The city ofIstanbul has been known by a number of different names. The most notable names besides the modern Turkish name areByzantium,Constantinople, and Stamboul. Different names are associated with different phases of its history, with different languages, and with different portions of it.
According toPliny the Elder Byzantium was first known asLygos.[1] The origin and meaning of the name are unknown. Zsolt suggested it was etymologically identitical to the Greek name for theLigures and derived from the AnatolianethnonymLigyes,[2] a tribe that was part ofXerxes' army[3] and appeared to have been neighbors to thePaphlagonians.[4] Janis believed itmay have been the name of a Thracian settlement situated on the site of the later city near the point of the peninsula (Sarayburnu).[5]
Byzantion (Ancient Greek:Βυζάντιον,romanized: Byzántion,Latin:Byzantium) was founded by Greek colonists fromMegara in 667 BC. The name is believed to be of Thracian or Illyrian origin and thus to predate the Greek settlement.[5] It may be derived from a Thracian or Illyrian personal name,Byzas.[6]: 352ff Ancient Greek legend refers to alegendary king of that name as the leader of the Megarean colonists and eponymous founder of the city.
Byzántios, plural.Byzántioi (Ancient Greek:Βυζάντιος, Βυζάντιοι,Latin:Byzantius) referred to Byzantion's inhabitants andByzántios (Ancient Greek:Βυζάντιος,Latin:Byzantius) was an adjective, also used as anethnonym for the people of the city and as a family name.[7] In theMiddle Ages,Byzántion was also asynecdoche for theeastern Roman Empire. (Anellipsis ofMedieval Greek:Βυζάντιον κράτος,romanized: Byzántion krátos).[7]Byzantinós (Medieval Greek:Βυζαντινός,Latin:Byzantinus) denoted an inhabitant of the empire.[7] TheAnglicization of LatinByzantinus yielded "Byzantine", with 15th and 16th century forms includingByzantin,Bizantin(e),Bezantin(e), andBysantin as well asByzantian andBizantian.[8][9]
The nameByzantius andByzantinus were applied from the 9th century to goldByzantine coinage, reflected in the Frenchbesant (d'or), Italianbisante, and Englishbesant,byzant, orbezant.[7] The English usage, derived from Old Frenchbesan (pl.besanz), and relating to the coin, dates from the 12th century.[10]
Later, the nameByzantium became common in the West to refer to theEastern Roman Empire, whose capital was Constantinople. As a term for the east Roman state as a whole,Byzantium was introduced by the historianHieronymus Wolf only in 1555, a century after the empire, whose inhabitants called it the Roman Empire (Medieval Greek:Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων,romanized: Basileia tōn Rhōmaiōn,lit. 'kingdom of the Romans'), had ceased to exist.[11]
The city was calledAugusta Antonina (Greek:Αυγούστα Αντωνινή) for a brief period in the 3rd century AD. The Roman EmperorSeptimius Severus (193–211) conferred the name in honor of his son Antoninus, the later EmperorCaracalla.[12]
Before the Roman emperorConstantine the Great made the city the new eastern capital of theRoman Empire on May 11, 330, he undertook a major construction project, essentially rebuilding the city on a monumental scale, partly modeled after Rome. Names of this period includedἡ Νέα, δευτέρα Ῥώμη "the New, second Rome",[13][14]Alma Roma Ἄλμα Ῥώμα,Βυζαντιάς Ῥώμη,ἑῴα Ῥώμη "Eastern Rome",Roma Constantinopolitana.[6]: 354
The Third Canon of the First Council of Constantinople (381) refers to the city as New Rome.[15]
The term "New Rome" lent itself to East-West polemics, especially in the context of theGreat Schism, when it was used by Greek writers to stress the rivalry with (the original) Rome.New Rome is also still part of the official title of thePatriarch of Constantinople.[16]
Kōnstantinoúpolis (Κωνσταντινούπολις),Constantinopolis in Latin andConstantinople in English, was the name by which the city became soon more widely known, in honor ofConstantine the Great who established it as his capital. It is first attested in official use under EmperorTheodosius II (408–450).[12] It remained the principal official name of the city throughout the Byzantine period, and the most common name used for it in the West until the early 20th century.
This name was also used (including its Kostantiniyye variant) by theOttoman Empire to describe the entire urban area of the city until the advent of theRepublic of Turkey—the core Walled City was always Istambul for the Ottomans.[17] According to Eldem Edhem, who wrote an encyclopedia entry on Istanbul forEncyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire, "many" Turkish members of the public as well as Turkish historians often perceive the use of Constantinople for the Ottoman city, despite being historically accurate, as being "politically incorrect".[18]
BesidesConstantinople, the Byzantines referred to the city with a large range of honorary appellations, such as the "Queen of Cities" (Βασιλὶς τῶν πόλεων), also as an adjective, Βασιλεύουσα, the 'Reigning City'. In popular speech, the most common way of referring to it came to be simplythe City (Greek:hē Polis/iˈpo.lis/,ἡ Πόλις,Modern Greek:i Poli, η Πόλη/i ˈpoli/ ). This usage, still current today in colloquial Greek and Armenian (Պոլիս, pronounced "Polis" or "Bolis" in theWestern Armenian dialect prevalent in the city), also became the source of the later Turkish name,Istanbul (see below).
Kostantiniyye (Arabic:قسطنطنية,translit.Qusṭanṭinīyya,Persian:قسطنطنیه,translit.Qosṭanṭanīye,Ottoman Turkish:قسطنطينيه,translit.Ḳosṭanṭīnīye)[19] is the name by which the city came to be known in theIslamic world. It is an Arabiccalque ofConstantinople. After theOttoman conquest of 1453, it was used as the most formal official name in Ottoman Turkish,[20] and remained in use throughout most of the time up to the fall of the Empire in 1922. However, during some periods Ottoman authorities favoured other names (see below).
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The modern Turkish nameİstanbul (pronounced[isˈtanbuɫ]) (Ottoman Turkish:استانبول) is attested (in a range of variants) since the 10th century, at first inArmenian andArabic (without the initialİ-) and then in Ottoman sources. Some sources have speculated that it comes from theMedieval Greek phrase "εἰς τὴν πόλιν", meaning "to the city",reinterpreted as a single word, but a 2015 review of the literature found a more likely explanation to be that: "The form of the etymon is the colloquial Middle Greek phraseστην Πόλι(ν), not the puristic literary ancestor of this. The meaning of the etymon is probably ‘in Constantinople’, possibly ‘to Constantinople’ and just possibly ‘into Constantinople’".[21][a]
The incorporation of parts of articles and other particles into Greek place names was common even before the Ottoman period: Navarino for earlier Avarino,[22] Satines for Athines,etc.[23] Similar examples of modern Turkish place names derived from Greek in this fashion areİzmit, earlierİznikmit, from GreekNicomedia,İznik from GreekNicaea ([iz nikea]),Samsun (s'Amison from "se" and "Amisos"), andİstanköy for the Greek islandKos (fromis tin Ko). The occurrence of the initiali- in these names, including Istanbul's, is largely secondaryepenthesis to break up syllabic consonant clusters, prohibited by thephonotactic structure ofTurkish, as seen in Turkishistasyon from Frenchstation orızgara from the Greekschára.[21]
İstanbul originally was not used for the entire city, instead the name referred to the core of Istanbul—thewalled city.[18]İstanbul was the common name for the city in normal speech in Turkish even before the conquest of 1453,[citation needed] but in official use by the Ottoman authorities other names, such asKostantiniyye, were preferred in certain contexts. Thus,Kostantiniyye was used on coinage up to the late 17th and then again in the 19th century. The Ottoman chancery and courts usedKostantiniyye as part of intricate formulae in expressing the place of origin of formal documents, such asbe-Makam-ı Darü's-Saltanat-ı Kostantiniyyetü'l-Mahrusâtü'l-Mahmiyye.[24] In 19th century Turkish book-printing it was also used in the impressum of books, in contrast to the foreign use ofConstantinople. At the same time, however,İstanbul too was part of the official language, for instance in the titles of the highest Ottoman military commander(İstanbul ağası) and the highest civil magistrate(İstanbul efendisi) of the city,[25][page needed] and the Ottoman Turkish version of theOttoman constitution of 1876 states that "The capital city of the Ottoman State is İstanbul".[26]İstanbul and several other variant forms of the same name were also widely used in Ottoman literature and poetry.[12]
Names other thanاستانبول (İstanbul) had become obsolete in the Turkish language after the establishment of the Republic of Turkey.[18] However, at that point Constantinople was still used when writing the city's name in Latin script. In 1928, the Turkish alphabet was changed from the Arabic to the Latin script. Beginning in 1930, Turkey officially requested that other countries use Turkish names for Turkish cities, instead of other transliterations to Latin script that had been used in the Ottoman times.[27]
T. R. Ybarra ofThe New York Times wrote in 1929 that "'Istambul' (our usual form for the word is 'Stamboul') has always been the Turkish name for the whole of Constantinople".[28]The Observer wrote that "To the Turks themselves it never was Constantinople, but Istanbul."[29] In 1929Lloyd's agents were informed that telegrams now must be addressed to "Istanbul" or "Stamboul", butThe Times stated that mail could still be delivered to "Constantinople".[30] HoweverThe New York Times stated that year that mail to "Constantinople" may no longer be delivered.[31] In 1929, Turkish government advocated for the use of Istanbul in English instead of Constantinople.[32] TheU.S. State Department began using "Istanbul" in May 1930.[33]
In English, the name is usually written "Istanbul". In modern Turkish, the name is written "İstanbul" (dotted i/İ anddotless ı/I being two distinct letters in theTurkish alphabet).
Stamboul orStambul is a variant form ofİstanbul. LikeIstanbul itself, forms without the initiali- are attested from early on in the Middle Ages, first in Arabic sources of the 10th century[34] and Armenian ones of the 12th. Some early sources also attest to an even shorter formBulin, based on the Greek wordPoli(n) alone without the preceding article.[35] (This latter form lives on in modern Armenian.) The word-initiali- arose in the Turkish name as anepenthetic vowel to break up theSt- consonant cluster, prohibited in Turkishphonotactics.
Stamboul was used in Western languages to refer to the central city, asIstanbul did in Turkish, until the time it was replaced by the official new usage of the Turkish form in the 1930s for the entire city. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Western European and American sources often usedConstantinople to refer to the metropolis as a whole, butStamboul to refer to the central parts located on the historic peninsula, i.e. Byzantine-era Constantinople inside thewalls.[18]
The nameIslambol (اسلامبولlit. 'full of Islam') appeared after the Ottoman conquest of 1453 to express the city's new role as the capital of the Islamic Ottoman Empire. It was first attested shortly after the conquest, and its invention was ascribed by some contemporary writers to sultanMehmed II himself.[12] Some Ottoman sources of the 17th century, most notablyEvliya Çelebi, describe it as the common Turkish name of the time. Between the late 17th and late 18th centuries, it was also in official use. The first use of the word "Islambol" on coinage was in 1730 during the reign of sultanMahmud I.[36] The termKostantiniyye still appeared, however, into the 20th century.
Ottomans and foreign contemporaries, especially in diplomatic correspondence, referred to the Ottoman imperial government with particular honorifics. Among them are the following:[37]
The "Gate of Felicity", the "Sublime Gate", and the "Sublime Porte" were literally places within the Ottoman sultans'Topkapı Palace, and were usedmetonymically to refer to the authorities located there, and hence for the central Ottoman imperial administration. Modern historians also refer to government by these terms, similar to the popular usage ofWhitehall in Britain. The Sublime Gate is not inside Topkapı palace; the administration building whose gate is named Bâb-ı Âlî is between Agia Sofia and Beyazit mosque, a huge building.[41][better source needed]
Many peoples neighboring the Byzantine Empire used names expressing concepts like "The Great City", "City of the Emperors", "Capital of the Romans" or similar. During the 10th to 12th centuryConstantinople was one of the largest two cities in the world, the other beingBaghdad.
The medievalVikings, who had contacts with the Byzantine Empire through their expansion through eastern Europe (Varangians), used theOld Norse nameMikligarðr (frommikill 'big' andgarðr 'wall' or 'stronghold') as seen in the Icelandic sagas.[42]
East and South Slavic languages referred to the city asTsarigrad orCarigrad, 'City of the Tsar (Emperor)', from the Slavonic wordstsar ('Caesar' or 'Emperor') andgrad ('city').Cyrillic: Царьград, Цариград. This was presumably acalque on a Greek phrase such as Βασιλέως Πόλις(Basileos Polis), 'the city of the emperor [emperor]'. The term is still occasionally used inBulgarian, whereas it has become archaic inRussian, andMacedonian. InBosnian,Croatian,Montenegrin,Serbian andSlovene,Carigrad is a living alternative name for the modern city, as well as being used when referring to the historic capital of the medieval Roman Empire or the Ottoman Empire. InCzech (aWest Slavic language) this Slavic name is used in the formCařihrad (used in the 19th century, now only occasionally). It was also borrowed from the Slavic languages intoRomanian in the formȚarigrad,[43] thoughConstantinopol remained the far more widely preferred term.
BesidesKustantiniyyah,Persian,Arabic and other languages of theIranian Plateau andIndian subcontinent used names based on the titleCesar ('Emperor'), as in Persian andUrduKayser-i Zemin,[12] or on the ethnic nameRum ('Romans'), as in ArabicRūmiyyat al-kubra ('Great City of the Romans') or PersianTakht-e Rum ('Throne of the Romans').[35]
The city is referred to asKostandina orKostantina (an alteration ofKostantiniyye) and more often as its short formKushta (קושטה) orKostán in mostJudaeo-Spanish publications during the Ottoman period.[44][45] Kosta was the name for the entire province of Istanbul, while the wordEstambol was used for the area of the old city and Pera. Today the word Kosta is restricted only for historical purposes and is no more in common use.
The wordEstambol has widened in meaning to include exclusively the entire European side of Istanbul. The Asian side is usually not considered as Estambol; however, the expressionla civdad de Estambol would encompass the boundaries of the present-day city. There are few expression denoting the Asian side.Anatol, fromAnatolia andAsya, meaningAsia are common words to denote the Asian side of Istanbul. Moreover,el otro lado (literallythe other side) is a quite simplistic and descriptory expression for the Asian side of Istanbul, especially for those living in the European side. Those living in the Asian side however do not use this expression to denote the European side, but simply call itEstambol. The inhabitants are calledEstambulí orEstambullí.[45]
Most modern Western languages have adopted the nameIstanbul for the modern city during the 20th century, following the current usage in the Turkish Republic. However, many languages also preserve other, traditional names. Greeks continue to call the city Constantinople (ΚωνσταντινούποληKonstantinupoli in Modern Greek) or simply "The City" (η Πόληi Poli). Languages that use forms based onStamboul includeRussian,Polish (though the alternative form ofIstambuł is also universally accepted and employed in many translations),Latvian,Lithuanian,Georgian andAlbanian. The Albanian form isStamboll; theSpanish form isEstambul; thePortuguese form isIstambul, with anm instead of ann; theHungarian form isIsztambul, with the digraphsz pronounced /s/ in the Hungarian language.Armenian usesPolis/Bolis (Eastern and Western Armenian pronunciation, respectively), shortened fromKostandnupolis/Gostantnubolis (ultimately borrowed from Greek), althoughStambul (Armenian:Ստամբուլ) from Istanbul is also used in everyday speech and officially used inArmenia.Icelandic preserves the old Norse nameMikligarður, though the formIstanbúl is generally used. InSloveneCarigrad is still largely used and often preferred over the official name.[46]
{{cite book}}:|work= ignored (help)İnalcık, Halil (1997). "Istanbul". In van Donzel, E.; Lewis, B.;Phellat, Ch. (eds.).Encyclopaedia of Islam. Vol. 4 (2nd ed.). Leiden: Brill. pp. 224–248.ISBN 9789004057456.
