This is an archive of past discussions about Turkey. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Who says that? Who determines the borders of a political continent rather than a geographical one? Deliogul17:41, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
I actually agree that using that map would be better, since the current map uses the Mercator projection, in which countries further north appear larger than they actually are. Look at the size of the Scandinavian countries on the current map, to me that proportion looks rather strange. JACOPLANE • 2007-07-23 18:33
Rejecting a map because of technical reasons and political reasons are two different things. Therefore I respect you Jacoplane but I still defend the current map to show at least where Turkey goes. Deliogul19:50, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
The consequence of the present picture is that Sweden looks larger than Turkey. The actual fact is that Turkey is about 70% larger by area than Sweden. / Rgds Mkch17:48, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
What about this image? JACOPLANE • 2007-07-24 18:34
I was not aware of this distortion, but now that i see it I agree a new map should be found. In fact, I wish the Wikiproject on countries would come up with a standard map for all country articles. In the meantine, I dont find the second one too bad. Thanks, --A.Garnet19:47, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Maybe we need to use red color to mark Turkey. I know that using green is like a standard in Wikipedia but it can evoke some religious ideas in people's minds. I know it is a "detail" but please consider it ;) Deliogul12:32, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Edit: Half of us gave our votes to AKP and therefore we don't care about the green of Islam anymore :) That's what I think because nobody responds. Deliogul18:05, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
I also don't like the current map because Turkey appears in the lower right corner. I would prefer a map in which it would appear in the center if possible. --Kudret abi06:18, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
What justification is there for that though? A map of the continent of Europe, showing Turkey's location within/relative to it seems much more appropriate for an encyclopedia with an international audience, given that people will be familiar with that kind of map. Has anyone even seen a map showing Turkey relative to other countries, that puts Turkey in the center? I know I haven't. -- Hux11:41, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
LocationTurkey2.png How about LocationTurkey2.png on the right? I think it is quite accurate (even shows Gokceada), it has Turkey in the center while still showing almost all of Europe as well as large portions of Asia and even Africa, illustrating its unique geopolitical position within three continents. It also addresses the color concerns of Deliogul above. --Kudret abi08:30, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I think that it will be better to mark Türkiye as a red because if it is green some people will think that Turkey is an Islamic (like Libia or Iran) country. --Ilhanli (talk) 23:33, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
No, they will not think that Turkey is an Communist country, everyone knows which countries a communist. And, I know you Lambian, you are editing Turkish people for your anti-Turkish propaganda (saying that there is not a Turk in Turkey); "Wikipedia, The free Propaganda". --Ilhanli (talk) 12:37, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
And, if you think that people will think that Turkey is like Cuba, it is ok, it is better than to be country like Iran. --Ilhanli (talk) 12:40, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Because of some unexpected events, only couple of communist countries could manage to make their way into the 21st century. Actually, we can say that Cuba is a unique example in the level of socialism when we think the situation of the authoritarianneoliberal state of PRC. I also have to add that Cuba is really better than Turkey in HDI, for example. The main reason behind my red map request was its direct reference to the flag of Turkey, which symbolizes the republican understanding -while the green color is the symbol of political Islam- . Deliogul (talk) 21:33, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
tayyip
Can anyone tell me what the name "Tayyip" stands for in Turkish? Seems like a pretty rare name.
As far as I know, Tayyip is Arabic originated and stands for either cleanliness or nice, good and beautiful. --Ugur Olgun10:02, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Note re: name
Note on Talk:Georgia in a discussion about that page being used for the country rather than a disambig page, a user states that he thinks that "[Turkey] ... seems like an excellent candidate (for a disambig)". Jooler22:17, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
And? I am sure there were some discussions abut it here as well. One factor discussed might be google searches which in a way reflect common usage. Please make the following google searches turkey -wikipedia (I guess more than 90% is about the country Turkey, which is a quite big number) and georgia -wikipedia (much more mixed between state and country). You can also do google news, and google scholar searches. DenizTC03:22, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
If foreigners start to call this country "Turkiye" instead of "Turkey", there will be no problems left :) Deliogul12:27, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
If you start to call "Hindistan" as "Bharat" your wish may come true... And you talk of "foreigners" in general, not of English speakers? 88.235.90.11420:24, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
I mean everybody in the world can call this country Turkiye and some organizations work on this naming issue these days. We will wait and see ;) Deliogul14:50, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
Proposed move
I propose that this article should be moved to "Republic of Turkey" and that "Turkey" should be a disambiguation page. My reasoning for this is that, while a very large number of people will arrive at the "Turkey" article expecting to read about the country, a similarly large number will arrive here expecting to read about the bird. When an article title has two or more meanings that are very commonly used, it is better to have that title be a disambig page. This is the reason why Georgia goes to a disambig page, for example, and not to the article about the country.
Thoughts? -- Hux06:18, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I think we should not do that if one is used overwhelmingly, which is the case here. For instance Batman should not be a disambiguation page (there is a Batman (disambiguation)). The person looking for the city of Batman (or people whose surname is Batman) will need to click one more time in both cases (disambig or not), and the overwhelming majority looking for Batman, the hero, won't have to click at all. Here, we should just add a {{for}} for the bird. DenizTC23:54, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
"I think we should not do that if one is used overwhelmingly, which is the case here." Do you know that this is the case though, or is that just your assumption? Because I would be very surprised if you're correct. I think it's much more likely that both "Turkey", the country, and "turkey", the bird, get very large amounts of page hits, given that both are very well-known in the English-speaking world. Is there a way we can find out how many hits each page is getting? It would seem important to know this before any decisions can be made. -- Hux06:09, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
This is what I wrote above (previous section):
And? I am sure there were some discussions abut it here as well. One factor discussed might be google searches which in a way reflect common usage. Please make the following google searches turkey -wikipedia (I guess more than 90% is about the country Turkey, which is a quite big number) and georgia -wikipedia (much more mixed between state and country). You can also do google news, and google scholar searches. DenizTC03:22, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
I made the search for you and here are the ones about Turkey (bird) (rest is for the Turkey (country)):
I don't really think a Google search is going to help here because Google is not Wikipedia. What we need is information about Wikipedia page hits specifically. I know these can be found somehow because this editor managed to get the stats for page hits to Georgia-related articles (see the table below "May 2004") when they were having a similar discussion about moving the page a year or so ago. Maybe it's a simple matter of changing the URL that editor used, downloading the entire Wikipedia stats for, say, July, 2007, and doing some data mining. I'd do that myself but alas I'm on a metered internet connection and I don't really want to spend the money downloading a file which I'm guessing will be around 100MB big!! ;) -- Hux22:01, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I think Google 'evidence' is sufficient here, at least that is what is accepted overall on Wikipedia, as far as I can see. In the (rare ?) cases where Google/Google news/Google scholar do not help us much or conflict other evidences/each other, we can try and find other ways, maybe like the one you introduced. Like you mentioned on the talk page of Georgia, we would be needing recent data, which are not available. One thing is available, as far as I know Turkey (country) is in top 300 or something like that in Wikipedia. Like I said before, we should just add a {{for}} for the bird. It's good for Wikipedia servers as well. DenizTC22:53, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
You make some reasonable points. Let me see if I can find some Wikipedia-specific data though. And let's also wait and see what other editors think. -- Hux05:51, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
In addition to the ideas already presented, I would also like to point out that there are thousands of pages that contain [[Turkey]] with the intention of linking to the country Turkey, which will all have to be replaced if the proposed change is realized. As someone who has taken part in some disambiguation sorting myself, I can say that this is by no means easy and quite time and resource consuming. Also, I do not see how the change will significantly benefit the people who are searching for the bird turkey. When they type turkey, they will be still have to go through the disambiguation page to reach their target. It will only save perhaps one mouse click, and in my humble opinion, one less click for the people who are searching for the bird turkey is not enough benefit to outweigh the evidence presented above that the country of Turkey constitutes for the majority of the searches, as well as the fact I pointed out that a lot of effort will be required to sort out the disambiguation links. --Kudret abi01:07, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, as I said above, the Google evidence is questionable to say the least. It would be much more appropriate to be able to use evidence from Wikipedia (i.e. hit counts, page links, etc.) - 100 links on Google is a very small number plus, let's face it, when a country is involved there is often a nationalist drive to get the topic well-represented on search engines. Naturally this doesn't say a lot about what people actually want when they type "Turkey".
Also, whether one is receiving a majority of attention over the other is not relevant when it comes to disambig pages. As long as there are at least two terms that are both popular, along with a number of other, less popular terms, a disambig page makes the site more useful than sending very large numbers of people to the wrong article. For example, if there are five different meanings for "Turkey", one gets 10,000 hits per month and the others all get 100, then obviously "Turkey" should go directly to the 10,000 hit page. However, if one gets 10,000, another gets 7,000, and the other three get 100 each, then a disambig page is warranted.
How much work it will take to make the change should also not really be a consideration when the result is greater reader utility. If we go down that road then we can justify all kinds of bad decisions based on "too much work for one more click" reasoning. -- Hux08:54, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
You can't make me believe that people are that much interested in the bird, at least if we are not in the Christmas time. Turkey is in G20 and what tricks does the bird got for it :) Deliogul18:13, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
Here is some Wiki based stats for you, as of this moment:
To be fair, you're not comparing like with like: sites linking to "Turkey (bird)" are all linking deliberately to the article for the bird, whereas sites linking simply to "Turkey" are doing so for any reason, whether the country, the bird or something else. However, browsing through the articles linking to "Turkey" it does seem that they are overwhelmingly doing so with reference to the country, so that satisfies me that the article doesn't need to be moved at this point. -- Hux06:25, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Umm guys... Turkey (bird) got its name from Turkey (country). In that respect Turkish word for turkey (bird) is hindi which got its name from Hindistan (India). The bird itself is of American in origin but at the time people thought they got to India. See Turkey (bird)#Naming -- Catchi? 13:51, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Request for sources
Can anyone provide me with sources, either from Turkish leaders ot scholars (historians, anthropologists) about the extent to which people consider Turkish people to be a European people/nationality? Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk10:33, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
They are not European. But they have some territory in Europe. And to answer your question very few I'm guessing. --Vonones10:42, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
I am not asking whether they are or are not European. I am asking if anyone has any sources. And I am not interested in guesses. If you do not know any sources, you need not bother respondeing. if anyone knows any sources, please let me now. Slrubenstein | Talk10:51, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Hi, you may find "Who are the Turks?" available online here useful. It was written for the Turkish curriculum and is very large at 45Mb. I havent downloaded it for a while but if I remember correctly there was a discussion on the origins of modern Turks. Also, The Turks in World History may help you, providing an overview of Turkic people from their orgins to modern Turkey and Central Asia. Neither of these are specific to Turks and Europe, but you might find them useful nonetheless. --A.Garnet12:26, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
I edited the motto. Turkey's motto is "Yurtta sulh, cihanda sulh" which was said by Atatürk and is not "Yurtta barış, dünyada barış" which is a translation of the original motto into "modern" Turkish. The original motto is easily understood by everybody in Turkey and does not need a "translation". Also Turkey's national anthem is called "istiklal marşı" which literally means "the anthem of independence" not "the march of independence". "Marş" means "anthem" in Turkish and doesn't mean "military march" in any sense of walking and the anthem itself has nothing to do with a military marching. --Abuk7821:16, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Occupation of North West Kurdistan
Why is there no mention of Turkish terror against the Kurds? Kurdistan should be independent and Turkey oppresses and occupies Kurdistan to steal the oil. Turkey is imperialist. Stop the occupation! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.68.98.95 (talk) 17:27, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
Turkey's borders and unity are officially recognized by the world as they are. Also, where is the oil? When I last left it, it was making your brother Barzani a richer man in Iraq. Logic will save us, Deliogul21:16, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
81.68.98.95, see WP:NOT#SOAPBOX. 88.246.15.164, see WP:NPA. Thanks. -- Catchi? 11:23, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
READ - I think infact you're an advocate of terrorism and imperialism since you use ADSL and as long as the internet belongs to the USA ;). You tried to fool a person of Kurdish descendant, but were fooled yourself >> ;).. {88.246.15.164|88.246.15.164}. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.11.199.235 (talk) 04:03, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Umm. Firstly WP:NOT#SOAPBOX, secondly occupation? We are talking about an occupation since WW1? -- Catchi? 04:26, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Wow, I made the same remark in 11 September 2007... Interesting... -- Catchi? 04:28, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
This is wiki, there is no space for lies..There has never been a country named Kurdistan and the lands which are called Kurdistan are under Turkish control over 1000 years. Over these years there hasn't been a war between Kurds and Turks as two races. The "Liberty for Kurdistan" propagandas are being supported by imperial countries for the last 40 years. And the terrorist forces of PKK/PEJAK have killed over 30000 people, which are mostly Kurds, under the support of these imperial countries. --Analysist (talk) 21:40, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Culture
I must disagree with a couple of sentences from the Culture section.
Nazım Hikmet is the most famous Turkish poet abroad and one of the all-time greatest literary figures of the 20th century
Good poet but is he really one of the all-time greatest literary figures? I think we must change it to something more neutral.
Pekinel sisters, the world's most famous pianist twins
Again, world's most famous pianist twins? Who makes this decision?
I think these ones are driven by a somewhat patriotic spirit and I would suggest that we use a more neutral style of writing. Northern09:11, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't know much about Pekinel sisters because I am not a listener of classical music but I can clearly say that Nazım Hikmet was one of the most successful literary figures of the Turkish republican era and one of the most famous people in his field in the socialist world where he spent a considerable portion of his life. Therefore if we are talking about "all-time greatest" stuff, Hikmet would be in the list at least for the 20th century without a doubt. Deliogul10:29, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
I do not think that such a comment is correct about ANY poet because this issue is very objectionable. I simply suggest a more neutral language whether the current style is specifically correct or not Northern11:13, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
I say, we can wait for other Wikipedians' comments but what kind of a patriotism can be involved in the case of Hikmet. You know, he faced many problems in Turkey and he had to escape to Moscow. Republic of Turkey marked him as a traitor during his lifetime. Also, I'm keeping my view that for Turkey and for the socialist world, he was one of the prominent figures of his time and he was more than just a "good poet". Whatever, lets wait for others ;) Deliogul11:33, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
I also think that Nazim was a great poet but I agree with the point user:Northern brought up. Same goes for the Pekinel sisters. The sentences can be justified with a source (such as: "According to poets international, Nazim Hikmet was one of the most succesful literary figures..." vice versa...) Other than that, I am also for the NPOVization. Kerem Özcan16:56, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Reducing Article Size
OK, it appears I was a little too bold with my edits from yesterday meant solely to reduce the size. My goal here was the same as what I did on Ottoman Empire about a month ago. The article is so large that it simply takes a long time to load. Load Portugal, and then load Turkey and compare the load times as an example of what I am talking about. Most of the text I removed is redundant to the links which I still left behind. Namely, the history sections that deal with the entire known history of Anatolia. I think it is only neccesary to have the small portion of the Ottoman history which I left behind as an intro to the founding of the modern Republic of Turkey. Most of the other edits deal with removing images (how many pictures of Ataturk does this article actually need?). I tried to avoid removing anything that was controversial. Likewise, I consolidated several areas dealing with the Republic's membership in organizations (two mentions with the same citation discussing UN membership, for example). The intro need only be what I left behind, as the rest of the information exists in the correct location already. Anything not in the article is still found under one of the remaining links. I'll leave everything as is for the moment, but I would like to see the article move back towards this direction. I would not bother getting too hung up on the featured article status, since streamlining really does not warrant removing information on the Republic of Turkey, so much as moving extraneous, or redundant information. Hiberniantears13:14, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
Should we shorten the refs (instead of full citation template, just last name of author title of the book page (if known))? That would greatly reduce the size in my opinion. Do we have a rule of 100kb (=102400 b) maximum for FA's (or is it a rather arbitrary number for 'too large size')? Let's try to leave ourselves (our opinions, etc.) aside, when choosing the parts to remove and the images to keep/remove. DenizTC15:43, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
Wow, I made an "on purpose" revert today to show a detail about all this edit craze. I know that people are editing this article for good but they don't discuss it here and they don't take other Wikipedians' opinions before they make changes. Let’s talk every single step before taking action. This is a featured article not the "dingonun ahırı" (I couldn't find the English equivalent) ;) Deliogul16:32, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
I was wondering what you were up to, but figured it was something along those lines. :-) I left your on purpose edit alone (and the others) in recognition of the amount of work many editors have put into this page, as well as the amount of controversy the small changes in the Turkey article can illicit. I realize that my edit was pretty bold, but I was genuinely focusing on the removal of redundant materials. I think if you compare the 100 k version, to my last edit you will see that the information contained in the article is essentially the same. I like Denizz's suggestion above, and that might actually go a long way to reducing the size. From a general "readability" standpoint, I think we should consider my edits in three distinct segments: First, streamlining the intro. Most of the information in the intro is also included elsewhere in the article, so removing it here does not remove it from the article. Second, images take up a lot of k, and do not always add an equivalent amount of value that a comparable amount of text might (OK... I'll say it... "but isn't a picture worth a 1000 words?"). My reduction of images was an effort to reduce memory, but also increase the value of the images which remain in place by not overloading the reader. Third, my edits to the history section removed the bulk of pre-Republic of Turkey material in defference to simply leaving in place links to articles on the removed subjects (such as the overall history of Anatolia, or the history of the Seljuks). While these topics are clearly relevent to the modern Republic, they are not actually the history of the Republic of Turkey itself. As such, it is not neccesary to have a lengthy amount of text dedicated to these subjects, when we can simply link an interested reader over to a more specific article. That's my ten cents for the moment, but I just wanted to make sure it was clear what I was up to. Hiberniantears20:20, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
After reading your reasons, your edits are ok for me. I like this article. I watched it growing day by day so, of course, I want it to be the best. Thanks for your efforts brother. Deliogul20:32, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
I am having troubles with visualizing 'France and UK together'. I can only say 'Hmmm'; this way it is a sacrificable trivia imo. We can say something like the Anatolia is about the size of X (Texas?) whereas eastern Thrace is about the size of Y. That way 'X and Y together' would be somewhat clear and useful imo. Also if all reliable sources that compare, compare it to Texas, we should do so as well. Do we have other comparisons? Do British and French compare to something else? DenizTC03:02, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
American sources compare Turkey with Texas, because that's the only way the average American can understand or try to imagine inside his/her head the size of Turkey. In reality, the difference between Turkey (783,000 km2) and Texas (678,000 km2) is 105,000 km2, and that's a HUGE difference. Many countries are smaller than 105,000 km2 (i.e. 3,5 x Armenia). Whereas Metropolitan France (France in Europe) and the United Kingdom together measure about 794,000 km2, which is much closer to 783,000 km2 (a much closer comparison). As Turkey is in Europe and wants to join the EU, it's better for the "Europeans" to understand it. France and the United Kingdom are neighbouring countries, and actually formed a single state together during the Hundred Years' War in the medieval period (France was under English occupation back then, remember Joan of Arc.) Josémaríacórdoba18:12, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
How much do they represent present-day Republic of Turkey's culture or demographics (are they widespread)?
As far as I know, they are little more than a tourist attraction (I watched them at the Galata Mevlevi House this summer), similar to the Mehteran (Ottoman Army Band) which performs for tourists in front of the Topkapi or Dolmabahce Palace.
Not to mention that Sufism and the Dervish order were banned by Ataturk, but later unbanned by Menderes for "tourism attraction" purposes.
How much do the Whirling Dervishes or the Mehteran represent "present-day Republic of Turkey's culture or demographics", I have doubts.
Marcus Garvey once said “A man without history is like a tree without roots”. We can't live without the past. You may not see how they affect us today but all these acts are in our roots. They still carry water from the soil for new generations. Deliogul18:51, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Marcus Garvey also wanted all Afro-Americans to turn back to Africa and form a single African State, which obviously didn't make much sense to them, since they remained in the United States. But the real question is, "what percentage of present-day Turkish demographics do the Dancing Sufis or the Mehteran Janissaries employed by the Turkish Ministry of Tourism represent?" 0.000001% maybe? They may look good and interesting in the Bollywoodesque advertisement films of Turkey (where a Middle Eastern horseman comes out from the doors of an Istanbul subway train and throws flowers to a lady) but in real life they represent Turkish demographics far less than the sunbathers at the Turkish Riviera, who probably correspond to more than 60-70% of the Turkish population. Josémaríacórdoba19:34, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, he is one of my favorites ;) By the way, the advertisement sucks as you mentioned but horses are important figures of the Central Asian roots and the Seljuq tradition so if they can get rid of the subway station and flowers and put that horseman (a more Turkish one would be better) next to those sunbathing crazy Germans, Turkey would possibly double its reputation :) Also, If you want to learn the percentage of the Sufism in our present day culture, I recommend you the great Omar Faruk Tekbilek. Deliogul22:38, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I had purchased one of his CDs from Virgin Megastore at Times Square (NY) back in 2000 (it was mass-advertised on the shop windows). The album had a yellowish cover with the interior view of a mosque's dome (I suppose the Suleymaniye Mosque or Sehzade Mosque in Istanbul). I only remember the song "Menem" because it was kind of weird, like "Meneeeeeeeeeem" :-) Josémaríacórdoba01:32, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
It must be the "One Truth", the masterpiece of him that includes his popular songs, Istanbul, I Love You and Red Skies. His song, I Love You, can be found in the Buddha Bar II. Whatever, this old cultural icons are more than tourist hunters as I said before. Assuming that I'm not a tourist and I'm not the only one who listens to Tekbilek :) Deliogul11:57, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
If I'm not mistaken there's just one whirling dervish' picture in the article and no info about neither those dervishes nor the mehteran. I think it's not going to hurt anybody if it stays in, since the article is not build on them. I'm not stricly against the removal though since you're also right in your concerns. Maybe the picture can be carried to the Culture section, since it's more of a culture thing now rather than a religious sect. Kerem Özcan12:45, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
Economy During 1980s
The article mentions that Turkey passed to a more private owned and marked based system with the reign of ANAP. It also objectively mentions that this decision caused several economic crises but it doesn't mention one important detail. Before the changes of 1980s, citizens were benefiting from the output of their country more equally. The article must mention how 1980s created a new rich community from nothing and how political references and being backed up by important people became more important in Turkey. This can also be mentioned in the social part of the article. Of course, if you agree with me and if you have some good references about what I'm trying to say ;) Deliogul15:31, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
The foreign relations section is ridicolously large, good quality images have been shrunk (I understand MOS is being cited as a reason but see Bangladesh for example where forced sizes are used) and too many images have been added to culture and economy sections. People seem to forget this article went through a rigorous FA process, substantial changes should be made with care. --A.Garnet11:19, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Being someone who earns money by shooting publicity films for large banks in Italy, I must say that Turkey has a serious PR problem and needs the "maximum" amount of images to express itself properly, especially in relation to its bid to join the European Union. As long as the average Frenchman thinks that Turkey is the Arabian desert country on the package of Camel cigarettes, or that the Turks are no different than the North Africans who burn the suburbs of Paris, this will not be possible. Turkey is in a serious need of properly expressing itself, and "images" will be an essential part of this. Of course I'm not saying "let's overload the article with images", but using "as many images as possible, without damaging the article's quality", is definitely a big MUST in Turkey's case. The country's future is at stake. 151.38.183.17620:05, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Of course, the re-election of "wannabe bedouins" like Erdoğan and Gül is not helping Turkey's image problem within the EU at all; but we, as common citizens who support Turkey's bid to join the EU, must do whatever we can to make up the ante. It's a "duty" that we owe to our children and grandchildren. As John F. Kennedy said, "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." 151.38.183.17620:51, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Is this Flavius/Shup again? I'm not sure approaching article improvement/writing/maintaining/creating is well served by taking into account any given nation's image problem. There is no shortage of countries that would benefit from better PR, but degrading the objectivity of an encyclopedia article to that end is contrary to the goals of this project. I understand the point you are making, but the article certainly has plenty of pictures (even in my reduced version) which demonstrate that Turkey is not a desertscape. Hiberniantears21:04, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
And I believe they were right, because you completely preserved the unnecessarily long Foreign Relations section, while arbitrarily (without asking other users) chopping off the important and essential information from the other sections. Hence all the protests. 151.38.183.17601:57, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
As for the images, try enlarging them and User:Caniago will instantly revert it. He seems determined to wage a revert war on this issue, since he spent a lot of time and effort for bringing a standard to the size of images in every single country article on Wikipedia. 151.38.183.17601:57, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
As for the Foreign Relations section, try removing a single comma from the Armenian Genocide, Greece or Cyprus sections, and User:Kékrōps or User:Vonones will instantly revert it, since they seem determined to defend the interests (point of view) of their respective nations on these issues; even at the cost of a revert war, which caused my ban as Flavius Belisarius until October 12. 151.38.183.17601:57, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Granted, my edits were a bit too bold for this article, which as you pointed out, is the work of a very lengthy series of collaborations between many editors. For whatever reason, Turkey is the target of all kinds of biased editing, running the spectrum of views, and removing one sentence here or there can trigger far more of a response than it would in a less emotionally charged article. That said, my 10k reduction did lead quickly to a 4k compromise reduction, and some constructive discussion here on the talk page. As far as I can tell, there really was no discord over my edits once I made clear what I was doing. In the mean time, I still think there is plenty of room to further reduce this article in the following three areas:
1) There is little need for the extended history section. I think leading in with a brief history of the end of the Ottoman Period is a sufficient intro to explaining the founding period of the Republic of Turkey. Keeping in place the other history related links at the top of the history section (i.e. Anatolia/Seljuks/the full Ottoman Period) is enough to tell the reader that civilization, and human occupation have existed on the land of modern Turkey for a very long time.
2) Images. This is a pet peeve of mine, in that many images in an already large article can make the page very difficult to load. I understand Flavius when he states that you want the pictures in an article to cleary illustrate the article topic, but I don't think it takes 100 pictures to do this. Some streetscapes, a few images from the regions of Turkey, and maybe pics of Attaturk and Erdogan/Gul to draw together past and present.
3) As noted by a couple of editors, the foreign policy section is too long. This is a dodgier section as it tends to attract a large amount of weasel words, and POV editing. I stay away from making too much substantive change as my own view of this is probably clouded by an American-centric access to information. The Armenian Genocide/Issue is clearly a massive stumbling block on par with trying to have an objective, level-headed conversation between a Catholic and a Protestant from Belfast. Not sure what to do on this point other than suggest that all regular contributors to this article take care to discuss Armenian related changes on the talk page first.
Thusly, I think points 1 and 2 are highly achievable. Point 3 is probably destined to be something of a disaster for a long time to come. Hiberniantears15:35, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Colour of the map
I think the "rosso corsa" map looked better, and was more in line with the colour of the Turkish flag and emblem.
Besides, Turks are the "Redcoats" of the Balkans, Middle East and North Africa, i.e. the Baddies.
Red is more than the color of the flag in Turkey's case. It is the symbol of sovereignty and nobility in the Central Asia originated cultures. Whatever, it is better than green ;) Deliogul19:28, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Turks being the regional Redcoats, the "British Racing Green" map is fine too. But it just doesn't have the gutsy and passionate looks and feel of the red map, i.e. the "rosso corsa" Ferrari Enzo. 151.38.183.17619:36, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Whatever the color, I still don't think the Europe based maps are the right way to go. They only show the location in relation to Europe, and Turkey appears pushed to the corner and rotated. Perhaps I will open an RFC on this and collect some opinions. --Kudret abiTalk21:01, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
In my opinion the first two paragraphs (relations with the E.U. and the U.S.) should be kept, while the rest should be copy-pasted to the respective sections of the main article Foreign relations of Turkey, which is already linked at the top of the Foreign Relations section.
I think Greece (Cyprus issue), Armenia (Diaspora, energy issues and political relations), Syria (water relations and the Hatay issue), Iraq (effect of Gulf wars and autonomous Kurds in the north) and Iran (religion export of Iran, possible economic ties between the two country) deserve to be mentioned in this section with couple of sentences. Then people can go to the main articles of these issues but first they have to know what it is all about. Deliogul14:25, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Or, they can be linked at the bottom of the section, such as:
In line with its traditional Western orientation, relations with Europe have always been a central part of Turkish foreign policy. Turkey became a member of the Council of Europe in 1949, applied for associate membership of the EEC (predecessor of the EU) in 1959 and became an associate member in 1963. After decades of political negotiations, Turkey applied for full membership of the EEC in 1987, became an associate member of the Western European Union in 1992, reached a Customs Union agreement with the EU in 1995 and has officially begun full accession negotiations with the EU on October 32005.[2]. It is believed that the accession process will take at least 15 years due to Turkey's size and the depth of disagreements over certain issues.[3] The European Union remains Turkey's biggest trading partner, and the presence of a well-established Turkish diaspora in Europe has contributed to the development of extensive relations between the two sides over the years.
The other defining aspect of Turkey's foreign relations has been its ties with the United States. Membership of NATO in 1952 ensured close bilateral relations with Washington, based on common threats and interest. Turkey was the bulwark of NATO's southeastern flank throughout the Cold War, directly bordering Warsaw Pact countries and risking nuclear war on its soil during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Although Turkey also supported the United States in the NATO-led peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan after September 11, the Iraq War faced strong domestic opposition in the country. A government motion which would have allowed U.S. troops to attack Iraq from Turkey's southeastern border couldn't reach the absolute majority of 276 votes needed for its adoption in the Turkish Parliament, the final tally being 264 votes for and 250 against.[4] This led to a cooling in relations between the U.S. and Turkey and fears that they may be damaged as a result of the situation in Iraq.[5] Turkey is particularly cautious about an independent Kurdish state arising from a destabilised Iraq; it has previously fought an insurgent war on its own soil, in which an estimated 37,000 people lost their lives, against the PKK (listed as a terrorist organization by a number of states and organisations, including the U.S. and the EU).[6][7] This led the Turkish government to put pressure on the U.S. to clamp down on insurgent training camps in northern Iraq, without much success.[8]
But of course, all information below the first two paragraphs should be first copy-pasted to the respective articles for avoiding the loss of information. Patrick Sanders00:31, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
As an IR student, I'm pretty shocked when I saw that there are no articles about such important aspects of Turkish foreign policy. By the way, A government motion which would have allowed U.S. troops to attack Iraq from Turkey's southeastern border couldn't reach the absolute majority of 276 votes needed for its adoption in the Turkish Parliament, the final tally being 264 votes for and 250 against. part is longer than it can be. It would be enough if we state that the offer wasn't accepted. Deliogul16:31, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
I think we should wait just a little bit longer before attempting this. As it is, with all the sockpuppeting, it is pretty difficult to make constructive edits on a large scale to this article while still following WP:AGF with any new editor who jumps in and makes a series of well intentioned edits. Hiberniantears14:03, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
It needs to be drastically trimmed and written in summary style, that means abandoning much of tedious details such as how many points Turkey gave Armenian in the Eurovision song contest (!!). The section should be split into US, EU and regional relations, the regional section comprising of Turkeys tilt away from Western reliance during the Cold War towards regional assertiveness in the Middle East and Caucasus. Controversies such as Cyprus and Armenia should be summarized into sentences, not paragraphs. --A.Garnet14:32, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Agreed, but we need to wait until the sockpuppeting issue is resolved, otherwise this will just turn into a massive edit war. Most of the edits made to Turkey by different users over the past couple of weeks are the same person. Many of the socks are now blocked, but new ones just pop up, or the editor jumps over to editing from dynamic IP's. Any major revisions we make will be chewed apart by the editor in question, either through wholesale revisions, or minor tweaks which over time restore the old version. Its clear that most of us are not happy with the current state of the article. That said, the current state of events makes it nearly impossible to constructively improve this article. To that end, we all just need to be patient for the time being. Hiberniantears15:20, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm actually very happy of the recent changes (apart from a few minor punctuation errors that I noticed - which I'll leave for someone else to correct.) If a shop window stays the same for too long, it starts to get boring. Besides, the Winter 2007-2008 season is here :) Being an advertiser in Milan, I have a lot of experience in making "catchy windows", as you might have noticed. But for this season I'll leave the window-making entirely to you guys :) Anyway, Hiberniantears, the amount of information that I poured into Turkey-related articles is so big that, no matter how much you change them, they'll still carry traces of me; because some of the information that I added is "truly essential" and "too important to delete". For instance, it was me who added that Turkey is a "developed country", a "member of the G-20", the "Big Three: Roosevelt-İnönü-Churchill" (similar to the Yalta Conference - I actually created the Second Cairo Conference article just to put that photo), the "TCDD High Speed Train" (HSTs are usually in developed countries), the "KC-135 Stratotanker" (only 4 countries operate them), the Levent financial district photo (my friend took that photo, but used my shoulder as a tripod), all Maslak, Levent, Nişantaşı, Bağdat Avenue, etc. photos (my friends provided them) etc... It takes someone with a "marketing instinct" to come up with these "status symbols" to boost the image of Turkey, and that's exactly what I have done (and I'm proud of it, as a responsible citizen who wants to serve his nation). In reality, many of the things that I wrote are actually known by very few people. For instance, most History of Art teachers in Turkish universities don't even know that there's a Genoese Palace behind Bankalar Caddesi, or that it's a copy of the San Giorgio Palace in Genoa. Or that Cristoforo Buondelmonte, author of the oldest surviving map of Istanbul, is Florentine. Many "true Istanbulites" don't even know that there was a water trench in front of the triple land walls of Theodosius II, or the details regarding the Sphendone, or that the tribunes of the Hippodrome are buried 8 feet below ground level, or that the Arap Mosque is the only surviving building from the Latin Empire (I had to make a revert war to add the Latin Empire into the Istanbul article), etc... I haven't met any person who knows Turkish marine history better than I do. And I'm not surprised that noone has added anything new to many articles that I created, simply because they don't know anything more about them, and because the articles are near absolute saturation in terms of information (with nothing more left to add). Am I being a bit megalomaniac and larger-than-life? Maybe. Maybe not. ;) 206.71.149.8023:30, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
I've made some changes to reduce the clutter on the article. As for the sockpuppetry, if your referring to Flavius, he was in favour of reducing the foreign relations section so I do not see a problem with get started as soon as possible. I've removed the paragraph on Greece and Cyprus and merged a few sentences to do with Cyprus into the EU section, I think this is a good start. I've also removed some unnecessary photos and made some relevant additions. --A.Garnet18:16, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Are these languages are accepted as legal by the state or not. If they aren't, you can't add them to the article. As far as I know, the only legal language in Turkey is Turkish. Deliogul13:54, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
I believe you are correct Deliogul. So far as I know, only Kurdish is even under consideration by the current government, and I haven't actually heard the AKP considering "official" status, so much as allowing it to be taught. Hiberniantears14:13, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
To Deliogul: The state has no business deciding what languages are spoken in its territory. The state may decide whether a certain group gets special minority rights connected with their language, but whether or not the language exists is (one hopes!) none of the government's business. Relevant sources would be demographic and linguistic studies; Ethnologue is a good place to start. But I agree one shouldn't overload the infobox with such a list. Fut.Perf.☼14:58, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
To Hiberniantears: As far as official recognition is concerned, I think that at least Greek and Armenian have a special protected status under the Treaty of Lausanne. There are schools operating in these languages, as far as I know. Kurdish doesn't have any special status of its own. If I remember correctly, the new legislation that allowed some marginal use of it in the media and education is worded so as to extend to all local "mother tongues" (anadilleri) Fut.Perf.☼15:27, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, if one day humanity can reach to the ideal liberal democracy, as some of the Western scholars argue, the state will be minimized and all people will have the right to live as they want but until that day, it is the "business" of the states to regulate what is going on in their territories. This is what we call the sovereignity of the state and if the constitution of a state bans or doesn't recognize the regional languages, any international agreement about human rights can't be operated in that state because the constitution is above the international agreements (at least in Turkey's case where the country is not bounded with the regulations of a supranational organization like EU). We all want to reach the world peace and stop global warming but it is not that easy :) Deliogul16:42, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Completely off-topic. The languages are there, it's a fact (the Turkish government doesn't actually deny that); what the Turkish government thinks about how and when and where they can be used is of no importance whatsoever to the writing of an encyclopdia. When and where we want to describe what languages are spoken in Turkey, we will name them all; when and where we want to describe the language policies of the Turkish state, we will describe those. Simple. Fut.Perf.☼16:56, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
By the way, you can put this list to anywhere in the article, instead of the infobox. People are talking in countless ways but there is not a regulation of the Republic of Turkey about them. Therefore, until it becomes legal (a term I don't like either), infobox is closed to these languages. Deliogul16:49, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I agree, for practical reasons, that they shouldn't be in the infobox. I disagree in the strongest possible terms that the reason why they sholdn't be in the infobox is their non-recognition. That view is, to put it frankly, disgusting and revolting to me. Fut.Perf.☼16:56, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
A slight rise in the amount of nationalist flavour
For what it's worth: I have sensed a slight rise in nationalist flavour in the article.
I can't help but think that this "slight change in tone" might be linked with the recent terror attacks in which 15 Turkish soldiers were killed, and the reluctance of the U.S. to help Turkey in dealing with the PKK bases in Northern Iraq, possibly as a retaliation for Turkey's reluctance of allowing U.S. troops to attack Iraq from Turkey in 2003.
The Foreign Relations section has become a bit "less empathic" towards Turkey-U.S. relations.
And the painting of Mehmed II entering Constantinople by Fausto Zonaro, no matter how beautiful, has a slightly "triumphalist" tone, with dead Byzantine soldiers (and their cross-bearing shields) lying on the ground. It can be interpreted as stressing "the victory of Islam over Christianity." And that's not a very good PR strategy.
There's also a misleading detail in Zonaro's painting: In 1453 there were no African soldiers in the Ottoman Army. The first African (black) soldiers from Nubia (Sudan) entered the Ottoman ranks after Selim I's conquest of Egypt in 1517. Zonaro obviously wanted to add an "orientalist" appeal to his painting, which was quite fashionable in the late 19th century.
I believe that the Sultanahmet Mosque photo was a "less aggressive" representative of Turkey's Ottoman heritage, and will attract less vandalism by the Greeks. 206.71.149.8010:28, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
I think you are reading too much into it my friend. Recent political events were certainly not in my mind when editing, and I dont see how any of my edits can be seen as being more aggresive to the US when all I did was trim a few sentences. As for the Zonaro image, I felt the Ottoman Empire needed stronger representation, and the partial view of the Sultan Ahment mosque didnt seem to provide that. The conquest of Istanbul, whatever national sensitivies it might evoke, is highly factually relavant since it marks the Ottomans true transition to empire. I'd place the portrait of Suleiman the Magnificent if you want, but I'm sure you'd complain his turban isnt the image you want representative of Turkey. Whatever, if other people find it aggresive (which was not my intention) then they can remove it, I just find factually relavant. --A.Garnet10:51, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
I think the original "Mehmed entering Constantinople" portrait belongs to Benjamin-Constant (made in 1876) and others have been imitating his version. Constant's version also has Constantine XI lying dead next to Mehmed's horse, of course a romantic depiction since nobody saw the last emperor after May 29. By the way, Fall of Constantinople also marked the end of the age of castles by presenting the gun power. Therefore, it is an important event both for the Turkish and world history and the military circles. Whatever, you can either keep or delete the image from Turkey's article, it is not a big deal for me too. Deliogul14:01, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
Reminds me of which: Wouldn't Mehmed II be more correct, rather than "Mehmet II", since "Mehmet" is a relatively modern form of the name Mehmed (its modern evolution after the Turkish language reforms in the republican period) 206.71.149.8015:10, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
I know the portrait because it has a place in my userpage ;) You can visit the talk page of Mehmed II for this "t-d" business. We discussed it there and more or less decided that using "d" is the best way. Deliogul18:58, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
The single biggest issue for turkey is the call by kurds for self determination. A human right that has been trampled upon by the ethnic cleansing and the brutal suppression of culture and language of the kurdish people, and the killing and jailing of their political leaders. There is no mention of the history of the kurdistan since before turkey was formed. It is mentioned as a problem that "emerged" after the iraq invasion by the us led forces!?! This misleads the reader to think that this hasn't been an issue since before the existence of Turkey itself!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.111.167.232 (talk) 22:42, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Turks have had problems with Kurds since Ottoman times. Governments made many bad decisions while handling the Kurdish issue, nobody can say the opposite, but Kurds also aren't "Sütten çıkmış ak kaşık" (Totally innocent). Many soldiers have been killed, many villages have been destroyed and the people who commited these crimes are Kurds. By the way, if Turkish central government wanted to "clean" the Kurds, why there are some ten million Kurds in Turkey? Deliogul23:34, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
OECD is more important than OSCE, United Nations has vanished
I'm sure Hiberniantears has good intentions in shortening the article, but Turkey's status as a "founding member of the OECD" has disappeared while he removed the last paragraph of the opening section (which I believe was wrong) and moved some of that information (such as Turkey being a founding member of the OSCE, which is also correct) to the Foreign Relations section.
The OECD is a far more important and prestigious organization than the OSCE (largely symbolic), and yet it has not been added to the Foreign Relations section after the removal of the last paragraph of the opening section.
Likewise, Turkey's status as a "founding member of the United Nations" has also vanished.
The Foreign Relations section was already too long, so why lengthen it further by dumping some of the information of the opening section to it?
Maybe we need a seperate article for this organization membership thing :) Then giving a simple link will be enough. Deliogul17:14, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, thanks for making my earlier point... that you will just revert whatever I do. OSCE and OECD were both in my version of the article. One in economy, the other in foreign relations. The paragraph I removed is entirely redundant, and every single point of information remained in the article. Hiberniantears11:24, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
Ottoman opressions and the negative impact of the Ottoman empire on the Balkans
Why does the history in this article not mention the great opression that the Ottoman Empire cause to the nations it enslaved? For examle the Bulgarians? What about the negative impact of Turkey on the Balkans? Here is a citation from the article history of the Balkans:
By the end of the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire became the controlling force in the region, although it was centered around Anatolia. In the past 550 years, because of the frequent Ottoman wars in Europe fought in and around the Balkans, and the comparative Ottoman isolation from the mainstream of economic advance (reflecting the shift of Europe's commercial and political centre of gravity towards the Atlantic), the Balkans has been the least developed part of Europe.
While this article makes it sounds almost like the Ottoman rule was a totally positive thing. I can understand that the history books in Turkey are all biased but can we show some balls and put some real history in this article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.126.113.154 (talk) 17:16, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Ottoman State was "imperialist" as you can understand from its name :) We can talk about the economic system in the empire as you want. The name of the system was "protectionism" which was focused on the basic needs of the local people in every region. This means that producers were bounded in the regional territories by quotas and harsh rules. This system didn't change until the reform period of the empire. This was a bad thing when you look at it from the liberalist perspective but some kind of an advantage for the royalist state economy of the empire. By adding those, you shouldn't forget the rights granted to millets in the Ottoman system. They were given the right to operate their own schools and live according to their traditions. Even the legal code was different for these millets. So, the system had bad and good sides. Calling it a total mess would be pure subjectivity. Deliogul17:26, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Also, I want to add a little detail. There is not a thing called "unbiased history book" if it is prepared for the widespread education in a state. If you put a Serbian and a Turk in a room and want them to revise the historical events between the 15th and 20th centuries, you would possibly hear two totally different versions of the same events. Deliogul20:19, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Aremenian Genocide and Foreign Relations Update
Shouldnt there be some mention of that fact that Turkey recalled its ambassador to the United States, after the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs passed a resolution condemning the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire?Giovanni3318:56, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
Maybe we can wait for a couple of days before adding a detailed data to the main page of the relations about this new event but we can put a sentence about it in this article. There are many ways that this conflict can go. I'm afraid of the possibilities like "Johnson letter paving the way for Cyprus".1 US's opposition to Turkey has generally caused many problems ;) Deliogul20:20, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
I know it is already in the article, but until this comes to at least a full vote in the house, it's still developing. The resolution itself is non-binding, does not have the support of the administration, and has no counterpart in the Senate. Outside of Senate support, followed by Administration support, this bill is moot, other than to reflect the opinion of Democratic Party members in the House itself. Given the legal insignificance this bill will have on American policy, this strikes me as a savvy move by the Turkish government, which is certainly looking for a reason to enter Norther Iraq, and this probably represents a bargaining chip to either gain American approval of a Turkish operation in Iraq, or to gain American assistance in securing the Iraqi-Turkish border. Either way, its all just speculation at this point... Hiberniantears23:25, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
If the government wants to occupy Northern Iraq, I am the king of Sarıyer :) They are giving electricity cheaper to Iraq, their companies have strong economic ties with the Kurdish authority and their economic success is somewhat depended on the Western support. I also don't want them to play Risk in real life but not for the "cold cash", basically, for the sake of our reputation and international justice. Deliogul13:40, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Let me qualify my last statement. I'm not saying the Turkish government wants to occupy any part of Iraq. They do, however, want to conduct some operations there specifically against the PKK, or find a way to better secure the border. Hiberniantears13:59, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, if they desperately want to do such a thing, they have to do it secretly this time. If they will announce the operation, which is a thing they are doing in recent days with all their statements, they won't find any PKK member to kill when they attack :) This is not a joke, Tansu Çiller did it before. Deliogul21:42, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
When did Turkey become "Turkey"
Can anyone please tell me when "Turkey" first appeared in the historical record?
Is it's first appearence when Ataturk established the "Republic of Turkey" or had the term been used before as a description for Asia Minor or Anatolia?
As far as I know, "Turkey" first was used during the late Ottoman period to define the empire by European powers. At that time it wasn't a legal name, it was only a nickname. If you think that the other nickname of the empire was the "Sick Man of Europe", you can understand the good intentions behind this nickname business :) Deliogul15:59, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Make that: the early Ottoman period, or even earlier. I don't know about the word Türkiye in Turkish itself, but in the Western European languages, Turcia, Turkey and its equivalents were common from the Middle Ages. Haven't got access to the OED right now, but the German Deutsches Wörterbuch has citations from the 13th century.
ein wint von Barbarie waet, der ander von Türkie ['one wind blows from Barbary, the other from Turkey'] - Tannhäuser, 13th cent.
es möcht eym hertten steyn thůn we, was wir alleyn verloren hant in kleyn Asyen vnd Kriechenlandt, das man die grosz Türcky yetz nennt ['it would make a hard stone hurt to see what we have lost, in Asia Minor and Greece, which is called Great Turkey now.'] - Sebastian Brant, 1495.
I guess you got it wrong. "Turkey" is not a different version of the earlier name "Turcia", which is still used to refer Turkey in many languages. "Turkey" possibly comes from a word trick "Turk to Turkey". I'm not an expert on this issue but I guess it is somehow the same as "James becomes Jimmy". Of course, if you say that Europeans didn't have any bad intentions about the Ottomans and they gave the name of a bird to a country just by coincidence or because of a similarity between Turkey and Turcia, I don't have anything to add :) Deliogul18:14, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Uhm, no. the bird has nothing to do with it, if that's what you mean. (The bird was named after the country, much later.) The English word Turkey, just like the German counterparts I quoted, certainly comes ultimately from the form Turcia in the mediterranean languages. In Latin, Greek and Italian, -ia is the regular derivational suffix to form country names from ethnic names. It was called so in several mediterranean languages alike, from there the northwest European languages probably got it via French (Turquie). Fut.Perf.☼18:25, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't have anything to add, as I said before, because you are standing there with the knowledge of the subject my friend :) Deliogul18:35, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Turks in Iran
Turks in iran are azerian branch of turkic languages. They constitute up to 25-30 percent of Iranian population. They live mostly in northwestern part of iran but live in other parts of Iran as well. They are Shia muslems.The interesting point about them is that their religion (Shia) is more important to them rather than their turkic language and ethnicity so that they feel much closer to persians rather than to turks. They even dislike to call themselves as turks and they always say they are azeris not turks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.229.34.25 (talk) 01:01, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
It is like hating America but proudly stating that you are from New York :) When you say "I'm an Azeri", that generally means "I'm Turkic" and it is a totally different identity than a person's religious identity. It was discussed that Iranian Azeris would revolt to gain their freedom to join Azerbaijan if a possible occupation of Iran by USA occurs. Of course, if what you say is true, that wouldn't take place as Azeris love Iranians. We will wait and see. Deliogul13:03, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Propose Edit : 17th Oct. 2007
_
I am very thankful to each and every editor who feels responsible for the well-being of article and who keeps an eye on it to avoid corruption.
I would like to share a few ideas about it.
I believe, Istanbul should be replaced with "İstanbul" at every place it is used. And it might as well be mentioned as the "Most Populous" city instead of the largest city on the overview section.
Also the sentence; "The New Turkish Lira (Yeni Türk Lirası, YTL) replaced the old Turkish Lira on 1 January 2005." should be replaced with "The New Turkish Lira (Yeni Türk Lirası, YTL) replaced the Turkish Lira (Türk Lirası, TL) on 1 January 2005." The linkings should remain the same.
Another issue is that, in the etymology section "Göktürks" should not be quoted in parenthesis as "Sky Turks". If there shall be a quote, it should be "Blue Turks" instead. But there are no needs for any quotes for that proper particular name of the related community/nation.
Thank you & Have a good one...
Respectfully Submitted,
MKM
_
These are okay with me. By the way, do we really have to find an English version of "Göktürk", if there is not a widely accepted one. An internal link to the main article of Göktürks would be enough. Deliogul13:06, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
_
For Gokturks; No translation is needed at all,
especially not that false one.
The old currency is not called "old Turkish Lira",
It is simply "The Turkish Lira."
MKM
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Featured Article Status
With an eye to maintaining the featured article status, or improving it, I pulled this dif, which compares the version of the article right now, with that version when the article was promoted to featured article status. I have not yet given it a thorough review, but at some point it may behoove a few of us to print out both versions, and make a comparison of the two hardcopies in order to assess the current state of the article. I am pretty busy at work this week, so this is more of a long term project for me, but I thought I would get the dif out there for any enterprising editors who care to partake. Hiberniantears12:56, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
How Turks became Kurds neighbours
Do you think You can delete this article? someone did that and i put it here again. Why do you fear the truth that much?
This is the story of how Turks and Kurds became neighbours, this is completely true and if you have any doubt about it, you can search through independent information resources about them.Edited by Awyer
1. Turks: turkic migration: First of all turkic is a big language family including those languages that people in today's Turkey, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kyrkizstan Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and a few other countries speak.But what is their past history? and how they spread widely in those regions? about 1200 - 1400 years ago nearly all turkic people were living in a region in northwest of today's Mongolia. Because of their frequent invasions to the east (today's China) and killing their people and making alot of trouble for them, finaly the chinese got exhausted and start to force them to migrate from their lands towards the west. The migration started from this point.First they moved to a region in east of caspian sea (today 's turkmenistan). During next 100 - 200 years they expand through the region and dominate over the todays turkic language countries. Oguz turks (seljuk turks or todays istanbuli turkish) settled in the north of the caspian sea for a while and then started to migrate again to Anatolia (todays turkey) they were living in a small part of anatolia (near homelands of Kurds and Armenians)for a while then invaded towards the west were greek people were living. there were some fights between indigenous people of the region( greek, armenians and kurds) and the newcomer turks but finaly turks could (because they were invading and fighting for many years and the indigenous people not) dominate over the region. after a while they embraced Islam and because of their fighting and invading capabilities, Abbasid Baghdad khaliphs(today 's Iraq) recruited them in their army to use them in the Islamic fights against christians. Seljuk turks gradually became powerfull and started to form theirown powerful army. After several years they formed big ottoman empire and could form an allied army of muslims(including arabs and kurds as well). they could defeat many christian(european) countries and expand their empire. they killed a lot of christians including christian armenians in anatolia who didn't embrace islam. They dominated over many european countries for many years until allied forces could defeat them in world war 2, and put an end to invador ottoman empire. Allied forces wanted to make past ottoman empire territory to different smaller countries in severes of france in 1981, and make another country with different language and culture in the east of anatoly (Kurdistan country). Then a brilliant turk soldier (Mustafa kemal pasha Atta turk) with strong nationalist turkish feelings but not very kind heart and not islamic and religious thoughts (Although he knew that all turks and ottoman empire had was because of islam but he had a feeling that islam cannot help turkish people anymore) could change the allied forces mind in less than one year and linked kurdistan to turkey one more time.during afew decades he tried to change turkish culture, language and every thing towards modernity and he was succesful. he had a thought that turkish is the only race and culture that should survive in turkey. he denied kurdish as another language and ethnicity in turkey and put pressure on them to change their language and culture. he called them mountain turks. but he was not very succesful in forcing kurds to change their identity since they had a strong culture which had resisted against stranger cultures for more than 7000 years.
2.Kurds: Indoeuropean migration: Around 7000 years ago the first migration waves( maybe because of population overcrowd) of the biggest language family of the world called indoeuropean language family started.The members of this big family first live together in a region in caucasus(west of caspian sea and today's Georgia and Armenia) or maybe in Anatolia near Van lake(today's turkey). Different branches of this big family were Germanic,Celtic, Baltic Slavic, Albanian, Latin, Greek, Armenian, Iranian and indoaryans. Among these branches there was a big branch named Iranian family. Iranian family had three major subgroups : Medes(today's Kurdish), Persian(today's Farsi,Tajik and Dari) and Parthian(extincted). Iranian people who called themselves as aryans( and iran means the land of aryans) first started their settlement in zagros mountains(west of today's iran)to anatolia (east of today's Van lake in turkey) in around 7000 years ago. They were Medes( ancectors of today's Kurds) first iranians who came to iran. Persians and Parthians came to iran hundreds of years later. The Medes formed the first big civilization of aryans (or maybe all indoeuropeans) in their lands. They preserved their brilliant culture and language against all foreign invasions during thausands of years. The first iranian big empire was founded by these people around 3000 years ago although they had many smaller kingdoms before that.Medes people( Kurds) have had important roles in development and vanishment of different big empires and kingdomes of the region until around 1000 ago when islam came to their region. Many scolars believe that Zoroaster, the great iranian prophet was median. You can find in ancient greek and asyrian documents that they frequently mentioned directly to Median or Kurdish people as a people with a great civilization. Today their land is divided into more than four countries including Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Armenia and Azerbaijan as well. but all of the kurds in those countries still have the same language and culture. Except for Azerbaijan and Armenia and recently Iraq all other three countries are not democratic countries and kurds think they are under oppression in those countries and are fighting against those governments militarily or politicaly for their natural rights.----Awyer —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.51.33.239 (talk) 22:04, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
If we forget about the parts which cover the "dictatorship" in Turkey and how Kurdish freedom fighters kill Turkish soldiers for their "natural rights", your long comment may start to make some sense. By the way, you know that I didn't delete this because of "fear" but because it is uselessly long and only consists of your uncited history vision and possibly will never make its way into the main article. Also, if all Kurds have the same language and culture, I'm the king of Sarıyer :) Deliogul22:20, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
so you mean turkey is a democratic country? it s ridiculous. do you forget how turkish state banned speaking kurdish in public or in the schools afew years ago. and still islamic hijab is not alowded in official places and alot more...you d better go out of the kurdish lands and go back to mongolia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Awyer (talk • contribs) 09:53, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Mongolia... That shows your degree of historical knowledge. By the way, I just said Turkey isn't a dictatorship. I didn't claim that it is the symbol of democracy or something. Still, it is one of the G20 nations and it is a secular republic where the sovereignty belongs to its people. The real ridiculous thing is that, you are comparing Turkey to countries like Iraq, which is in the middle of civil war, Armenia, the playground of the Armenian Diaspora, and Azerbaijan, which is under the rule of former Soviets. I expected you to take another step forward and claim that Iran is more democratic than Turkey but at least you didn't do that. Deliogul11:52, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
first of all i appreciate you Deliogul that you didn't delete my writings this time. about kurdish language as i said all kurdish people have the same language not the same dialect or accent so you d better to read some more about the meaning of language. about democracy in turkey in my opinion a democratic country and government should consider all of its people's rights including minorities. but in turkey the government is semidemocratic but only for turks not for the other minorities.and i think democracy of majorities is kind of dictatorship.besides we don't expect turkey to be the symbol of democracy, but we need to be free to use turkey s resources (which north kurdistan is a part of it) to develop the kurdish language and culture parallel and equal to turkish and also kurdish people should be influential in all of the government's decisions, are our requests too much for a democratic country to carry them out?
about pkk i think turkish government is the first culprit. turks have never paid any attention to their requests and arouse their enemity by their inappropriate reactions.and i think turkish government would never be able to stop them unless it changes its diplomacy against them, even if turkish state kill all the pkk fighters, kurdish people start to make it another time.besides turkish soldiers have killed more pkk soldiers than pkk killed them(turks are using all facilities of a big modern army against them) usa and eu called pkk terrorist just because they need turkey now,but i m not sure they keep their mind forever.
i wrote mongolia because i couldn t find another land closer than mongolia to the original turkish lands.maybe i d better to say turkistan near to mongolia.anyway your real homeland (your VATAN) is there and you cann't deny that.
and the last, i cann't say iran or syria are democratic countries. i even can say they are anti democracy and are fighting against democracy.--121.216.127.7803:30, 8 November 2007 (UTC)Awyer
So you think every Kurdish citizen of Turkey speaks in Kurdish. I know many of them who don't know a single word in Kurdish. Therefore, I wasn't talking about the different dialects in this case. A considerable amount of the Kurdish people is integrated into this country's culture. By the way, about the "homeland of Turks" business, look at my last comment here. Don't worry I know my ethnic history well and I have no problems with other people's ethnic backgrounds too. I only need an objective academic tone in this talk page. One last thing, as the son of a "red family", maybe because of the heritage, I only trust in this soil's people and their capacity, not to a third party like US. Turkey has never been that much of a simple entity which other countries can support or destroy according to their interests. Deliogul23:30, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
what you are pointing out about some kurdish people who you know that they are kurdish but cann't speak kurdish is something that i call it, brutal policies of turkish politicians and authorities towards another nation. It comes from policies of suppression, humiliation and denying of kurdish nation by turks during years. but it also shows that they still call themselves as kurds. that shows that they are becoming aware of their identity and their past. today more and more kurds are becoming aware of the fact that kurdish is not a bit inferior than turkish even if also it is not superior that turkish because of its originality and its rich language and culture which is result of their thausands of years of their civilization.121.216.127.7800:56, 12 November 2007 (UTC)Awyer
There is not a degree of superiority for the world's languages. Every single one of them represents the culture of an ethnic entity. More than that, they are the basic ways of communication and shouldn't be a parameter in the power relations between different ethnic groups. Centralization and standardization are two important processes which every nation-state has to achieve. Turkish state's ideology is not based on race (used as the state policy by Germany until recently) but citizenship (same logic which the French system has). Therefore, Kurds don't have to forget their heritage. They are integrated into the shared identity of this country. I think you are way too skeptic about Turkey and what it has achieved. Deliogul18:42, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree about the fact that every modern language has to be centralized and standardized to the international standard levels so it's on us as kurds to achieve that goal and it seems that there is no choice other than making an independent or at least semi independent kurdish state. if you have another choice for us please let me know. you speak like politicians they always say logical and beautiful words but do something different. you say turkish ideology is not based on race and language, and also you mention shared identity of this country. what do you mean of shared identity. probably you think turkish language and culture must be a shared identity for all people in turkey including kurds. so if all kurdish people accept that ideology soon the whole kurdish language and identity would vanish and we would have kurdish only in history books.that will be against all measures of humanity and i take an oath to preserve and protect my kurdish identity until death comes.--Awyer13:30, 14 November 2007 (UTC)Awyer
History section
What happened to the history section? I didn't read all through the debates above, but what was the reason for removing all of it? It passed the FA nomination in that state. Does anyone know what happened? I was thinking of going back to the older sub-sections version. Cheers (I knew I shouldn't have even taken one look at a Wikipedia article :)) Baristarim04:44, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I see where the debate was. But it is way too short to undertake such a serious overhaul of the article. The history section is long because it provides very valuable and succinct info about the country to the reader at the very beginning of the article. However, any improvements could be debated. Baristarim05:09, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
I, and several others, have condensed the pre-Republic history in order to have the article flow from introduction (explaining what the Republic of Turkey is) to the history of the country. In the larger version, we have introduction, and then a lengthy history of the landmass of Anatolia, and then the history of the Republic. The shorter version maintains links to articles on the removed sections. That said, I would not be opposed to a single, brief paragraph that opens the history section and contains the links to the other articles, but there is no need for such a lengthy exploration of Anatolian history. I don't think this will damage FA or GA status, since it in fact improves the readability of the article. I would note that with all the constant revisions to this article, the concise version has remained stable since it was put in place. During that time, the article was listed on the main page, and still came through unscathed. Hiberniantears11:29, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't get it, when was it on the main page with the concise history version? Can you please see other FA articles? We cannot have an history section starting at 1923 as if the country suddenly dropped from the air. I would like to point to the fact that the article is not named "Republic of Turkey", but "Turkey". I am really not fond of this "strict interpretation" when it comes countries, unless there is a case for the room for confusion (ex North/South Korea etc). I reverted back to the full version. I checked the debate above, but I fail to see a substantial debate on this. The "cut" also made some references unworkable and left out pictures. Honestly, the concise version looked way too out of place.
See India, another FA - its history section starts at 3300 BC. See also Germany and Canada. Don't comprare this article with Portugal, which is not even GA. I am strongly opposed to such a radical overhaul of the history section. I am sure that you have good intentions, but please check the other articles of the same quality category. cheers Baristarim17:25, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Also see Israel, another FA - and Australia whose history section starts at 48000 BC!! These articles are FA because they provide very relevant information to the uninformed reader how the country "became as such" right at the beginning of the article. Baristarim17:28, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
No problem :) Come on, I don't own the article :) I just would like it to be of quality, that's all. Joke aside, the "history section issue" can be discussed. It has been a common cause of discussions about when to start country's histories and to what extent. But I just think that the real issue is about giving the uninformed reader the best background info in the most concise manner. We should strive to accomodate the most uninformed reader as much as possible, not just people who already know loads about Turkey, you know? Baristarim18:05, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Alright, I'll give you that. I'll work on a shorter version of the pre-republic history and present it here in the next few days to see if anyone likes it. Hiberniantears18:30, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Hiberniantears, your last comment isn't good for academic debating. Baristarim worked hard to carry this article to FA level and, honesty, we didn't add up much after his "disappearance" from Wikipedia. Now, the Lionheart is back in town after adventurous conquests at far lands :) I think it would be nice to shorten the whole article a little but we have to mention pre-Turkic, Seljuq/Beylik and Ottoman eras in the article. Yes, you can have much more about the history of the republic. Deliogul18:46, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
The conversation itself extends to our respective talk pages, but no worries, I am in agreement with Baristarim now. I wasn't questioning his ability, integrity, or contributions. All those I have a great deal of respect for! Hiberniantears19:17, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Map
In the locator map Crete and the Aegean islands are marked as Turkish territory, which is incorrect. Someone should change its so there can be no misunderstandings. --Alaniaris20:29, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
Is Turkey Developed?
I have noticed at the intro of this article that Turkey is a developed country. As far as I know only CIA has a list that considers Turkey developed. All the rest organizations like IMF, World Bank, Economist, UN dont consider it developed, but developing. Certainly with a GDP per capita of 9,500 $ approx and a medium human development index, No 84 in the world, it raises questions over the credibility of CIA. But nevertheless, I think it should be stress in the intro that the developed characterization comes only from the CIA and no one else. 77.83.25.104 (talk) 12:17, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
It is a good point. By the way, what is "development"? China has been developing like a monster but it destroys nature and just makes Chinese people "modern slaves". I would like to stay as I am in that case ;) Deliogul (talk) 19:42, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
I see it in the same vein as Mexico... maybe a little beyond that. A country with centers of wealth, and developed industry on par with anything in the West... while at the same time a country with serious rural poverty issues. Personally, in the post-Cold War error, I see this as a flip of the coin question. Turkey has the industrial capacity and know-how to be considered developed. At the same time, Turkey has a distribution of wealth which could also lead reasonable people to view it as developing. Hiberniantears (talk) 04:45, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
Just wondering if anyone with a bit more knowledge on this subject could add information to the article on it, I'd give it a shot myself, but I prefer if resident editors tend to any matters that may be of a controversial nature. The material is very notable, and was international news and still is in many countries. It's a significant reflection of a more often occuring thing in some countries, it may not be a positive thing, but I believe as a Wikipedian that we must call it as it is and remain neutralistic, even if it is something we don't like personally. In the last month Turkey has been in the news internationally on eight seperate occasions for all out execution of Christian priests, three of which were in their churches, others were on the streets and in a publishing house where they had their throats cut. Not too sure on exact details, but it's pertinent to this article or at least a sub article. 210.49.15.52 (talk) 15:51, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
Why isn’t there anything about the Kurdish problem?
For example when the Turkish army burnt over 3000 Kurdish villages with living people in it?.
The Kurds who still was alive got in prison or forced to be spread all over turkey so that the word Kurd and Kurdistan would be forgotten and disappear.
And why isn’t there anything about the rules the dictator Atatürk made.
The Kurdish language became forbidden
The Kurdish names became forbidden
The Kurdish culture became forbidden
He changed the Kurdish cities name into Turkish names.
If a person tried to speech Kurdish, give a child a Kurdish name or just talk about the Kurdish culture then it considered as a huge crime. If the person was lucky he wouldn’t be sentenced to death but got in prison for maybe lifetime.
Before 21 century it was dangerously just to say one of the words kurd, Kurdistan or Kurdish.
Mostly it was a crime. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.238.3.14 (talk) 19:21, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't know which worries me more, thinking about how many times you repeated these to how many people and how many of them actually believed you or that you may actually believe these yourself. There is no 'Kurds problem', there is a Kurdism problem. Cite credible sources for Turkish army personnel burning people alive and we put it in a related article if it is not already there. Official language of Republic of Turkey is Turkish, its nationals are Turkish. It is a uniter system, all citizens have the same rights and are considered Turkish, there is no ethnic classification. On the contrary to what you wrote, people are free to express their culture, otherwise Turkey wouldn't have such diverse music, cuisine, clothing, folklore dances etc. Turkey (whose once PM and president Turgut Özal was half-Kurdish) doesn't have a 'Kurds problem', it has a Kurdism problem.--DoktorGonzo21:24, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
While IMO, these people could be called terrorists, we are restricted by the references. BTW the one I looked at used the words "militants" and (from a US admiral) "terrorists." Anyway, the one I looked at said nothing about "rebels." Student7 (talk) 02:53, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm with Pauly04 and the Divine Augustus. Why breathlessly change the story every day based on mostly inadequate news from the Turks, based on what they say? We don't really know what they are really doing'. We don't even know the Kurds side of it and won't for years, most likely. There are not "imbedded" news correspondents.
If it were up to me, I would put a curb on "news" stories newer than one year in Wikipedia. Might have some chance of getting it right. We don't really know what is going on today. The media isn't much help. They are part of the problem. We are not trying to "keep up to CNN." We are trying to "keep up to the Encyclopedia Britannica" maybe, but not the daily news, for goodness sakes! I vote to delete the recent "ongoing" section. Student7 (talk) 23:08, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Population figures: "Province" versus "City" population
The figures are updated, but they are "Province populations" (metropolitan area and beyond) and not "City populations" (not the population of the city proper). For instance, the population of the Istanbul Province is indeed above 12 million, but the population of the "city proper" is much lower (around 8 million). The same case is valid for the "City" of Samsun, which clearly has a population of less than 1 million (its "province" has that overall population).
Why did you do that? Just because the "state" of Turkey recognized the independence of Kosovo? From an objective perspective, the current situation of Kosovo is just a bit better that the situation of Taiwan. You know, countries don't become independent just because US wants them to be. We must turn to the old map until the UN resolution, which is the real deal in such universal issues. Deliogul (talk) 16:28, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Where is Turkey? In Asia or in Europe?
Well, I know the majority of this country is in Asia but it is more like a European-country. In my recent edits in Marriageable age I moved Turkey from Asia to the European section, and here on WikiPedia are a lot of such confusion. Now where it should be listed? xeryus (talk) 15:18, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm afraid there is no unambiguous answer that will satisfy everyone. Historically, the country was generally considered European (as in the sick man of Europe), and I have the impression that a majority of web sites that have a choice tree of countries with a first division according to continents place Turkey in the Europe branch. But this is far from unanimous. One approach to the problem is found here: Turkey is listed under each of Europe, Middle east, and Asia, making it a very accessible country. As a curiosity, this page has Turkey under Asia, but puts it in the image for Europe! Personally I'm happy to place Turkey in The Europe category if a choice must be made for one and only one category. --Lambiam07:34, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
According to conservative Europeans, Turkey is in "the darkness of Asia". For example, the soil of Turkey gave Greece a person like Markos Vafiadis but now they want to exclude it from their way. On the other hand, for a considerable amount of people, Turkey is in Europe. Imho, we can place the country in Eurasia, the actual continent which carries the culturally divided regions of Europe and Asia in itself. Deliogul (talk) 16:38, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Turkey is not an European country. Just because 5 % of the land is in Europe and the rest in Asia does not make a country European.
Turkey belongs in Asia, not Europe and we definatelly do not want to see it in the European Union.
Don't bring politics into this discussion, it's not relevant. JACOPLANE • 2008-03-21 15:33
It is relevant, because Turkey never was and never will an European country. A rationally thinking person will never consider Turkey to be part of Europe.
For the record, take a look at France who has overseas departments. Those facts are reported accurately. While "north" Istanbul is not a separate department or anything, it is hardly in Asia Minor either. While a small portion of land is there, a lot of the population is. While we don't have to come up with clever composite names for this peculiarity, we do need to report it. It doesn't have to be "transcontinental" or somesuch. Just "part in Asia, part in Europe" will do. We don't have to love them to pieces. That is not a requirement for reporting facts in an accurate manner. If you don't care for the facts, perhaps Uncyclopedia would provide a more congenial environment! :) Student7 (talk) 20:33, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
So tell me, do you count New Caledonia as being part of Europe then, just because it is a French territory?
Tell it to The Economist, BBC, etc. which all list Turkey in Europe. Turkey is politically and economically a member of European organizations, like it or not. Turkey is a founding member of the OECD's European branch since 1961, an official candidate to become a "full member" of the European Union since 2005 (an "associate member" since 1963) and is a part of the European Union Customs Area since 1995. Res Gestæ Divi Augusti (talk) 02:49, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
So tell me this, how's Cyprus, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan a part of Europe if they are all in Asia? I understand that the "border" runs through the Caucasus, but they have more common with Asia than Europe. And as for Turkey...they are just a candidate, but they will never become a part of the EU. If they do...well, it will open the door for the trouble from the Middle East.
Plus, Turkey has been trying to get into ECC/EU since 1987, just the talks became more intensive since 2005. Considring it will take about a decade...so it looks like Turkey will not be in EU.
Norum (talk) 03:31, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Norum, would you be offended if I told you that your personal opinions regarding the Turks or Turkey do not weigh too much on this issue? Also, Poland was extremely poor just a decade or so ago (some parts of it are still very poor and backward) so, as we say in Turkish, "dün boktunuz, bugün koktunuz." Res Gestæ Divi Augusti (talk) 04:05, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Could we confine our investigation here to geography rather than politics? It will make things easier, I think. The question of whether Turkey belongs in the EU or not is not a decision that Wikipedian editors will be making on the record. Anyway, if we are all in favor of it or all opposed to it, it will not make a lot of difference to the article. I hope! Student7 (talk) 11:38, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Climate
Some really smart editor (not me!) needs to discover and assign a Köppen climate classification to various portions of Turkey. Obviously not an easy task since no general one is appropriate. Vague descriptions need to be replaced. Student7 (talk) 15:10, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Better yet, some idea of the differences in climate to be expected between phases of the Southern Oscillation (El Nino, La Nina) which in many places is fairly different though newscasters are quite happy comparing this year (lemons) against last year (apples).Student7 (talk) 15:14, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Are there people other than climatologists who know the Köppen climate classification? The ENSO effects are an aspect that is really too specialized for this article; maybe it would be something for a separate article on the Climate of Turkey, but as always: no OR but only properly sourced material. --Lambiam23:09, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Eurostat-revised GDP figures of Turkey will be officially announced on March 31, 2008
Two years ago Turkey decided to adopt the Eurostat GDP measurement system (instead of the current system which accepts the 1981 value of the Turkish Lira as standard, causing calculation errors) and the official results for the year 2007 will be announced on March 31, 2008, by the State Statistics Institute. JP Morgan estimates an instant rise of 32% in Turkey's GDP figures.
Real (Nominal) GDP per capita is expected to reach ~ $9,144 (2007) while GDP-PPP per capita is expected to reach ~ $14,239 (2007). Real GDP in total will be ~ $645.5 billion (2007) while GDP-PPP in total will be ~ $1,005,099,409,448 (2007), i.e. slightly more than $1 trillion.
So they argue that with the rubbish conditions we have today, we are actually doing as good as some of the developed nations of Europe. The newspaper even makes fun of the situation as it states "Two days left to become rich". With the gap between imports and exports, with all those money we owe to the global finance system and with the poverty/unemployment that Turkey has, this numbers just look like a dream. One may say that all those problems are present, for example, in United States but as far as I know, nobody gave the right to Turkey to print money which is equal to a certain amount of gold in any case. Also, nobody can convince me that Turkish economy is powerful enough to live a micro-Great Depression and in the end, instead of collapsing, become at least a local powerhouse. For example, in the case of US, you know they won a world war and became a giant in the end. Imho, these GDP classifications tell little about the real case in a given country, even if they are broadly used by the economists and political scientist. Deliogul (talk) 15:29, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
JP Morgan and other finance institutions are well aware of the situation (the value of the Turkish Lira changed a lot since 1981 and 1988, so GDP calculations based on fixed-Lira-values from the 1980s were absurd in the first place). It is actually JP Morgan which estimates a 32% rise in Turkey's GDP figures after the Eurostat standard measurement is announced. Today the 2006 results were partially announced (Real GDP per capita rose to $7500 in 2006) on March 31, 2008, the results for 2007 will be announced:
I believe you don't like the AKP, and to be honest, I'm not fond of them (in terms of ideology) either. But what they are doing on this issue is right: They are correcting a long-standing measurement error (the same case for Turkey's population figures, which they recently corrected - many municipalities had added dead people to their population count for receiving more funds from the state.) It was long-known that Turkey's GDP figures are actually much larger than it seems.
And it was the European Union which forced Turkey to adopt the Eurostat measurement standard in the first place - so thanks to the EU, Turkey's figures will be re-adjusted to true levels (with a difference of up to 25-30%, according to JP Morgan.)
According to the Turkish State Statistics Institute, Turkey's Real (Nominal) GDP in 2006 was $526,429,000,000, which is way more than The Economist forecast for 2008 (according to the old system) of $508,000,000,000:
Real (Nominal) GDP for the first 9 months of 2007 (by the end of 2007 Q3) was $489,250,000,000; which means that Turkey's Real (Nominal) GDP for 2007 (the full 12 months) will be around $650,000,000,000.
The issue of GDP and per capita income had become somewhat of a controversy so I feel the coverage should illustrate it. -- Catchi? 04:30, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Turkey's economy is about 32 percent larger than previously estimated after the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) changed the way it measures the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to include more unregistered activity, reported Bloomberg.
Calculated with the new measurement system, the GDP in 2006 was YTL 758.3 billion ($608.9 billion), instead of YTL 576 billion, TÜİK Chairman Ömer Demir told a press conference Saturday on the major revision of the country's national accounts system. That suggests that the output of 2007 is around $645.5 billion, up from the $489 billion estimate Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave on Jan. 10. TÜİK will announce the full-year GDP on March 31.
TÜİK revised the country's 2006 per capita income up to around $7,500 from $5,480, reported the daily Hürriyet, citing Demir. The growth rate for the nine months of 2007 in fixed rate was revised to 5 percent, according to TÜİK's new national income calculation. According to the new calculations, the number of companies employing 10 people or more rose to 27,813 from a previous 11,293. The number of homes was revised and reaches 19.2 million instead of 13.9 million.
The revised national accounts represent major improvements in methodology, coverage, consistency and international comparability of Turkey's macro-economic statistics, announced TÜİK on its Web site. The main reason of the revision is the extension of the coverage and improvement of the methodology. The new GDP estimates have been compiled according to European System of Accounts (ESA-95), which is a comprehensive and integrated set of accounts. GDP series with 1998 as a base year increased by 31.6 percent in current prices for the year 2006 compared to GDP series with 1987 as a base year. The revised data for 2007 will be announced on March 31.
Turkish Economy 32% Bigger With Revised Government Calculations
By Ali Berat Meric and Steve Bryant
March 8 (Bloomberg) -- Turkey's economy is about 32 percent bigger than previously estimated after the government statistics agency changed the way it measures gross domestic product to capture more unregistered activity.
GDP in 2006 was 758.3 billion liras ($608.9 billion), compared with the 576 billion-lira figure produced under the previous measurement system, head statistician Omer Demir said in Ankara today. That suggests 2007 output was around $645.5 billion, up from the $489 billion estimate Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave on Jan. 10. Demir's agency will announce full-year GDP on March 31.
The increase in the GDP figures will make the nation's current-account deficit and debt decline as a proportion of the overall economy. That could help Turkey win a credit-rating upgrade. It will also bring the government closer to its goal of raising income per person to $10,000 by 2013 from about $6,900 last year.
``Under normal conditions this would have been quite a positive thing, said Yarkin Cebeci, an economist for JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Istanbul. ``But with the current environment of global risk aversion I don't think we'll see any significant market reaction.
The new calculation methods bring Turkey into line with European Union data standards. The revised figures, combined with better measurements of the size of the financial-services and manufacturing industries, provide a more accurate picture of the EU-membership candidate's economy, Demir said.
A higher GDP figure on its own will not be enough to prompt a credit-rating upgrade this year, Moody's Investors Service analyst Kristen Lindow said Jan. 9. Moody's would first change Turkey's outlook to ``positive from ``stable while it tracks the consequences of the changes before a possible upgrade in 2009 ``at the earliest, she said.
Turkey's foreign debt is rated Ba3 by Moody's and BB- by Standard & Poor's, three levels below investment grade.
If Turkey's Nominal GDP (2007) is ~ $645.5 billion, its GDP-PPP (2007) will be ~ $1,005,099,409,448 (slightly more than $1 trillion in 2007) and its GDP-PPP per capita (2007) will be ~ $14,239 Res Gestæ Divi Augusti (talk) 03:19, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Intro changes
For the rest of us editors, could the folks that have been changing and reverting the lead, discuss it here? Without changing it? Thanks. (and thanks to Hiberniantears for raising the issue). Student7 (talk) 00:35, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Olahus is upset at the Turks for the reasons I mentioned already (I traced his IP number to find out what might be the reason behind his obsession.) He has obviously committed himself to prove that Turkey is un-European and has no place in the European Union (he started from removing the Euro-centric map of Turkey, and then adding 3 references (just 1 would be enough) to stress the point that only 3% of Turkey is geographically in Europe. He also purposefully adds this detail at the top of the opening paragraph, and not the Geography section.) He also wants to add controversial details such as "Lazistan, Kurdistan, historic Armenia, etc" with the obvious aim of claiming that "the Turks are occupying the land of other nations" and inciting "separatism" with the hope that Turkey will one day break-up like former Yugoslavia (I'm afraid he will have to be disappointed on this issue.) He has committed himself to edit the article as negatively as he can (from his personal standing point). If a glass regarding Turkey is half filled, he will stress that it's half empty, in other words. We must keep personal vendettas and POW editing outside of featured articles. Res Gestæ Divi Augusti (talk) 02:36, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
I guess you just made WP:Harass on editor Olahus. I suggest you stop or else I or other will report you. Admitting that you trace his IP is a serious problem and it might bring you some blocks. Marc KJH (talk) 16:44, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm a computer scientist, and it doesn't take that much of an effort to trace an IP number, really. I also didn't reveal his IP number, nor his true identity. Therefore, it's not subject to WP:Harass as you have claimed. Res Gestæ Divi Augusti (talk) 17:12, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
European Union has strict rules about privacy and everybody is subjected to, also users from Wikipedia. And I have to disagree with your 'arguments'. --Marc KJH (talk) 18:03, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Actually I can't see why you feel it necessary to trace an IP and without checkuser you can't even get the IP of a registered user so you appear to be bluffing. Theresa Knott | The otter sank19:16, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Olahus's arguments are OK. Turkey is not a European country. It has a very small part indeed but .. and this has nothing to do with EU integration. Turkey will and perhaps be soon an EU member. Marc KJH (talk) 19:27, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
He started by removing the Euro-centric map of Turkey. He could have added the "only 3% of Turkey is in Europe" argument to the Geography section, but he purposefully added it on the top of the opening paragraph, with 3 references (just 1 would be enough), obviously trying to make a point. I won't mention Lazistan (an obsolete Ottoman province), historic Armenia (which existed prior to the 11th century), Kurdistan (an obvious statement - attaching a geographical region to an ethnicity), and Mesopotamia (unnecessary because only a tiny part of Northern Mesopotamia "can be considered" (not really) in Turkey - while almost all of it is in present-day Iraq). Res Gestæ Divi Augusti (talk) 19:39, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree with deletion and removal of the map. I also agree with his edit: 'only 3% of Turkey is in Europe' because this is the reality. Do you have other sources? Marc KJH (talk) 19:51, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Well, the 3% should go somewhere, shouldn't it? This is the fallout from the fall of Constantinople - the Turks gained a very strategic foothold in Europe. It certainly can't be overlooked. Furthermore, a large part of the population is in Istanbul which is also quite a bit on the "European side." This should have nothing to do with EU politics. It is in Europe or it isn't. Just because a country is totally within Europe doesn't mean the EU has to let them join up! All we are trying to do here is report geography. When we visited Istanbul last year, our Christian (non-Turk) guide reported that istanbul was the "largest city in Europe." He was not voting for EU membership, he was just reporting the facts as he saw them! Student7 (talk) 20:12, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
It's O.K. for me as long as you add it to the Geography section, and without the Lazistan, Kurdistan, Mesopotamia, historic Armenia nonsense; as the Anatolian peninsula already covers all those regions, which are obsolete (Lazistan, historic Armenia), ideological (Kurdistan) and inaccurate (Mesopotamia - almost entirely in Iraq). Res Gestæ Divi Augusti (talk) 19:55, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Res, you made also errors, minimum wage in Turkey is only 298 EUR. Really. I updated right now. I hope now it's also OK this. Marc KJH (talk) 20:01, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Will we modify all other articles to indicate the percentage of any given country that includes territory beyond its primary/original continent. No, we will not. I seriously doubt that the opening paragraph of United States of America will indicate the minute percentage of the country which lies in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Likewise, no editors are trying to edit the intro to France so that it indicates the percentage of territory in South America, or the percentage of Spain which lies in Africa. This entire debate is purely political, and based in ethnic rivalries. It has no place in a serious article. The fact is that the Republic of Turkey has always included land in Europe, and in Asia. While the amount of land in Europe is smaller than that in Asia, the total territory controlled by Turkey that lies in Europe is in fact greater than the amount of European land controlled by many European states. Hiberniantears (talk) 20:07, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
From my point of view, it's about a clisee here. Is Turkey European? No. Is Turkey a modern country? No quite. And geographically it has only 3% as Olahus suggested. Marc KJH (talk) 20:09, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
And you are welcome to have that point of view. However, we are obligated to edit within the parameters of a neutral point of view. This is an important element to ensuring the sound creation of strong articles. I would strongly suggest you look over the principles in the NPOV article to provide you with a more fulfilling, and constructive experience here. Hiberniantears (talk) 20:15, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
I would also impress upon both of you the importance of affording respect to your fellow editors. Nothing will get done here until that is done, and it may mean the eventual use of blocking if necessary. Personally, I would rather see two productive editors agree to disagree, and begin working constructively. Hiberniantears (talk) 20:23, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Yes, we agree to disagree. At least I agree with Olahus's arguments. While he's alone. Anyway, I haven't even edit Turkey article, and I'm not even willing to. Marc KJH (talk) 20:26, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
I have left notes on both your user pages to respect NPOV. Please keep further discussion here to respectful debate on fact, rather than a long series of personal digs. Hiberniantears (talk) 20:30, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, if Mateja Kezman can walk around the pitch with his Jesus tattoo and Jesus t-shirt without getting any damage or hearing any negative chant after the match between Fenerbahçe SK and Konyaspor, the city of Konya is known as the stronghold of Islam/conservatism in Turkey, then Turkey can possibly become European, which is simply an cultural/ideological term as I mentioned many times before. Deliogul (talk) 21:19, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Missing minorities section
Likewise in the article about Greece there is a minority section, the article of Turkey is missing it. In the article about Greece there have been used sources that do not come from either Greece itself neither the European Union nor the United Nations. On the article on Turkey this section should be added and the Greek, Kurd, Georgian and Armenian minorities have to be stated. Some coherence please. Either you add it to both articles or you remove it from them. The same goes for Religions. The same goes for Languages. 87.219.85.149 (talk) 03:09, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps a map of the same kind with minority languages as seen in the article about Greece should be added. It would be nice to have a minority languages map showing up the Greek Pontian locations. It that article, the locations are already defined, but not shown in any map. 87.219.85.149 (talk) 16:51, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
On the contrary, the Greece article should take the Turkey article (which has a featured article star) as an example. The Greece article is loaded with superfluous information which could be easily channeled to the sub-sections. Res Gestæ Divi Augusti (talk) 02:40, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
