Ask a Turk

[knigh+]

An interesting reply. What you posted makes sense.

thnx. It is good to hear that what makes sense to me does not make sense only to me

He is talking about Cyprus.
Cyprus is located in Asia; however, it is a culturally European country.

to clarify - I wasn't saying Cyprus shouldn't be in EU, I was just giving an example to show the geographical definitions from the ancient world don't necessarily apply in our time.

Another question: How often does the Turkish media report information about the Istanbul Stock Exchange?

Newspapers list the last price and the previous price of every stock, every day. Some tv news do a similar listing. Some tv channels constantly report all current prices in a running band (I don't know what to call that) at the bottom of the screen. I suppose you can check online too, but I never looked for it.

Why are you asking, may we interest you in some stock of Karabuk Iron Works or Pasabahce Glass?

What types of computer games/video games are the most popular in Turkey (or seem to be played the most)? What seems to be a great percentage of the people who play Civilization games and the Europa Universalis games seem to come from outside the United States than with many other games (just from observation I have not checked any data).

I haven't really noticed any type of game that dominates the market. My guess to your observation - if it is true - would be that Civilization, Age of Empires and the Paradox games can target the gamers in any country, as everybody likes to play their own country (or something they can associate with). Whereas a hit US game like Grand Theft Auto might not get popular, as people outside US might not associate themselves with some guy driving in Miami (or whereever the game setting was). But just speculating here.

Are there any particular video game consoles (Wii, Playstation 3, Xbox-360) that seem to be especially favored?

No they are not popular like in US. Almost all gaming is PC games. I have only one friend with a playstation. I am guessing people (including myself) view game-only devices as an official waste of money. But even if 90% of your PC time is games, you also work with it, so your conscience is clear

I guess it has to do with average household incomes. Americans are richer, they can afford wasting money on game only stuff.

Also, is chess popular in Turkey?

People play it, highschools may have a chess club (mine did). I had a math teacher in high school, who was the women's champion of Turkey.

But the tabletop game that beats the sum of the popularity of all other games is Backgammon.

 

[The Tollan]

to clarify - I wasn't saying Cyprus shouldn't be in EU, I was just giving an example to show the geographical definitions from the ancient world don't necessarily apply in our time.

I agree that the ancient geographic lines do not denote what types of cultures are inside of them. Geographic Asia and geographic Europe do not always correspond to the populations/cultures within each. From what I have read it seems Turkey should be considered European. What you have posted on the issue has made sense and seems to explain the situation quite well though.

Newspapers list the last price and the previous price of every stock, every day. Some tv news do a similar listing. Some tv channels constantly report all current prices in a running band (I don't know what to call that) at the bottom of the screen. I suppose you can check online too, but I never looked for it.

Why are you asking, may we interest you in some stock of Karabuk Iron Works or Pasabahce Glass?

I am only a new/maybe novice investor; however, I have some money in the stock of NYSE Group (which owns and operates the New York Stock Exchange). NYSE Group is going to merge with Euronext (which owns and operates the exchanges in Paris, Libson, Amsterdam, and Brussels). It is often thought that NYSE Euronext (which will be the new company) will then merge with the Tokyo Stock Exchange around 2009 (when shares of the TSE will probably be publicly traded). These exchange will continue to operate under their separate national laws although they will be owned by one company and will cooperate more closely on certain issues. After buying this stock I started investigating information about exchanges in various countries.

I have invested in an emerging market fund which invests some of its funds in Turkey.

 

[feldmarshall]

do turks know about The Turk ?

 

[knigh+]

do turks know about The Turk ?

Not until now...but it seems quite fascinating. Thanx for the link.

 

[Mirc]

Probably stupid question, but anyway: Did you know we use the same "Ş" ("ş")? We write it the same and read it the same.

 

[R.B.]

Who's more popoular in Turkey, Dr. Evil or Enver Pasha?

 

[knigh+]

Probably stupid question, but anyway: Did you know we use the same "Ş" ("ş")? We write it the same and read it the same.

I think I have seen it on a Romanian map of Romania. I think you also add the cedilla to a few other letters. We add it to c to make ch sound.

 

[knigh+]

Who's more popoular in Turkey, Dr. Evil or Enver Pasha?

Since I don't even know who Dr.Evil is, I'll go with Enver Pasha.

 

[Mirc]

I think I have seen it on a Romanian map of Romania. I think you also add the cedilla to a few other letters. We add it to c to make ch sound.

Yes, we also add it to the T, making it "ts". I knew about the C (I mentioned I've been in Ankara), but we do not use that too.

 

[useless]

why doesnt turkey acknowledge the armenian genocide?

 

[knigh+]

why doesnt turkey acknowledge the armenian genocide?

Because they (or the other unrelated countries sticking their noses into this issue and making reconciliation harder) don't acknowledge Turkish deaths and sufferings.
Because they tell only parts of the story and constantly refuse all offers of Turkey to investigate the issue by a multinational group of historians.
Because the "all for freedom of speech" western countries try to convict us without even giving us the right to speak.
Because some of their "evidences" repeatedly get disproven by historians, sometimes by other Armenians, who in turn get death threats.
Because the world turns a blind eye when Armenian terrorists were killing Turkish diplomats all over the world.
Because they invaded and still occupy a chunk of territory of one of Turkey's allies, killed and displaced thousands of people, and the world doesn't do anything about it.
Because the last three sentences above show that they are bullies, and we don't give in to bullies.

I summarized my opinion regarding this matter in post 124 of this thread.

Spoiler :

Why does Turkey cover up the Armenian masacres?

Has it? I am not aware of that.
This is a result of Armenian propaganda. Everybody (includin Turks) accepts that great numbers of Armenians perished.
Turks (or at least I) refuse to commemorate their deaths on principle because everybody else refuses to commemorate the huge numbers of Turkish (and Kurdish) civilians killed by Armenian gangs in the same period. The world is misguided about who the genocide deniers are.
The problem is Turks had a lot more population. So killing similar numbers on both sides would reduce the Turks by 5% while reducing the Armenians by 50% for example. So it had a higher impact on Armenian nation. (I am not saying it was that many, more or fewer. Nobody knows the actual number in either side, but both sides have lots of dead greatgrandparents. I have seen Armenian sources as low as 300k, and as high as 2M; the same range on Turkish side).
I personally wouldn't mind if there were a ceremony or monument commemorating, I don't know, "Eastern Anatolia Tragedy" or something like that. But Armenian propaganda tries (and succeeds) to tell one side of the story of suffering, sometimes even by falsified evidence to be disproven by other Armenians, and make it look like they were an innocent unarmed bunch. On top of this they go found/help terrorist organizations that kill Turks and try to teach children in the rest of the world to hate Turks. This kind of hatemongering done through an unfair publicity contest, despite Turkey's several calls for an investigation by historians, is what most Turks can't stomach.

Saying one nations deaths matter more than the other is blatant racism, and that's exactly what Armenian genocide advocates have been doing.

It is like blaming the current fighting in Iraq on the Shias (or Sunnis) and claiming the other side is unarmed innocents. War always has civilian casualties, civil war even more so. It is time for people to grow up and see that they can't paint a warfront in black and white.

...

PS. Due to my time constraints I don't think I'll be able to turn Cyprus or Armenian issues into a prolonged discussion, which I had had several in life and CFC. Just to let eager Greeks and Armenians know, before they take an offensive on me.

In some other thread a while ago, I had an 8 page long post, but I don't do that anymore - I don't have so much time anymore.

 

[useless]

and of course the turkish aren't bullies.

 

[CaptainF]

Why are there so many Turkish people in Germany?

 

[knigh+]

Why are there so many Turkish people in Germany?

after ww2 they needed workers, Turkish people needed jobs.

 

[Ceritoglu]

Which team do you support? (Fenerbahçe, thanks to my father)

What is your favourite Turkish dish? (From a kebab point of view, I'm split between Patlıcan Kebab and Iskender Kebab - as for more domestic dishes, I love Mant&#305

What do you think of Recep Tayip Erdoğan and AKP? (Although I'm a firm believer in secularism and Kemalism and would normally prefer CHP - it remains a fact that the AKP regime has been the most stable one we've had for years)

If you have any Greek friends, how long did it take you to stop making jokes about their recent 4-1 defeat at the hands of the clearly superior Turkish national team? (30 days and counting; I still average 2 jokes about it daily)

What musicians do you like from Turkey? (Mor ve Ötesi, Duman, Teoman, Şebnem Ferah, Çilekeş, Kargo, Sezen Aksu, Ibrahim Tatlıses, Müslüm Gürses, Orhan Gencebay and Aşık Veysel)

Favourite literay figures? (Yaşar Kemal and his Ince Memed novels; Reşat Nuri Güntekin and Çalıkuşu; Nazım Hikmet and his poetry; Orhan Pamuk because no matter what his political opinions, he should be appreciated for his talent)

Turkish Coffee or Turkish Tea? (I love the tea, can't bear the coffee)

This is what comes to mind at the moment. In your location it says both cities with MIT - Milli Istikbarat Teşkilatı and Massachusetts Institute of Technology? Good to see another Turk posting on the forums.

 

[sabo]

Do Turkey's originate from Turkey?

 

[Mirc]

I don't think so, Turkeys existed before Turkey was called Turkey. But the name probably has some connection.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Neither Turks nor turkeys come from Turkey.

 

[sabo]

I don't think so, Turkeys existed before Turkey was called Turkey. But the name probably has some connection.

Well then did Turkey (country) get named after Turkey (the bird)?

 

[Mirc]

Well then did Turkey (country) get named after Turkey (the bird)?

Am pretty sure it didn't... the name türk is used by a lot of different people, they are a category, like "slavs", the name is still used not only by the inhabitants of Turkey, also Turkmenistan for example has the same origin. There are a lot of different kinds of turks, and most of them have something related to the word "türk".