younan or greece?

i asked a greek what they used to call greece - i had no idea they weren't the ancient - she said they have always called it greece! i said ok - a  bit bemused - and said we call it younan! she said she had never heard that name for it before! no-one in iran calls greece greece - younan is greece and younani greek! i had no idea they were not the people of ancient greece! i doubt very much if other iranians know this! so, what is the actual name of greece? younan or greece?

Originally posted by curious i asked a greek what they used to call greece - i had no idea they weren't the ancient - she said they have always called it greece! i said ok - a  bit bemused - and said we call it younan! she said she had never heard that name for it before! no-one in iran calls greece greece - younan is greece and younani greek! i had no idea they were not the people of ancient greece! i doubt very much if other iranians know this! so, what is the actual name of greece? younan or greece?

She must have been on drugs or something...
Like Suren said, we call ourselves Hellenes like in ancient times and the country Hellas not Greece. We know very well what Yunan is since all people from Asia call us like that. In Turkey, they call the country Yunanistan and the people living in Greece Yunan. The Greeks living in Turkey are called by the Turks Rum.

The Western world calls Greece for Greece and that's because a tribe called Graeki that migrated in Italy 3100 years ago. The Latins started to call all speakers of Greek for Greek, no matter what tribe they belonged to.

I dunno, where you met this girl, but seriously, in Greece you won't find a person not knowing what Yunanistan means and nobody will tell you we call Greece for "Greece" and not "Hellas" or "Hellada".

This was really absurd . Are you sure she was Greek?

Also the term Grekos was used during medieval times selectively, alongside Romioi. However, the term Grecia/Greece was never used.

The primary term currently used is Hellen/Hellenas and in some cases (Greeks in or from Turkey) ,people use Romios.

Yunanistan is a wrong word because Yunan (Yun-an) itself means "Land of Yuns", Yun (Old Persian Yauna) was the Persian name of Ionians.

If you ask 'what is the name of....?' you need to specify in what language. While there's some overlap, all languages have their own names for things and places and people.

...maybe there used to be but not any that I am currently familiar with.

Probably Rum didn't relate to Rome and Romans, as I heard that was originally the old Assyrian name of the lake Urumia (Ur=city/land + Mia=water), so the names of the cities Orumieh in the northwest of Iran and and Arz-Urum (Erzurum) in the eastern part of modern Turkey, comes probably from this Assyrian word.

It may be of topic: Erzurum is a perfect combination of Arz((erz) Earth is Arabic) + Rum= Land of Romans. I think the name of city is not old enough to come from the Assyrian language.

Originally posted by Beylerbeyi Concerning the 3rd definition, does it point to Hellenized people of Anatolia that speak Greek? 3rd definition does not refer to people, but to the land (geography). E.g. 'Seljuk Sultanate of Rum' (i.e. Roman Lands), as in the famous poet, Jalaleddin Rumi (who lived in Konya-Iconium), or the architect Mehmed (?) Rumi (a dome expert who went to India to build the dome of Taj Mahal). When the West called Anatolia 'Turkey' in the Middle Ages, Turks called it 'Rum'. Later Anatolia was Turkified and this usage became obsolete, possibly because Roman rule faded from memory. Similarly 'Rumeli' (literally 'Roman land', -eli being the Turkic equivalent of -stan) was used for the European part of the Ottoman Empire (still being used for Thrace, but old-fashioned). Is there a specific term for Greek speaking muslim population in eastern Anatolia or northern e.g Kapadokia, Trabzond etc? Not any that I know, but I guess not. Ask Mortaza, he has family, IIRC. Christians are called 'Pontus Rumu', 'Rum of Pontus'.

Yes, Rumeli as a term was used by Greeks sometimes for the Greek mainland and especially southern Thrace.

As for the Pontus Rum, they call themselves Romioi in Greek and Rum and Turkish. They call the language in their dialect for "Romeika" or Hellenica in standard Greek.

There are some cultural sites of villages in the central & northcentral turkey. One of them is this (http://ocena.info/), which has been featured in Turkish press, concerning the language. They call it Romeika too. They use turkish-latin alfabet to write it. Note also, that they are muslim, not Christians.

What does "Anadolu'nun Romeyikası" mean? I understand what Anadolu is but what does the sentence mean as a whole?

Thank you Beylereyi! :)