiye.
A parenthesis: (My mother told me that, in Coamo, there was a lady called Dolores Fuertes who married a man with the last name Garriga and that, therefore, her full married name was… Dolores Fuertes de Garriga. I don’t know if this was real or an invention of my creative mother, but the truth is that, if someone were to be called that, what should they do? Well, change their name immediately!).
We return: In English, Türkiye is said the same as in Turkish, but in Spanish the translation remains the same: Turkey.
But aren’t proper names supposed to not be translated?
The answer is usually true for people’s given names. If your name is José, you will be José anywhere in the world. Your name will not change to Joseph if you travel to the United States, or to Giussepe if you visit Italy. You will always be José.
The same does not happen, however, with some names of countries, states and cities.
The United States is United States in English and Etats-Unis in French; Switzerland is Switzerland in English and Suisse in French.
This does not apply to all countries. For example, Puerto Rico is not Rich Port in English. However, the French, Italians and Portuguese continue to call our country Porto Rico, the official name of the island from 1898 to 1932. It turns out that after the invasion, the United States government decided to change the name to ‘Porto’ so that it would be easier to pronounce in English. This decision was very poorly received on the island. It was not until 1932, thanks to the initial effort of the resident commissioner Felix Cordova Davila and the follow-up of his successor, Jose Pesquerawhich gave the country its Spanish name: Puerto Rico.
The same is true for states and cities: some names are translated and others are not. For example, New York is Nueva York, while Philadelphia is Filadelfia in Spanish. However, the state of Nevada is not Snowfall in English, nor is the area of Long Island Isla Larga in Spanish. Translations of places therefore depend on the usage and custom of the speakers.
Like Turkey, there are other nations that have changed their names at some point in history. This is the case of Persia, which in 1935 changed its name to Iran to symbolize the beginning of a new era in the country.
In 1939, the nation of Siam changed its name to Thailand, which means ‘land of the free’. A curious fact is that Siamese cats, which we see so often in homes today, originally came from ancient Siam; that’s why they are called Siamese.
Finally, many people think that Holland is a country, when in fact it is part of two of the 12 provinces of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, composed of South Holland (where the city of Rotterdam is located) and North Holland (where the city of Amsterdam is located). Before 2020, it was customary to call the entire country Holland, but from January 1 of that year it was decided, for reasons of tourism promotion, that the only accepted name would be the Netherlands.
Drops of knowledge…
