Soner Cagaptay
@SonerCagaptay
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Senior Fellow @washinstitute | Historian, Author | Turkey, MidEast, Balkans | Cultural Geography | Architecture & Istanbul Enthusiast | Yogi | Lover of Mosques
Washington DC
Joined August 2009
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Turkish slang words w/ Spanish & Italian roots:
•"Şarlamak": "to blabber" ⬅️ Sp. "charlar" (to chat)
•"Palavra": "lie" ⬅️ Sp. "palabra" (word)
•"Papel": (money) ⬅️ Sp. "papel" (paper)
•"Karambol": (chaos) ⬅️ Sp. "carambola" (cannon)
•"Faça": face/honor ⬅️ It. "faccia" (look)
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Hilarious and (very) literal translation of Turkish province names
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Every recored battle in history --also why the EU was such a a good idea
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Sketches used by USSR police to identify suspects based on “race”
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3 secrets of Turkish:
1. No gender pronouns: you can bury someone's gender in an entire conversation
2. Second past ("gossip") tense: to discuss what you didn't witness
3. S-O-V language: verb comes at the end & you have to listen to the full sentence to find out what's going on
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🧵 How the Turkish language coins names for European countries:
1. If the country existed in the era of Ottoman expansion into Europe, but fell under Ottoman rule ➡️ "ethnic name + istan".
For instance: "Bulgar+istan", "Hirvat+istan", "Sirb+istan", "Macar+istan", etc.
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Where the Romans lived: Every Roman settlement and nothing else
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Turkey hosts nearly twice the number of refugees per capita, when compared to the nearest country (Sweden) and 42 times that of the U.S.
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This Trump letter to Erdogan is the most damaging correspondance that could’ve been leaked ahead of VP Pence’s visit to Ankara tomorrow. Now, Erdogan has no option but to delay ceasefire in Syria less he be humiliated in front of his nation as weak and bowing to America’s threat
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"May the mere memory of Sultan Selim keep your cult.." refers to the 16th century mass murder of Alevis, a faith group to which Turkey's presidential candidate Kilicdaroglu belongs. This tweet encourages mass murder of and incitement against the nearly 10 million Alevis in Turkey
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Birthplace of Ottoman Empire vezirs (prime ministers) by today's countries
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Turkish suffixes for village/town:
Turkish ➡️ köy: Ortaköy
Persian ➡️ şehir: Eskişehir -from shir
Persian ➡️ kent: Yenikent -from kand
German ➡️ burgaz: Kumburgaz -from burg
Greek ➡️ bolu: Tirebolu -from polis
Armenian ➡️ burt Bayburt -from pert
Armenian ➡️ van: Tatvan -from vank
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Turkey's economy in units of its neighbors and nearby countries
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"C'mon Union": countries that use "hayde/ayde/hajde/haydi/hajdy" for c'mon
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Turkish provinces where president Erdogan has never won elections
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I just would like to say that Hagia Sophia, built in the year 537, is still a century older than Islam
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1. US asked Turkey to delay buying Russian S400 missile defense system
2. Turkey said it would consider
3. Putin started bombing Idlib in Syria, creating refugee flows towards Turkey
4. Erdogan called Putin
5. Turkey said no to Washington's offer
6. Russia stopped bombing Idlib
The Russians stirring it today, denying that Erdogan asked for a delay in the delivery of S400s.
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European countries with a population smaller than European part of Turkey
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Weekend puzzle:
1. Turkey has sold 24 drones to Ukraine
2. Russia has “shot down 36” of these drones
3. Ukraine still has X Turkish drones doing sorties against Russian forces
4. What’s X?
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Hagia Sophia’s carpeting options ⬇️⬇️
First picture is from 19th century, while second is Erdogan’s pick
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I made a guide to help with your holiday wishes for your Muslim friends
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Turkey has less than 1 percent of the world population, but hosts nearly 15 percent of global refugee population
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Social conservatism in Turkey (the darker, the more conservative)
Port-city Izmir, Tatar-populated, college-town Eskisehir, and Alevi-majority Tunceli are regional liberal outliers; while Sandjak Bosniacs-dominated Adapazari is a regional conservative outlier
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Now do it in Turkish, please! ⌛️
Turkey sees anti-Semitism as crime against humanity: President
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The most untranslatable word of each European language
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Top-ten list—% electoral support for Erdogan across Turkey’s provinces and West European polling stations:
1. Clermont-Ferrand 92 🇫🇷
2. Lyon 88 🇫🇷
3. Orleans 87 🇫🇷
4. Bayburt 82 🇹🇷
5. Hasselt 81 🇧🇪
6. Essen 78 🇩🇪
7. Salzburg 79 🇦🇹
8. Antwerp 77 🇧🇪
9. Yozgat 76 🇹🇷
10. Rize 76 🇹🇷
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European countries by percentages, who say “most people can be trusted”
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Russian attack on Turkish soldiers in Idlib, if confirmed, is seismic in historical context: 1st time since WWI that Russia has killed Turkish troops -an opportunity for US+Turkey to undermine Putin+Assad, but also a strategic chance for US to sever coalescing Ankara-Moscow bonds
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Turkish Soft Power Across the Middle East and Eurasia: Eid versus Bayram - with thanks to
@CollinTrissel
and inspiration by map project with
@NicholasDanfort
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Turkish tour company offering vaccination excursions to Serbia
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Electoral support for Turkey opposition pres. candidate Kilicdaroglu in Turkey & U.S. Top 10 stations:
1. Damal 94.9 🇹🇷
2. LA 93.1 🇺🇸
3. Samandag 92.5 🇹🇷
4. Defne 91.3 🇹🇷
5. Miami 90.9 🇺🇸
6. Ovacik 90.3 🇹🇷
7. Houston 90.1 🇺🇸
8. Varto 89.2🇹🇷
9. Nazimiye 88.9 🇹🇷
10. Pulumur 88.6 🇹🇷
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Pretty amazing! The CEO of
@BaykarTech
, which manufactures the killer drones that Ankara is supposedly “not providing to Ukraine”, just tweeted that he stands with 🇺🇦 and
@ZelenskyyUa
. Best way to describe Turkey’s Russia-Ukraine policy is pro-Ukraine “neutrality” at this stage
İyi ki senin gibi cesur bir adamı tanıdım...
Zafer haksızca işgale karşı ülkesini savunan yürekli insanlarla olsun.
@ZelenskyyUa
#StandWithUkraine
🇺🇦
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If Turkish cities could have soul twins:
Istanbul ↔️ Rome
Ankara ↔️ Astana
Izmir ↔️ Thessaloniki
Bursa ↔️ Sarajevo
Konya ↔️ Tabriz
Antalya ↔️ Tel Aviv
Eskisehir ↔️ Amsterdam
Gaziantep ↔️ Aleppo
Kars ↔️ Tomsk
Edirne ↔️ Toledo
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We all need some fun these days: Turkey for Beginners (Final Edition)
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📍 How to read early poll results from Turkey:
Erdogan ALWAYS starts high (with rural and small town votes being counted faster), but then drops, with urban tallies coming in
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This chart you Turkish syntax of English than completely different is that demonstrates
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Ottoman pashas with best names:
5. Kılıç (“Sword”) Ali Paşa -Calabria born
4. Yedi Sekiz (“Seven Eight”) Hasan Paşa -Anatolia born
🥉Tiryaki (“Coffee addict”) Hasan Paşa -Bosnia born
🥈Piyale (“Wineglass”) Paşa-Croatia born
🏅Mezzo Morto (“Half Dead”) Hüseyin Paşa -Mallorca born
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Surrounded by 9 different alphabets, Turkey is a Latin alphabet isolate
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Economic growth in southeastern Europe between 1990 and 2018
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Countries with similar populations to Turkey’s regions
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Turkish Erdogan’s decision to expel 10 ambassadors would also mean alienating:
• 10 OECD members
• 7 NATO allies
• 6 EU counterparts
• 5 key trading partners
• 4 G-7 powers
• 2 UNSC veto-power states
• 1 paramount defense ally 🇺🇸
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I did it! 😅😃
(From today’s Official Gazette in Turkey)
Presidential executive order regarding changes in some
presidential executive orders, which regard to the presidential executive orders regarding changes to the presidential organization
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Languages spoken in Europe, Middle East, and the Mediterranean around 600 AD: huge Basque area, Gothic in Crimea, Romance in Maghreb, Greek in Libya, and Avar in Hungary
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Is Turkey a European country? European countries with a smaller population than Turkish Thrace
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Languages gone extinct around the Mediterranean --from Hattic (1800 BC) to Sabir (1800 AD)
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From using “Constantinople”, and not today’s Istanbul, for the Ottoman capital to absence of any references to modern Turkey, a carefully crafted, victim-focused, and forward-looking document that avoids finger pointing at the Republic of Turkey
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Erdogan ahead of his Northern Cyprus visit: "Wait for my big announcement when I land in Cyprus!"
Cyprus watchers: "That sounds big. Will he declare the end of settlement talks on the island? Will Turkey annex N. Cyprus?"
Erdogan in Cyprus: "I will build a big palace for you."
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The “Ataturk Exception”: except for Azerbaijan, with which Ankara shares a short 12-mile border, none of Turkey’s neighbors use a Latin-based alphabet
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Middle Eastern countries by the year of equal voting rights for females
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This is Kafkaesque: Turkey, which recognizes Israel, criticizes Bahrain for recognizing Israel
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French château and Ottoman konak in Nazilli, Turkey 💙
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One of the “myths” of Istanbul is that when the weather is really clear, you can see snowy peaks of 8,300 ft-high Uludağ (Mt. Olmypus), which lies nearly 60 miles away from the city. Looks like this not a myth after all! 🎈
Take one of the world’s most stunning cities, and add a month’s worth of unpolluted air.
Result:
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The Balkan tradition of naming airports after people born in other Balkan countries
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Turkey surpasses Russia regarding the number of incarcerated citizens in 2020
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· Erdogan is VERY keen on a mediator role in Israel-Palestine
· Blinken skipped Ankara in his recent MidEast trips and U.S. signaled it would welcome a Turkish role in Gaza only if Turkey ratified Sweden's NATO entry
· Erdogan sent Sweden's NATO entry vote to Turkey's parliament.
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% demanding shariat
Afghanistan 99
Iraq 91
Palestinian Territories 89
Niger 86
Pakistan 84
Morocco 83
Bangladesh 82
Egypt 74
Indonesia 72
Jordan 71
Mali 63
Ghana 58
Tunisia 56
Senegal 55
Chad 47
Kyrgyzstan 35
Tajikistan 27
Kosovo 20
Bosnia 15
Turkey 12
Kazakhstan 10
Azerbaijan 8
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Turkish towns and cultural regions they best represent:
Urfa: Middle East
Kars: Central Siberia
Antakya: Levant
Ayvalik: Crete
Kirklareli: Bosnia and Herzegovina
Izmir: Southern Europe
Datca: Coastal California
Eskisehir: EU
Alanya: Costa del Sol
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Turkey's collapsing birth rate across its provinces: 2018-2022 (2,1 is replacement rate)
@haritaseviyorum
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The flags of states and entities in the Middle East, North Africa, South and Central Asia down to three sources: Ottoman and Persian imperial flags and the banner of the Arab uprising against the Ottomans
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How Turkey voted:
• Erdogan campaign freely spread fake news, videos, pamphlets targeting Kilicdaroglu, alleging "terrorists back him"
• Kilicdaroglu denied access to information networks to make his case
• First polls since 1950 whereby Turkey resembles a Eurasian autocracy
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🦃 is named after:
Turkey: in UK, Ireland
India: in Turkey, France, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, S. Caucasus
Calcutta: in Netherlands, Scandinavia, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania
Peru: in Portugal, Croatia, Slovenia
France: in Greece
Greece: Arab states
Egypt: N. Macedonia
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A concise history of
Turkey: European democracies in 1970
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Turkey-related reductionisms and falsities:
1. That Turkey is going to slaughter Kurds in Syria (No, Turkey is fighting the PKK)
2. That the YPG and the PKK are different (No, the YPG reports to the PKK)
4. That this is Erdogan’s war (No, Turkey is bigger than Erdogan)
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"oğlu" (son of) suffix used in last names in Turkey and across its neighbors
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Demographic evolution of population of Thessaloniki, Greece
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Shift in Turkey’s income distribution since 2000: Top 10 percent (in blue) vs. rest of the population (in red)
@KBuyukyuksel
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The Ottoman Empire was run by the secular-minded Young Turks in 1915; but if you want to spread ignorance, Islamophobia, and racism, go ahead and call it “Islamist” 🧐
1.5M Armenians were killed over 100 years ago by the Islamist Ottoman Empire. It is shameful it has taken so long for formal recognition of this genocide to occur; never done previously for fear of angering Turkey. My aloha is with Armenians everywhere as we remember them today.
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6. Two cool Turkish names for European countries:
• "Portekiz" (Portugal), from the Italian adjective for Portugal (portoghese);
• "Arnavutluk", from "Arnavut" (Albanian) + "luk" (suffix denoting multitudes) ➡️"Arnavutluk": literally "place where you find a lot of Albanians".
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A brutal indictment by Biden of Turkey's autocratic slide:
Turkey is NOT among the 107 nations invited to the 2021 Summit for Democracy. 🇹🇷 is also the:
• Only NATO member not invited
• Only EU candidate not invited
• Only European country (other than Belarus) not invited
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Turkish president Erdogan issues a warning to Greece over Aegean Sea disputes, threatening a repeat of the Asia Minor Catastrophe of 1922 in which Greece was brutally defeated by Turkey. This IS the most serious escalation of tensions between Ankara and Athens in recent memory
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🧶 Turkey supports Ukraine 100 percent, but will not deny the Russian navy access to the Black Sea through the Bosporous. Here is why ⬇️
The 1936 Montreux Convention, which regulates access to the Black Sea, is a sacred document of sorts in Turkey +
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Half of Turkey’s population (42 million people) lives in the country’s northwest quarter
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2. If the country existed in the era of Ottoman expansion into Europe, but avoided Ottoman control ➡️ the country's Italian name (Genoese/Venetians being the Ottomans' key interlocutors with West Europe in this era).
For instance: Inghilterra ➡️Ingiltere, Francia ➡️ Fransa, etc.
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10 most untranslatable words of Turkish:
1. Efkâr
2. Sıla
3. Can
4. Keyif
5. Huzur
6. Gönül
7. Hüzün
8. Özlem
9. Hasret
10. Gurbet
Challenge: Translate this 8-word sentence, using 8 words only, into another language: "Sılada hüzünlü ve efkârlı akşamın keyifli, huzurlu sabahı"
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Latin or Greek names of Turkey's 81 provinces: over 2/3 are still recognizable
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Following today’s powerful tremor impacting millions, Turkey has declared the highest level of state emergency, appealing for international assistance. This is the first time in living memory that Ankara has issued such a call. Time for Ankara’s allies and friends to help
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Turkey will support sanctions against Russia only if they are initiated by NATO, which -in return- would happen only if Hungarian president Orban, who supports Russia, OK'ed the NATO moves. Basically, the road to getting Ankara on board regarding sanctions goes through Budapest
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If NATO doesn’t help Turkey against Russian attack in Syria, this will forever undermine Turkish views of the Alliance: Turks will NEVER forget that NATO left them in the cold
Whatever you think about Erdogan, Turkey has been fighting in Syria to protect refugees. NATO should back Turkey.
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