Talk:Turkey

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Demographics and culture sections

It is true that many groups have assimilated into Turkish society over the years , but you dont have to list every single one of them . Many of these are not even proper ones. Poles, Germans, Africans, Venetians are not ethnic groups in Turkey. I am truly amazed that the article talks more about these than even the Turks or Kurdish minority. I think that if anything, all of this should be moved to the detailed Demographics of Turkey. The culture section is also terrible. It boggles the mind that anyone could think that Turkish culture can be summed up by a eurovision performance of all things. I replaced the image with one of the doner kebab but was reverted twice. The doner is of the hallmarks of Turkish cuisine and easily more relevant to Turkish culture. Let's make this a respectable encylopedia article.--Terinkal (talk) 08:33, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Too many images, squashed on both sides. ESC should be removed. Undue weight. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 03:41, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

YellowMonkey, ESC image is in the article because it is a consensus. See the older version before the consensus. There were lots of images in the culture section and only 3 images were chosen for the article. ESC image is among them.--Turkish Flame ^☎ 14:41, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Image pile-ups like that aren't allowed in FAs. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 00:17, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Turkish culture is so rich and has so many aspects to it, yet you want it it to be represented by some low brow, tacky song contest? Are you serious ? Wow.. I initially thought that some turcophobe had added it to ridicule Turkey. As YellowMonkey said, there are already too many pictures crowding the place so it should be removed anyway. I would also like Nazım Hikmet to replace Pamuk in the culture section .I don't question his Pamuk's literary prowess but he's simply too much of a divisive and controversial figure.--Terinkal (talk) 13:28, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Simply put, Eurovision is low culture. This is where they have singing bird sockspuppets for crying out loud. Having that picture in Turkey under the culture section is embaraassing and makes us look cheap. Is Turkey and Turkish culture so lame that this is seen as its pinnacle ? Karagöz and Hacivat are very appropriate in representing actual Turkish culture and certainly more than eurovision. --Terinkal (talk) 15:37, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I've said it before, I'll say it again. This article is a joke, and a lost cause. It suffers from way too much political editing, and serves as little more than tourist brochure at the moment. 75% of the images should be cut, and a concerted effort should be made to remove the cruft that permeates the article. Hiberniantears (talk) 15:43, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Demographics of Turkey's largest cities

The population listed for the largest Turkish Cities is not the population for Turkish CITIES. It is the population for Turksish provinces. Can someone please fix that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mmabbas786 (talk • contribs) 15:38, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

New population estimates by CIA

The new estimate is 76,805,524 as of 2009 [1]Justinz84 (talk) 18:08, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Improvement required

if i look at this article of turkey i feel it is very biased and one sided in particular which i am raising the issue is that it is not neutral. in the opening title it says meanwhile as a muslim-majority country.., why cannot say it is a mainly muslim country and include some statistics or what not, but however this statement is followed by relations with other countries, just because muslim means better relations with east, looks like you are trying to say they only have relations with East because they are Muslim. not much coverage of islam arriving to the country history and also in politics the clash between AKP and secularists or headscarf ban, all of these information looks like quite hidden to me, trying to figure out how this is a feature. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rimalo54 (talk • contribs) 13:08, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Puzzling sentence about the "president"

Section 3 currently reads as follows:

"The head of state is the President of the Republic and has a largely ceremonial role. The president is elected for a five-year term by direct elections. The last President, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, was elected on May 16, 2000, after having served as the President of the Constitutional Court. He was succeeded on August 28, 2007, by Abdullah Gül.[27]"

This doesn't make much sense - who is actually the current president? If the term is five years, why did Sezer serve seven years? Was Gul elected? Could someone tighten this up please? Manning (talk) 01:19, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

• Additionally a Turkish friend tells me that the term of the presidency is actually seven years. Hearsay doesn't make it true, of course, but it would explain why Sezer served for 7 years. Manning (talk) 01:28, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Both are correct: It used to be 7 years until 2007, since 2007 it's reduced to 5 years. Shiham K (talk) 20:33, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Future Turkish presidents, starting from Abdullah Gül, will serve for 5-year terms (rather than the previous 7-years). Shiham K (talk) 20:37, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Emblem

Turkey does not have any official or semi-official emblem, coat of arms or symbol. The oval emblem used on this article is not this: [2] (reads: Republic of Turkey - Consulate General) or this: [3] (T.C. for Republic of Turkey - Ministry of Foreign Affairs). These emblems represent just ministry of foreign affairs and embassies of Turkey, and are not the emblem(s) of Republic of Turkey. There is no statement about coat of arms/emblem for Turkey in any entry of its constitution. For this purpose, emblem section on article must be left blank. Kaygtr (talk) 11:48, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I think that we should provide some explanation in the article why Turkey doesn't have any emblem / coat of arms; may be something like in Turkish wikipedia (they have link to emblem page in infobox but don't have any image above it) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thorbins (talk • contribs) 15:33, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Demographics

I think the population figures given in the Major cities table need to be revised. The present figures are actually the populations of the provinces rather than the cities (except for Istanbul). Probably, the reason of the confusion is that the names of the cities and provinces are generally identical. So either the heading of the table must be changed (ie, list of provinces) or else (preferably) the figures must be changed. Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 14:41, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

National motto

"Yurtta barış, dünyada barış" translates more properly as "Peace in the homeland, peace in the world." However, Google comes up with far more results (16,400) for the translation on this current revision, "Peace at home, peace in the world," only coming up with 211 for the homeland version. I'm guessing this is regarded as an "official" translation into English, likely because Atatürk said it himself, but if this is the case we must be aware that Atatürk, while passionate, was not the linguist he thought he was. Certainly the rendition which translates yurt as home may be more poetic and can be easily interpreted as a reference to one's mother country, however in context it is a little clumsy, especially since at home is much more commonly literal (translating to the Turkish evde), as in "I'm at home" (Turkish: Ben, evdeyim). Also, List of national mottos#T agrees with translating yurt as homeland.

I'd make the change, but there are further complications. The aforementioned page also lists the motto, "Egemenlik kayıtsız şartsız milletindir." (English: Sovereignty rests unconditionally with the nation), which is sourced rather indirectly to the homepage of the Office of the Turkish Presidency, on which I find no trace of the phrase. Google comes up with even fewer (53!) results for this phrase in English than the Peace in the homeland phrase, and again, I find the translation of millet to nation inappropriate, preferring people, but Google only gives me one result for this. In any case, Wikipedia lists this motto before the Yurta barış one, which itself is sourced to this Wikipedia article, and yet is translated the way I'd prefer to see it, rather than how it actually is here! Can somebody please help this get sorted out? I'm not Turkish, so I have no clue whatsoever, but clearly this is a huge oversight that needs to be fixed. this raven is icy (talk) 22:28, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

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I don't know who put a motto for Turkey. As far as I know there is NO National Motto of state ( at least official). but if you really want to put one I'd go with: "Egemenlik kayıtsız şartsız milletindir." (English: Sovereignty rests unconditionally with the nation) as mentioned above.

I heard the other motto of Turkey. It belongs to Ataturk "Ne Mutlu Turkum Diyene" It means "How Happy who is saying i'm a Turk" Isn't that the Turkey's real motto! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.97.170.186 (talk) 21:36, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Turkey is not a secular, democratic state, it only sees itself as such

The article in the possible adhesion of Turkey to the EU gives a good overview of the reasons why Turkey is not a secular, democratic state in the meaning given by the EU and most democrats elsewhere to these terms. The crucial issue is the difference between how a nation sees itself, and how it is perceived by others, or against other standards. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.240.9.65 (talk) 21:43, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

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Turkey is already secular and democratic country. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Republic_of_Turkey#Part_One:_General_Principles

User:Uber-Star005 04:37 9 June 2009 (UTC) where is Islam in this history of turkey,it was the motive behind the great Ottoman Empire,it was demolished by European because of its religion, you can not change history,all turks (99.8%) are Moslims and they are nowadays returning to Islam dont lesson to Billy dancers or a witter who dreams to be some thing he shouldn't be. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.252.234.217 (talk) 11:06, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Where is the map?

Where is the Turkey's map in this article??Please add it.User:Uber-Star005 04:32 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Religion section

This article needs a section about religions in Turkey