2592: Turkey Changes its Name | Jan 19, 2022

The nation of Turkey stated recently that they plan to officially change the name of the country to 'Turkiye' which is how it is written in Turkish, though without the umlaut for 'Türkiye'. This is not even the only country to change its official, English name in the last decade, as seen with Eswatini and Czechia, but it is certainly the biggest and most important. It may take some time to catch on, if ever, but if anything the term 'Persia' is more ingrained in the mind of an English speaker yet the efforts were successful in changing the name to 'Iran', and likewise with Siam to Thailand etc.. Many have questioned the timing as well, given the severity of the economic crisis going on there, as a way to divert media attention. Only time will tell if this will be widely used, but certainly for official purposes there will be a shift.

2173: הודו & חג ההודיה (Thanksgiving & Turkey): Unrelated Nov 26, 2020

While people might like to make the connection between Hebrew חג ההודיה (chag ha'hodiah) for the Thanksgiving holiday, and הודו (hodu), the imperative form of 'thank' that also means 'turkey', but it is not from this holiday that the bird is called this in Hebrew. Just compare the name for 'India' in Hebrew, הודו, and you'll notice it is literally the same word. This might become clearer considering the longer name of the bird is תרנגול הודו (“India fowl”), similar to how 'turkey' got its name from the country of Turkey, even though it is from the Americas. The name for the country in Hebrew comes from the Old Persian 'hiduuš', from Sanskrit, and is not related to anything along the lines of 'thank'.