Comment by closewith
4 days ago
The BBC are quite poor at this kind of thing, preferring their style guide to official names. The still use Czech Republic for Czechia, Republic of Ireland for Ireland, and Turkey for Türkiye.
4 days ago
The BBC are quite poor at this kind of thing, preferring their style guide to official names. The still use Czech Republic for Czechia, Republic of Ireland for Ireland, and Turkey for Türkiye.
> The still use Czech Republic for Czechia
Naive question but is Czechia a new name? The UN lists "Czech Republic" as official name and "Czechia" as the short name.
> Republic of Ireland for Ireland
To be fair, I don't think this is partisan, but rather just a way to differentiate the state from the island.
As an Irish person, yes. Just calling Ireland Ireland when you are specifically being asked what country you are from for official purposes is a bit too orbital a view. Same goes for discussions from within a country holding contested ground sharing the name of a country with an island, blah blah.
It's a complicated subject, and nobody begrudges them the clarity.
I think if you ask around, you'll find yourself very much in the minority of Irish people. Republic of Ireland is almost never used outside of the football team, as it's simply not the name of the country.
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> Naive question but is Czechia a new name?
Not a new name, but Czechia has made a concerted effort since 2016 to have it used in place of the Czech Republic. Almost all international body and most media style guides have since acceded. The BBC lags.
> To be fair, I don't think this is partisan, but rather just a way to differentiate the state from the island.
No, like the British Isles, this is very much a controversial name and one to which the Irish Government formally objects. This is even the source of a diplomatic disagreement between the Irish Government and Wikipedia due to their style guide.
If an article would use "Islamic Republic of Iran" then it should use "Czech Republic". If they would just write "Iran" then they should use "Czechia".
I don’t know about the UK but, In America I never hear Czechia, just Czech Republic. To my ears it sounds no more formal than “United States”. I understand that’s not the case in the EU though.
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No, that's not the case, as even in contexts where the long name is normally used, such as UN nameplates and resolutions, Czechia is now used in preparation for the removal of the long name.
> The still use Czech Republic for Czechia
Czech Republic is sill the formal name, right? Last time I checked it was overly formal, but not wrong to use it.
> Republic of Ireland for Ireland
Brits do this because of Northern Ireland (mostly for bad reasons, but still).
Countries are called differently depending on language and context. It’s fine.
> Brits do this because of Northern Ireland (mostly for bad reasons, but still).
This isn't specific to the British! ROI and NI refer to different countries on the island of Ireland.
I'm curious why you state "mostly for bad reasons"? (I assume you are American!)
> This isn't specific to the British!
But it is. Republic of Ireland when used to refer to the country is used almost exclusively in Britain and specifically to marginalise the country of Ireland.
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Maybe we can at least fix the headline here, on hacker news
I’m pretty sure they prefer “Kyiv”, though.
Spelling is one thing, but no one pronounces it the Ukrainian way (ˈkɪjiu̯) which is somewhat torturous for non-Ukrainian speakers. The best common pronunciation in English that more or less respects English phonetic patterns IMO is "KEE-iv".
Still, people need to respect the fact that each language can create their own variants. English speakers are under no obligation to call Wales "Cymru" or Finland "Suomi". It's fine.
>Czech Republic for Czechia
why single it out? even the countries that use (mostly) latin alphabet don't necessary have the same name in english - Poland is Polska, Lithuania is Lietuva, Estonia is Eesti, Finland is Suomi, etc. And latinizations/romanizations are often wildly inaccurate - Ukraine is actually Ukraina, Russia is actually Rossia, and the english pronunciations are completely wrong. Japan is Nihon. etc etc.
>Republic of Ireland for Ireland
there are two irelands, fyi
>Türkiye
no one can type that u on a keyboard without googling and copypasting it. you might as well insist on using hieroglyphs for CJK things
> Czechia
> why single it out?
Because the country of Czechia has asked the English-speaking world to refer to it that way.
> there are two irelands, fyi
There is Ireland, the island of Ireland, and Northern Ireland. Republic of Ireland refers to the soccer team and nothing else, FYI.
The country of Ireland has also requested that the English speaking world use its name, Ireland and specifically not the Republic of Ireland.
> no one can type that u on a keyboard without googling and copypasting it. you might as well insist on using hieroglyphs for CJK things
Ah, so we'll just decide to rename countries with inconvenient letters. How very colonial of you.
>Republic of Ireland refers to the soccer team and nothing else, FYI.
'The Republic of Ireland' is the official descriptive term for the country named 'Ireland' in English, per the Republic of Ireland Act 1948. I have certainly heard 'Republic of Ireland' used in Ireland, or just 'the Republic', but almost always in cases where the descriptive distinction is important. I'd agree that outside of those cases, using 'Republic of Ireland' by default can be a problem.
>Because the country of Czechia has asked the English-speaking world to refer to it that way.
Unlike the political complexities around 'Republic of Ireland', 'The Czech Republic' actually is the official long name of the country in English, with 'Czechia' the official short name; the country's government promotes 'Czechia', but I don't think there is a suggestion that 'Czech Republic' is no longer acceptable. I have also never actually heard anyone in the country refer to it as Czechia in English.
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Accusations of colonialism are preposterous. Every language has its own names for other countries and cities. These range from adaptations to the phonetic patterns of the language (pl: Warszawa -> de: Warschau; fr: Paris -> nl: Parijs) or completely different (pl: Polska -> hu: Lengyelország; cy: Cymru -> en: Wales).
This is just how language works.
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> soccer team
I don't think anybody plays "soccer" in Ireland! (Not in NI or the Republic!)
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>Republic of Ireland refers to the soccer team and nothing else, FYI.
So confidently incorrect.
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> no one can type that u on a keyboard without googling and copypasting it. you might as well insist on using hieroglyphs for CJK things
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ü#Letter_Ü
> The letter Ü is present in the Hungarian, Turkish, Uyghur Latin, Estonian, Azeri, Turkmen, Crimean Tatar, Kazakh Latin and Tatar Latin alphabets
I see and generally agree with your point, however that "no one" is approx. 120 million people. Just saying.
Also easily accessible on most EU keyboards, all Macs (long press u), and all mobile devices (long press u again).
Probably 90% of people globally can input the diacritic without difficulty, but even if not, the fallback should be Turkiye, not Turkey.
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