This week: Countries change names all the time. It’s almost always to re-establish their identity. Let’s talk about it.
Türkiye et Kyiv
My daughter recently received her first globe. We've spent a good few hours tracing countries' outlines, identifying the one we live in and the one that Grandma lives in, and generally learning about the world. One of the oddities for me is that this particular globe is printed in Japanese. For the most part, Japanese mirrors the English names for various countries, albeit with Japanese pronunciation.
So, Italy becomes Italia and France becomes Furansu and The United States of America becomes...America. From there you get a little more difficult but still recognizable: Thailand becomes simply Tai and Great Britain becomes Igirisu. But then there are those few that make you question reality as you know it. Suddenly South Korea is Kankoku and its counterpart to the north is called Kita Chousen. And, of course, there's the name of Japan itself which is actually Nihon. Except sometimes when it's called Nippon1.
And usually, that's the end of it. A mildly amusing, occasionally annoying, cultural difference that is easily surmountable. But maps are not static things. The world is in constant flux and the nature of the countries in it changes all the time. Countries merge and separate, they annex or are annexed, they declare independence, and they fight off aggressors. And, in the midst of all these changes, occasionally, names, too, are modified, adapted, and changed.
In recent months, we've seen two major naming changes to the map: Earlier this year, Ukraine requested that the city formerly known as Kiev be referred to as Kyiv and just a few days ago, Turkey announced that they would like to be referred to as Türkiye.
The reasoning behind both changes is easily understood: Ukraine requested the name change for Kyiv to help distance themselves from the remnants of Soviet control over their country. The proper name for the city, when romanized can be written in a few different ways. The previous incarnation, Kiev, was dictated by the Soviet Union as part of its standardization program. Reverting the name (or changing it) has bolstered the idea that Ukraine is not, and never has been, a part of Russia, which is a necessary bedrock for framing Putin’s aggression as the colonialism that it is.
Turkiye, on the other hand, has not had quite such an easy time of it. Perhaps because their circumstances are not as dire, or perhaps because there is some question as to whether the Turkish people actually care2, the press has had a less...understanding tone when discussing the requested name change. That said, the UN has officially recognized the name change from Turkey to Türkiye. The renaming, it is hoped, will help solidify a national identity while simultaneously disassociating the country from the confusion inherent in sharing the name with the bird.
These sorts of name changes are not at all uncommon. In the last seventy years, since the end of World War II and its re-shuffling of international borders all across the globe, many countries have adopted names that rejected colonial names in favor of more locally sourced ones. Not to mention, of course, all the ones that have been created due to war and conflict3.
I find this fascinating for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is that, technically, Türkiye is written using a letter that doesn’t exist in English. The u-umlaut is usually just written as /u/ in English, or sometimes as /ue/ to denote differences in pronunciation. And so, this is kind of a flex on the part of Türkiye, as if by using a non-English letter in the international spelling of their name, they are willfully trying to avoid being limited by English. Which, you know, good for them. Because I suspect this is a trend that is going to continue through the next century4 of national name changes.
Countries that would have once limited themselves to a romanized5 version of their name for international dealings are going to assert that they deserve to have an internationalized version of their name that either better reflects its native pronunciation or that respects its native character set. And, honestly? I’m all for it. The more the English-speaking world is forced to adapt our language to accommodate other languages, the stronger it will be as it continues to evolve a standardized, global, form6. Or so I hope.
Special Project: 91 Days
Last week I announced that I would be doing a special project for the summer. I’ve got a little more information to share as well as an invitation:
First, the project: My summer vacation starts in July and runs through the end of September. I find it all too easy to become a couch potato during these months. So, in an effort to make myself get up and off the sofa, I’ve set myself a challenge to do a photo a day for the months of July, August, and September. The photos will be posted on Instagram (probably) and Flickr (definitely). I will also send out a weekly newsletter with that week’s photos along with some commentary about them. That’s it. That’s the project. There is more information, along with a sign-up page here.
Which is where the invitation comes in. As I’ve been talking about the project with various friends and conspirators, I’ve had several people mention that it sounds fun, like something they might be interested in doing, too. Which is, frankly, amazing and gratifying. However, what that means practically is something I’m still working out. Most likely, it’ll be a Twitter / Instagram hashtag and a Flickr group. If that’s something you’d like to be a part of, let me know, either here or on the 91 Days SubStack site and I’ll make sure you’re included whenever we figure out what this thing is going to be.
Down the Rabbit Hole
It’s no secret that I love comic strips. I spent endless Sundays laying on the floor tracing, and then drawing, Snoopy, Heathcliff, Calvin, Hobbes, and my number one ride-or-die, Opus the Penguin. Fast forward to the late 90s and I’m working at a dot com in Seattle and the morning routine is simple: get coffee then read webcomics until I can no longer avoid actual work.
Webcomics were the canary in the coal mine for the newspaper industry. For comic artists, getting a comic published in the papers was next to impossible. Not only did each comic have to be funny, full of engaging characters, and fall within strict family-friendly guidelines, they had to be more-or-less signed over to the syndication companies. Which is why the funny pages have remained unchanged since the late 70s.
But the internet let comic artists bypass all the noise. They could write whatever they wanted, draw whatever they wanted, and on whatever schedule they wanted. On the other hand, the internet was, and is, disconcertingly ephemeral. Sites that once held your favorite comics have long since disappeared. And publishing a web collection in book form was such a hit or miss procedure that, well, a lot of great comics never made it that far in the first place.
Thankfully, the Library of Congress has stepped up. They have created an ongoing, historical archive of dozens of webcomics. It’s amazing. And, fair warning, this rabbit hole can go on for literal days. So, here are a few of my favorites at the archive to get you started:
Enjoy!
From the Archives:
This week I saw an ad to order a 3D printed gyroid from Animal Crossing that I could paint and use as a planter. It reminded me of just how far 3D printing has come in such a short time. I wrote it about it most recently in Learned Volume 3, Issue 35: Mini Print, from November, 2020. Enjoy!
Long story and one that is fairly contested, but it’s got something to do with neither Portuguese nor Dutch traders being able to say Nippon correctly.
From the accounts I read, it seems as though this may have been a unilateral change by the government without input from the citizenry.
Basically anywhere that has a cardinal direction as a prefix.
Pro-tip, if you’re going to prognosticate about the future, set your predictions far enough out that no one can call you on them because you’ll all be safely dead.
This is another example of technology solving a problem created by technology. A lot of the changes made in the 50s and 60s were consciously created with the limitations of the standard English typewriter in mind. Now, with unicode and other software sets that can create literally any character you can imagine, there’s no need to restrict themselves to the 26-characters-and-change English alphabet.
Maybe if we are influenced be enough other languages, we’ll even be able to re-introduce our lost characters! We miss you thorn!