Name of Turkey

The name for the country Turkey is derived (via Old French ') from the Medieval Latin '. It is first recorded in Middle English (as ''Turkye, Torke'', later ''Turkie, Turky''), attested in Chaucer, 1369. The Ottoman Empire was commonly referred to as ''Turkey'' or the ''Turkish Empire'' among its contemporaries. The word ultimately originates from the autonym ''Türk'', that is Turk, first recorded in Göktürk inscriptions of the 8th century.

Etymology

The English name of Turkey (from Medieval Latin ''Turchia''/''Turquia'') means "land of the Turks". Middle English usage of ''Turkye'' is attested to in an early work by Chaucer called ''The Book of the Duchess'' (c. 1368). The phrase ''land of Torke'' is used in the 15th-century Digby Mysteries. Later usages can be found in the Dunbar poems, the 16th century ''Manipulus Vocabulorum'' ("Turkie, Tartaria") and Francis Bacon's ''Sylva Sylvarum'' (Turky). The modern spelling "Turkey" dates back to at least 1719.

Official name

Turkey adopted its official name, ''Türkiye Cumhuriyeti'', known in English as the Republic of Turkey, upon the declaration of the republic on 29 October 1923.

Presidential circular on use of ''Türkiye''

On 4 December 2021, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan issued a presidential circular calling for exports to be labelled “Made in Türkiye”. The circular also said that in relation to other governmental communications “necessary sensitivity will be shown on the use of the phrase ‘Türkiye’ instead of phrases such as ‘Turkey,’ ‘Turkei,’ ‘Turquie’ etc.” The reason given in the circular for preferring Türkiye was that it “represents and expresses the culture, civilisation, and values of the Turkish nation in the best way”. According to Turkish state broadcaster TRT World, it was also to avoid a pejorative association with the bird of the same name.

It was reported in January 2022 that the government planned to register ''Türkiye'' with the United Nations. According to TRT World Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu sent letters to the UN and other international organisations on 31 May 2022 requesting that they use ''Türkiye''. The UN agreed and implemented the name change.

Turkic sources

The first recorded use of the term "Türk" or "Türük" as an autonym is contained in the Old Turkic inscriptions of the Göktürks (''Celestial Turks'') of Central Asia (c. AD 735). The Turkic self-designation ''Türk'' is attested to reference to the Göktürks in the 6th century AD. A letter by Ishbara Qaghan to Emperor Wen of Sui in 585 described him as "the Great Turk Khan."

Chinese sources

An early form of the same name may be reflected in the form of ''tie-le'' () or ''tu-jue'' (), a name given by the Chinese to the people living south of the Altai Mountains of Central Asia as early as 177 BC. The Chinese Book of Zhou (7th century) presents an etymology of the name ''Turk'' as derived from "helmet", explaining that this name comes from the shape of a mountain where they worked in the Altai Mountains.

Greek and Latin sources

Pomponius Mela refers to the "Turcae" in the forests north of the Sea of Azov, and Pliny the Elder lists the "Tyrcae" among the people of the same area. The Greek name, ''Tourkia'' ( el, Τουρκία) was used by the Byzantine emperor and scholar Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in his book ''De Administrando Imperio'', though in his use, "Turks" always referred to Magyars and Hungary was called '' Tourkia (Land of the Turks)''. Similarly, the medieval Khazar Khaganate, a Turkic state on the northern shores of the Black and Caspian seas, was also referred to as Tourkia in Byzantine sources. However, the Byzantines later began using this name to define the Seljuk-controlled parts of Anatolia in the centuries that followed the Battle of Manzikert in 1071. The medieval Greek and Latin terms did not designate the same geographic area now known as Turkey. Instead, they were mostly synonymous with ''Tartary'', a term including Khazaria and the other khaganates of the Central Asian steppe, until the appearance of the Seljuks and the rise of the Ottoman Empire in the 14th century, reflecting the progress of the Turkic expansion. However, the term ''Tartary'' itself was a misnomer which was constantly used by the Europeans to refer the realms of Turkic peoples and Turkicized Mongols until the mid-19th century.

Arabic sources

The Arabic cognate ''Turkiyya`'' ( ar, تركيا) in the form ''ad-Dawlat at-Turkiyya'' ( ar, الدولة التركية "State of the Turks" or "the Turkish State") was historically used as an official name for the medieval Mamluk Sultanate which covered Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Hejaz and Cyrenaica."The Cambridge History of Egypt", Volume 1, (1998) P. 250

See also

* Turkestan
* Turan
* Turki
* Names of Anatolia

References

{{Europe topic, Name of, title=Names of European states and territories

History of Turkey
Turkey