Talk:Names of Istanbul

Turkish Postal Service Law

Turkish Postal Service Law of 28 March 1930 simply does not exist. It is not found in any of the given sources, nor is it found in official Turkish archives. In fact there is no law dated March 28, 1930. The Turkish Postal Law is dated 6 December 1921 (unrelated do the subject), and it wasn't replaced with another one in 1930; it wasn't even amended throughout the year of 1930. It is beyond belief that such a hoax persisted in Wikipedia for so long, and now that made up info is popping up in a lot of places, taken from Wikipedia. Just plain horrifying that no one has bothered to check the book given as source ("History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey") or the issues of the Official Gazette of Turkey.

What happened is, by then the city was almost exclusively referred to as استانبول in Turkish, which would is pronounced as Istanbul. However, when writing in Latin script, most European languages preferred Constantinople. In 1928, the Turkish alphabet was changed from Arabic to Latin, so the city's Turkish name started to be written in Latin (i.e. as Istanbul). Hence no transliteration was necessary, and Turkey urged other countries to use the Turkish name. That's all, no laws were passed or anything, as there wasn't any change (other than the change in Turkey's alphabet).--Orwellianist (talk) 21:33, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

@Orwellianist: I looked up the term on Google Books and found:

• Volodarsky, Boris. Stalin's Agent: The Life and Death of Alexander Orlov. OUP Oxford, 11 December 2014. ISBN 0191045527, 9780191045523. p. 637. // Footnote ten talks about the law, and it stated to see:
• Shaw, Stanford J. and Ezel Kural Shaw. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. Cambridge University Press, 1977. ii. 386.

I'll see if this book talks about the law. If it does, it would be impossible for it to be a Wikipedia hoax.

WhisperToMe (talk) 23:27, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

From page 386: "The use of Turkish in place of the foreign geographic names commonly in use - thus Istanbul in place of Constantinople and Edirne instead of Adrianople - also was urged on all foreign companies and embassies, with an encouraging response." This doesn't mention a law... WhisperToMe (talk) 23:33, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Also "Mar 28, 1930 CE: Istanbul, not Constantinople". National Geographic. states "That changed in 1930, once mail addressed to Constantinople—including paychecks, shipping forms, and other legal documents—stopped being delivered to any home or business in Istanbul." // and it mentions the date, but it does not mention a law. WhisperToMe (talk) 23:39, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

I searched the term "Posta Hizmet Kanunu" +1930 and got some hits on Turkish websites. I'll check Google Books to see if Turkish sources talk about it WhisperToMe (talk) 23:55, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Bahadıroğlu, Yavuz (2014-07-15). "İstanbul'un isimleri ve İstanbul gerçeği". Yeniakit. states: "Kentin adı 28 Mart 1930’da çıkarılan Türk Posta Hizmet Kanunu ile “İstanbul” olarak tescillendi." // So this Turkish newspaper article is saying there was such a law... WhisperToMe (talk) 00:02, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for doing this research. In the case of Yeni Akit I'd suspect WP:Citogenesis. I'd never trust any Turkish newspaper on statements of history, and Yeni Akit is hardly at the less bad end of the spectrum. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:34, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Someone found Robinson, Richard (1963). "The First Turkish Republic: A Case Study in National Development". Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press: 298. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help) which states: "1930 Mar. 28 Foreigners are asked to use Turkish geographical names: Istanbul for Constantinople, Ankara for Angora, Izmir for Smyrna, Edirne for Adrianople, etc." - There was obviously a request on that date, but it doesn't mention a law. WhisperToMe (talk) 16:21, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

As for the official gazette, I found entries for 27 March 1930 http://www.resmigazete.gov.tr/arsiv/1456.pdf and 29 March 1930 http://www.resmigazete.gov.tr/arsiv/1457.pdf , but not 28 March. In this case, how did the request come to be?? WhisperToMe (talk) 17:49, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

History is funny (talk) 21:38, 21 October 2020 (UTC) It seems that the name Constantinople was used by the Ottoman Government itself in Latin letters and that was happening systematically, for a long time and until the beginning of the century, at least. In this page we can see a 100 Kuruş banknote issued in 1877 by the Ottoman Imperial Bank in "Constantinople" as such https://www.worldbanknotescoins.com/2015/03/ottoman-empire-100-kurus-banknote-1877.html. In this page we can see a beautiful 1 Livre note issued in 1911 in "Constantinople" as well https://www.numisbids.com/n.php?p=lot&sid=2445&lot=563

Constantinoble

Constantinoble is used in Catalan, Occitan and Middle French. I wonder if the noble part is folk etymology (as the sala in Jorsala) or a normal evolution. --Error (talk) 12:00, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Etymology of Istanbul, redux

There's a point that I haven't ever seen mentioned yet with regard to the etymology of İstanbul: What's the pronunciation of Konstantinoúpoli(s) in Northern Greek dialects, which famously drop high vowels, and some of which then raise the mid-vowels? Because you'd expect, of course, something like Konstandnpol or even Kunstandnpul, and perhaps the /p/ is then voiced after nasal too, whence you get Kunstandnbul; maybe a simplification of the cluster ndnb, giving Kunstanbul or Kunstambul; more speculatively, like in Kostas, the disappearance of the first /n/, yielding Kustanbul or Kustambul; and suddenly, you're a lot closer to İstanbul and Stambul than you were initially, without having to postulate so many arbitrarily dropped syllables. Just saying. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:35, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

This is of course all WP:OR, but Constantinople itself apparently didn't belong to the center of the high-vowel-dropping dialect zone. According to our article on Varieties of Modern Greek, modern Constantinopolitan Greek only had dropping of word-final /i/ and /u/, so the most you'd get would probably be /konstandi'nupoli/ > /konstandi'nupol/. In any case, the "oú" of Konstantinoúpoli(s) is stressed, so it wouldn't be a candidate for dropping in the core Northern dialects either. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:54, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Confusingly, this article doesn't appear to address the "dropped syllables from Constantinople" theory at all, but just states the "to the city" one as fact. Unlike the Istanbul article, which discusses both, then refers to this as the "main" article on the topic! Even if scholarly consensus is against the former and in favour of the latter, in should be mentioned in that context at least. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 17:32, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Well, if you can cite a serious linguistic source proposing such a "dropped syllables from Constantinople" theory, then we can talk. Without that, there's nothing to discuss. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:02, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

No, clearly there's something to discuss, given the glaring inconsistency between the two articles. The other gives this source: Istanbul#CITEREFRoom2006. If you feel that's not a reliable secondary source by Wikipedia's standards, then we have the converse difficulty. I note there's also a journal article called "The etymology of İstan­bul: making optimal use of the evidence" by Marek Stachowski, Robert Woodhouse, which states this in its abstract: "The discussion of the origin of the Turkish city name İstanbul that began well over a century ago has divided scholars into two groups: those who accept the Greek phrase εἰς τὴν πόλιν (or similar) as the source of the name, vs. those who try to trace it back directly to Greek Κωνσταντινούπολις ~ Κωνσταντινόπολις. The writings of both parties are encumbered by poor Turcology, inaccurate attention to early records and an overly narrow view of medieval Anatolian Greek phonetics. More scrupulous examination of all three types of evidence has revealed a more interesting picture than has previously been suggested." That alone seems to me to imply the summary here is incomplete and misleading. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 01:44, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Yes, the "Room" reference is a poor-quality source. The Stachowski & Woodhouse article is good though, and I wasn't aware of it; thanks for digging that out. Full text is here. Stachowski & Woodhouse leave absolutely no doubt that the "is tin polin" etymology is essentially correct; they merely add a few extra details to it. They do cite two modern authors (Rahn 2002 and Hansack 2008 [1]) who apparently attempted to reassert an alternative derivation from Constantinople, and who they criticize harshly. Both Hansack's paper and Stachowski & Woodhouse's reply to it make it clear that Hansack's position is an isolated opinion in the field and that the "is tin polin" etymology is the widely accepted standard view. BTW, Hansack's paper is just a two-page quip, and Rahn's contribution is a single footnote in an otherwise unrelated work; neither of the two are experts in Greek or Turkish linguistics. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:16, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Old Norse - Mikligarðr

The section on Old Norse was not great. I removed this section:

"...later Miklagard and Micklegarth."

Both of these are just different ways of transcribing the word Mikligarðr. Both "-d" and "-th" represent the letter "ð".

The "Miklagard" spelling used a source that does not actually claim it is a later spelling of Old Norse. It is more likely the modern Norwegian spelling.

The "Micklegarth" spelling is used in an article that claims it comes from "Jarvardar Saga". I did not recognize that saga but luckily Google managed to guess that it was actually "Játvarðar saga" (The Saga of [king] Edward [the Confessor]). I checked the best transcription of the saga I could find. There the city is usually called Miklagarðe (eleven times) and Miclagarðe (just once).

I don't really think that the article needs to list the different spellings of Old Norse/Icelandic. There was not standardized spelling and place-names were fluid. Mikligarðr is the standard modern representation of this word in Old Norse.

It might be helpful to understand how the word Mikligarðr changes with inflection (note that there were variants of this):

Mikligarðr Miklagarð Miklagarði Miklagarðs

Óli Gneisti (talk) 09:09, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Ottoman coin

There is a picture of an Ottoman coin with this caption: ""Islambol" on an Ottoman coin belonging to Selim III, which was struck in his fifth regnal year (c. 1893/94)." I don't know how to edit a caption. Clearly the date on the coin using Arabic numbers is 1203. This Hijra (H) year corresponds to roughly October 1788 until September 1789 in the Christian calendar (CE). Selim III was Sultan 1789 until he was assassinated in 1807 by the Kizlar Agha (Chief Black Eunuch) (you can't make this stuff up). I suggest the caption be amended to: ""Islambol" on an Ottoman coin belonging to Selim III, dated 1203 H corresponding approximately to 1789 CE." Cross Reference (talk) 21:03, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for spotting this; done. This was originally correct but then changed to the incorrect date here [2]. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:20, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

@Future Perfect at Sunrise: @Cross Reference: this was my edit. Thanks for correction. However it is still 5th regnal year. You can see the Arabic numeral ٥. Beshogur (talk) 10:31, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. But 5th regnal year of Selim III, 1793–1794, would be around 1208 H, wouldn't it? How does that fit in with the year number on the coin, which clearly looks like 1203? That would correspond to 1788/1789, as Cross Reference said above. In the source website http://www.osmanischesmuseumeuropa.de/, these figures re described as "1203/5", which seems to imply the "5" is a month number, not a year. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:57, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

@Future Perfect at Sunrise: I own a bunch of these coins. 5 definitely means the year, not month. Ottoman sultans issued every year the same coin with different year corresponding their regnal year. 1203/5 means 1203 (accession) /5 means (year issued). see example below. It clearly has the first letter s of the word سنة (sanah / year) under the number 5. Some don't have that, only the year. 1893 was a typo of mine. Beshogur (talk) 12:20, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Ah, ok, if the logic is "year of accession" + X, that seems to make sense. Thanks for clarifying. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:22, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Indeed. Beshogur (talk) 10:49, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Found a better example. Beshogur (talk) 10:51, 2 January 2024 (UTC)