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Origins of the name "Istanbul"

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  Quote mamikon Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Origins of the name "Istanbul"
    Posted: 21-Jun-2006 at 21:06
I have just come about a book by one Roger Crowles titled 1453.

According to the book, one theory of the appearance of the name "Istanbul" came from 13-14th centuries, when the Ottoman Empire just has began its ascent.

The theory is as follows:

Greeks (as well as Armenians) usually referred to "Constantinapolis" as "Polis".

"into the city", in Greek translates into "cis tin Polin", which to the ears of Turks may have been similar to "is tan bulis" or "Istanbul".

what do people think of this?
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  Quote Lmprs Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21-Jun-2006 at 21:12
It is widely known fact, not a theory.
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  Quote mamikon Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21-Jun-2006 at 21:29
oh, I didnt know LOL

sorry for the useless thread
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  Quote bg_turk Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Jun-2006 at 06:48
Yes, Greeks never miss an opportunity to boast that is a Greek word, which is actually true.
Most of the names of the cities in the Balkans are corruptions of their old Greek names. Like for instance:

GR------------------TR---------------------BG
Adrianopol       Edirne                    Odrin
Philipopol         Filibe                      Plovdiv
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  Quote tsar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Jun-2006 at 06:55
Originally posted by bg_turk

Yes, Greeks never miss an opportunity to boast that is a Greek word, which is actually true. Most of the names of the cities in the Balkans are corruptions of their old Greek names. Like for instance:GR------------------TR---------------------BGAdrianopol      Edirne                    OdrinPhilipopol      Filibe                     Plovdiv


There is some cities with roman names as well.
    
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  Quote Yiannis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Jun-2006 at 07:17
Originally posted by bg_turk

Most of the names of the cities in the Balkans are corruptions of their old Greek names. Like for instance:

GR------------------TR---------------------BG
Adrianopol       Edirne                    Odrin
Philipopol         Filibe                      Plovdiv
 
Actually in Greek it's:
Adrianoupolis
Philippoupolis
 
 
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  Quote Cyrus Shahmiri Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Jun-2006 at 07:27

A Persian proverb says "The problem of this fountain is from the fountainhead", it comes from this famous Persian poem of  Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, the greatest Ottoman sultan:

Dideh az atash del gharghe dar ab ast mara
Kar in chesmeh ze sar chemeh kharab ast mara

(From the fire of the heart, my eye has been drowned in the water
The problem of this fountain is from the fountainhead)

Unfortunately in the eye of Europeans Turks have been always an uncivilised people even after hundreds years ruling the greatest empires of the world, it is really an insult to say that the compatriots of Rumi who his Greek poems are being compared to poems of great Greek poets, couldn't undrestand the meaning of the Greek phrase of "cis tin Polin" and thought this is the name of the city, the more interesting thing is that it is said Turks even couldn't pronounce this phrase correctly, so they changed it to Istanbul!! Sorry this is nothing more than a joke!

Where is the Eurasian Land Bridge?

As I mentioned several times Istanbul is a very Persian word which means exactly "Land Bridge", I hope you at least know that Afghanistan means "Land of Afghans" and its capital Kabul means "Mountain Bridge".

Greeks (as well as Armenians) usually referred to "Constantinapolis" as "Polis"

Polis means city in the Greek language, Persians and Turks also usually referred to their great cities "Istana/Astana" which also means "City/Capital" in the Persian language (the new capital of Kazakistan is also called "Astana"), for a long time Istanbul was the most famous city which was called "Astana".

6, Astanih [Istanbul]:

Astanih (vol 1, p 177), is the same Islambul, capital of Osmani (Ottoman), in the old times it was known as Astanih.

The role of the Istanbul Centre in working towards hitting the Khilafah State

it was the nationalist policy of the unionists within the state that evoked the nationalist idea in the Ottoman elements. Hence, the Albanians in Astana founded their own Committee, soon to be followed by the Circassians and the Kurds.

The Arabs for their part established the Committee of "Arab-Ottoman Brotherhood" in Astana and they opened the Committees club under the same name.

It is in the interest of the Astana government to coerce the Syrians to leave their homelands. Arab lands, especially Iraq and Yemen, must be turned into Turkish colonies, in order to spread the Turkish language which must be the language of the Deen.

And you have to trust the fact that the Turkish Committee, which you have witnessed in Astana and in the other parts inhabited by Turkish elements, does not clash in any way with the Arab aspirations.

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  Quote Akolouthos Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Jun-2006 at 07:28

A question on a slightly related note, if you guys will indulge my ignorance. Does anyone know whether or not "Izmir" is a corruption of "Smyrna"? And if not, how did it come by its name?

-Akolouthos
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  Quote Yiannis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Jun-2006 at 07:34
Originally posted by Cyrus Shahmiri

Where is the Eurasian Land Bridge?

As I mentioned several times Istanbul is a very Persian word which means exactly "Land Bridge", I hope you at least know that Afghanistan means "Land of Afghans" and its capital Kabul means "Mountain Bridge".

 
The only flaw in this theory is that the term "Istan" is an ending not a preffix in words.
 
If that was the case then the city should have been called Bulistan, no?
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  Quote Leonardo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Jun-2006 at 07:40

"The name İstanbul comes from the Greek words εις την Πόλη eis tēn Plē (pronounced [is tim boli]) or στην Πόλη, from Ancient Greek es tēn Polin (εἰς τήν Πόλιν) and meaning "in the city" or "to the city".[2] Similar examples of modern Turkish town names derived from Greek are İzmit (from İznikmit which was Nicomedia and İznik (from Greek, Nicaea: "eis tin Nikaia" (pron. [is tin nikea]), becoming [znik].

The intermediate form "Stamboul" was commonly used by the Turks in the 19th century. Because of the custom of affixing an i before certain words that start with two consonants (as in "İzmir" from Smyrna: in a coincidence of s + m, the s turns to z in pronunciation, as has been attested since early Byzantine times and in modern Greek usage), it was pronounced in Turkish as İstambul. (The /m/ in the middle is also an example of linguistic assimilation, whereby the /n/ becomes an /m/ before a /p/ or /b/, as in enberember, anbarambar; such rules are not, however, always observed in proper nouns like Istanbul. A similar change occurs in Greek, where an /n/ before a /p/ becomes an [m], and the /p/ after /n/ becomes a b in pronunciation .)

  



Edited by Leonardo - 22-Jun-2006 at 07:46
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  Quote Cyrus Shahmiri Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Jun-2006 at 08:38
The only flaw in this theory is that the term "Istan" is an ending not a preffix in words.
 
If that was the case then the city should have been called Bulistan, no?
 
There are also many Persian words which start with "Istan" such as "Istandar" which means "Governor", Bulistan is a correct word in the Persian language but it means "Land of Bridges" not "Land Bridge".
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  Quote dorian Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Jun-2006 at 09:40

This theory that "Istanbul" came from "Eis tin Polin" is a joke? This was how everyone in Constantinople called the city and it was such a usual sound in the ears of Turks that named the city Istanbul (which is a corruption). That's what first came to the turkish mind when the Turks conquerred Constantinople regarding the name of the city. Constantinopolitans Greeks know it very well from the coexistence with the Turks in Istanbul. All the other explanations are nothing more than constructed theories to cut off even the new name of this city from its greek origin.

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  Quote Mortaza Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Jun-2006 at 09:53
Well  Ottomans  called city  as consantinapol, not  istanbul.
 
 
Infact Cyrus theory is as good as greek one.(Infact better)
 
Dont you think, Turks had ideas about istanbul, much  before than ottomans? That city was capital of byzantium empire.  So  It is sensible, Turks named or  at least heard name of city far from  before 1453.In fact most probably before 1000 too.
 
 
 


Edited by Mortaza - 22-Jun-2006 at 09:56
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  Quote Seljuk Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Jun-2006 at 10:15
I heard that Persian Land Bridge teory before from an iranian friend, and it is compleately sensible, considering Persian is one of the main word supplier of Ottoman language and Turks are familiar with it from Seljuk times.


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  Quote dorian Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Jun-2006 at 10:58

I have a question to ask...

If this "Cyrus theory" or the "theory of an iranian friend" (that's how the Turks in this thread call it) is correct, I wonder why Turks don't know it? Most of the Turks I have talked with about this subject don't know this theory and the few who know it, told me that they learned it recently.

If I was a Turk and the name of this city meant something in my language I wouldn't expect from Cyrus or anyone else to explain it to me. 

So, accept the original name that your ancestors gave to this city which is accepted worldwide to be of the greek phrase (it's not a shame or negative indication) and waive the newly invented theories to give a different content to this name.
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  Quote bg_turk Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Jun-2006 at 11:04
Originally posted by dorian

Most of the Turks I have talked with about this subject don't know this theory and the few who know it, told me that they learned it recently.



Most of the Turks do not care about the name of the city or they think it is a Turkish name. I learned about the Greek theory about the name from the Internet. The Iranian theory looks equally plausible though now that I have learned about it.
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  Quote Mortaza Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Jun-2006 at 11:14

Name of city is persian, so It does not mean  anything at turkish langauge.

Infact It is not  us who have complex but greeks, almost all of our  large cities have greek name.  So I dont know why should we  have complex about istanbul.
 
But what  cyrus said is  more sensible  than  eis tan poli  and  stupid turk who  have  no  idea about what  is eis tan poli  means.
 
 
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  Quote dorian Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Jun-2006 at 11:43

You should know the history of its name better then.

You should know that the name "Konstantinoupolis" was firstly turned into "Konstantiniye" by the Ottomans. This was the official name that was used
 
A second name which was popular too was "Stanbulin" (stin Polin) which is the same as "Istanbul" (eis tin Polin). The two greek phrases in brackets mean exactly the same.
 
Another name which was used in the 19th century was "Stamboul".
 
So, what about these three names which derived from the same phrase? Is this a coincidence?
 
Besides, in the 13th century Arabs used the appellation "Istinpolin" from the popular phrase too. Through a series of speech permutations, this name became Istanbul which became the official name in 1923 although all the inhabitants after the conquest used it long before.


Edited by dorian - 22-Jun-2006 at 12:48
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  Quote Mortaza Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Jun-2006 at 12:00
 
According to a popular story that has existed for many years, the Byzantines did not refer to the city by its actual name, but, because of it size, simply as 'Polis' (the City), and when they wanted to say 'to the City', they said 'eist enpolin' (is-tin-polin), which was the (possible) origin of the name 'Istanbul'. Recent research has shown that the name 'Istanbul' was used if not during the Byzantine period, at least during the 11th century and that the Turks knew the city by this name. Istanbul has had other names at various times but none of them was used widely or for any great length of time. During the Turkish period the names 'Dersaadet' and 'Deraliye' were used. Some official correspondence and coins had the transcription of 'Konstantinoupolis'or 'Konstantiniye', although the use of the name 'Konstantiniye' was prohibited at one time during the Ottoman period by Sultan Mustafa III, its use continued, to be abandoned during the republican period.
 
 
That is more sensible.
 
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  Quote dorian Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Jun-2006 at 12:37
You know, this name was widespread and common in the east because Arabs and Persians heared the greeks calling Constantinople like this. They used the name that the inhabitants of the city used ("Polis" and "Eis ten Polin"). Each nation didn't form a different name for the same city. And of course after the conquest this name was still used by the old and new inhabitants of Constantinople though it was not the official name.
 
That's what happened as well with the name Yunan which was used by all the these nations to call the Greeks.
 
Istanbul (Eis ten Polin) , Stanbulin (Sten Polin), Stamboul were used by the Turks, they are congener, they came from the same phrase and they can be easily identified with the sounds of the two forms of the greek phrase. All these are not a coincidence and cannot be explained by the above theory (though it seems plausible) but by the greek phonology!!


Edited by dorian - 22-Jun-2006 at 13:07
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