Turkish Toponym Boss Consults Erdogan
By Jirair Tutunjian
Errol Hosni, boss of the Turkish Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate, recently met President-for-Life Recep Erdogan to update him on Turkish toponym (the study of place names) developments.
RE: How do you take your tea?
EH: Thank you. I would rather have Turkish coffee.
RE: Entres nous, let’s not play nationalistic games. I am taking French lessons. You know there’s no such thing as Turkish coffee. The designation occurred when Ermeni merchants introduced coffee to Europe. Since they were citizens of the Ottoman Empire, Europeans assumed coffee came from Turkey.
What’s on your mind? As Americans say.
EH: In the 16th century, our great, great, great, great, great Ottoman grandfathers began to Turkify 288,000 Armenian, Georgian, Greek, and Kurdish place names. This continued in the late 19th century. Then Kemal Ataturk Turkified a further 12,000 toponyms in the 1920s.
RE: Errol, I know all this. Why are you here?
EH: I wanted to thank you for your recent decision to Turkify the name of our homeland.
RE: Our reluctant association with the clumsy bird had been annoying me all my life—especially when my American friends celebrated Thanksgiving.
EH: I am sure all our compatriots share your view. There’s a second reason why I asked for the honor to see you.
RE: You certainly took your sweet time to come to your point, as my American friends say.
EH: I am deeply and profusely sorry for taking your valuable time. I wanted to tell you that after five centuries we have failed to completely erase the foreign names from our map. As a matter of fact, almost all our big cities still have foreign names.
RE: What are you talking about?
EH: Sanliurfa. It’s an Aramaic name. I think it means spring or water.
RE: Hmmm.
RE: Close by is Gaziantep. Antep is not Turkish. The “Gazi” was affixed by the peacock Kemal.
RE: I like the “peacock.”
EH: Adana is in the same area. One version says Adana is an Indo-European name. Let’s call it Alma. It’s the heart of the agricultural region.
RE: Hmmm.
EE: Antalya, our biggest resort and after Istanbul the largest tourist attraction was named by King Attalus of Pergamum.
RE: Hmmm.
EH: Izmir is the corruption of Smyrnia. Bursa is the Greek Prusa. Van is Armenian. Ani is Armenian. Kars is Armenian.
RE: Enough! I get it.
EH: Pardon me Your Excellency. Our two most important cities also have non-Turkish names. Our capital Ankara is the Phrygian Angora. Our biggest city, our pride, the world’s most beautiful city…Istanbul has a foreign name. Some say it’s Greek for “I am going to the City” while others say it’s a corruption of Constantinople…the city of the pagan Roman Emperor Constantine who supposedly saw Christ’s cross in the sky while in battle. Upon winning he converted to Christianity.
RE: So there are three reasons to object to the city’s name: Constantine was pagan, he became Christian, and the appearance of the cross in the sky is typical Christian nonsense.
So, the question is what we should call the above cities?
EH: I have given a great deal of thought about renaming these proudly Turkish cities.
RE: As my Engleeze friends say, I am all ears.
EH Here are my suggestions. Change Urfa to Orhan. A solid Turkish name. Marash should become Barish, meaning reconciliation
RE: Drop “Gazi” from Antep. I will not honor the drunken braggart who named himself “Ataturk” because he couldn’t have children.
EH: Antalya can become Anadolu, meaning “the mother is pregnant.”
RE: “Anadolu” means sunrise in Greek. I am eager to learn your suggestion for Istanbul.
EH: Suleiman…after the greatest sultan.
RE: Unacceptable. Suleiman is a Jewish name.
EH: What about Sinan, after the great architect?
RE: You must be the only Turk who doesn’t know he was Armenian.
EH: I am sorry. How about KURT? After the Grey Wolf.
RE: You must be joking. People will think we are honoring the Kurds.
EE: I got it. JANISSARI. It has power, it has music. It’s historic.
RE: I don’t like it. Most Janissaries were gavoors. I think I got it: YATAGHAN. It’s powerful. It has music. It’s colorful. It’s TURKISH. YATAGHAN-SUR-BOSPORUS in French.
RH: Pure genius, if I may say so
