Why are English speaking people call our country, Turkiye as "Turkey", name of a bird?

Answer 1

In the same way that the English speaking world has changed spellings and pronounciations to fit in with the English language rules. It's not only Turkey that suffers from this, other countries have English version : Brasil becomes Brazil, Espana becomes Spain, Italia becomes Italy, etc. There has been a movement towards more accurate names in translating between character sets : Peking becomes Beijing, Bombay becomes Mumbai, etc.

ps. Peru is the spanish word fro Turkey (the bird), so there are 2 countries sharing a name with this bird.

Answer 2

Because in English Turkiye = Turkey. If we didnt do this then we would have to call every country/city in the world by its correct name. OK not to difficult with turkey but how about Chinese/Japanese etc etc etc. Whats the chinese for Beijing? I cant even write it let alone pronounce it.

Its why we call Paris Paris rather than paree. Why the french call London - londres.

I wouldnt get upset about it.

its called speaking your language

Answer 3

What word do Turkish people say, when speaking Turkish to one another, to refer to England? Or Germany? Or indeed any other country/city on the world? All languages translate place names, there's nothing colonial in it. The UK is known as Grosse Brittanien to the Germans and Royal Uni to the French, the Italians call the Germans "tedesci", and so on...

What's the problem?

Answer 4

"Turkey" (country) came long before "Turkey" (bird). Real question is, why did we call a bird after a country? Answer, via Wikipedia:

When Europeans first encountered these species in the Americas, they incorrectly identified them with the African Helmeted Guineafowl (Numida meleagris), also known as the turkeycock from its importation to Europe through Turkey, and the name of that country stuck as also the name of the American bird.

Answer 5

Apologies if you feel we English speakers are getting it wrong, but, tell me, what is the name for say England, or the United Kingdom, or the United States in the Turkish language? Turkey is just the name we give your country in the English language - just like the French call England Angleterre, the USA Les Etats-Unis and the English for Deutschland is Germany - it is not about us 'getting it wrong' or being 'lazy about learning other languages', every language has different names for countries in their own language from what that country calls itself.

Answer 6

With the bombings that have gone on in Turkish resorts and other countries and people being killed what does it matter what people call you or us for that matter.

Don't you think there are more worrying things going on?

We have a saying in England " Sticks and stones may break our bones but calling never hurt us"

Find something more important to worry about, I don't care what anyone calls me. If that is all you have to think about I feel heartily sorry for you.

Answer 7

As among the six ancient cities in China, Beijing has been one's heart and soul of politics throughout their long record and therefore there's an unparalleled wealth of finding to pleasure and intrigue tourists as they investigate the city's old previous and interesting modern growth, know more with hotelbye . Now in day, Beijing it is now one of the most used travel destinations on earth and the areas lice Yunju Temple or Summer Palace are certainly in to the reasons for what Beijing worth visited. Beijing Summer Palace is the greatest royal Garden in China.

Answer 8

I did not know that was how it was pronounced, I have never heard of that before. Sincere apologies to any Turkiye people I may have offended!

Answer 9

*snicker* Do we get extra points if we didn't breed, but adopted our our human brats? :) I've named most of the things that have to be fed after fictional characters. I have a cat named Dinah after Alice's cat from Alice in Wonderland. I have another cat named Abby which is short for Abigail from The Crucible - we'd watched it the night before the cat turned up on our doorstep. Our dog is named Margaret Mary Poppins. Obvious but I don't recall where the Margaret comes from. She goes by Maggie. Our human kid is named Kate after the main character is Henry James' Wings of the Dove. I have fish but the ones that have names are named things like Mr. Catfish who was unfortunately brutally murdered a couple of days ago by Mr./Ms. Angelfish.

Answer 10

it's funny coz when i hear the word turkey the country comes to mind first. and when i see a turkey i think that it's named after a country not the other way around lol