Names of Istanbul

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Main article: Istanbul

The city of Istanbul has been known through the ages under a large number of different names. Besides its modern Turkish name, the most notable are Byzantium, Constantinople and Stamboul, but there are also others. Each of them is associated with different phases of its history and with different languages. This page gives a survey of the history of these names and their use in various modern languages.

Contents 1 Names in historical sequence 1.1 Byzantium 1.2 Augusta Antonina 1.3 New Rome 1.4 Constantinople 1.5 Other Byzantine names 1.6 Kostantiniyye 1.7 Istanbul 1.8 Stamboul 1.9 Islambol 1.10 Other Ottoman names 2 Historical names in other languages 2.1 Old Norse 2.2 Slavic 2.3 Germanic 2.4 Persian and Arabic 2.5 Hebrew 3 Modern languages 4 See also 5 Bibliography 6 Notes

[edit] Names in historical sequence

[edit] Byzantium

Byzantion (Βυζάντιον), Latinized as Byzantium, was the first known name of the city. It was founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and, according to legend, named after their king Byzas, originally *Βύζαντς, probably Thracian name.^[1]

Much later, the name Byzantium became common in the West to refer to the Eastern Roman Empire, the "Byzantine" Empire, whose capital the city had been. This usage was introduced only in 1555 by the German historian Hieronymus Wolf, a century after the empire had ceased to exist. During the time of the empire itself, the term Byzantium was restricted to the city itself, rather than the empire that it ruled.

Further information: Byzantium

[edit] Augusta Antonina

Augusta Antonina was a name given to the city during a brief period in the 3rd century AD. It was conferred to it by the Roman emperor Septimius Severus (193-211) in honour of his son Antonius, the later emperor Caracalla.^[2]

[edit] New Rome

When Roman emperor Constantine the Great made the city the new eastern capital of the Roman Empire on May 11, 330, he conferred on it the name Nova Roma Νέα Ῥώμη 'New Rome'. He also undertook a major construction project, essentially rebuilding the city. Other names of this period included ἡ Νέα, δευτέρα Ῥώμη 'the New, second Rome', Alma Roma Ἄλμα Ῥώμα, Βυζαντιάς Ῥώμη, ἑῴα Ῥώμη 'Eastern Rome', Roma Constantinopolitana.^[3]

The term "New Rome" lent itself to East-Western polemics, especially in the context of the Great 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 the Patriarch of Constantinople.^[4]

[edit] Constantinople

Constantinople ("City of Constantine") was the name by which the city became soon more widely known instead of Nova Roma, in honour of its eponymic founder. The Greek form is Kōnstantinoupolis (Κωνσταντινούπολις); the Latin form is Constantinopolis. It is first attested in official use under emperor Theodosius II (408-450).^[2] 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. It was also used (including its Kostantiniyye variant) by the Ottoman Empire until the advent of the Republic of Turkey.

Some Byzantine writers would vary the use of the names Byzantium and Constantinople depending on religious historical context; Byzantium was associated with the city's pagan roots, while Constantinople was associated with Christianity.

Further information: Constantinople

[edit] Other Byzantine names

Besides Constantinople, the Byzantines referred to the city with a large range of honorary appellations, such as the "Queen of Cities" (Βασιλίς τῶν πόλεων). In popular speech, however, the most common way of referring to it came to be simply The City (Greek: hē Polis, ἡ Πόλις, Modern Greek: i Poli, η Πόλη). This usage, still current today in colloquial Greek and Armenian, also became the source of the later Turkish name, Istanbul (see below).

[edit] Kostantiniyye

Kostantiniyye (Arabic القسطنطينية, al-Qusṭanṭiniyah, Ottoman Turkish قسطنطينيه Kostantiniyye) is the name by which the city came to be known in the Islamic world. It is an Arabic calqued form of Constantinople, with an Arabic ending meaning 'place of' instead of the Greek element -polis. After the Ottoman conquest of 1453, it was used as the most formal official name in Ottoman Turkish, and remained in use throughout most of the time up to the fall of the empire in 1923. However, during some periods Ottoman authorities favoured other names (see below).

[edit] Istanbul

The modern Turkish name İstanbul (IPA: [istambul]) is attested (in a range of different variants) since the 10th century, at first in Armenian and Arabic and then in Turkish sources. It derives from the Greek phrase "εις την Πόλιν" or "στην Πόλη" [(i)stimboli(n)], both meaning "in the city" or "to the city".^[5] It is thus based on the common Greek usage of referring to Constantinople simply as The City (see above). The incorporation of parts of articles and other particles into Greek placenames was common even before the Ottoman period, Navarino for earlier Avarino,^[6] Satines for Athines, etc.^[7] Similar examples of modern Turkish placenames derived from Greek in this fashion are İzmit, earlier İznikmit, from Greek Nicomedia, İznik from Greek Nicaea ([iz nikea]), Samsun (s'Amison = "se + Amisos"), and İstanköy for the Greek island Kos (from is tin Ko). The occurrence of the initial i- in these names may partly reflect the old Greek form with is-, or it may partly be an effect of secondary epenthesis, resulting from the phonotactic structure of Turkish.

İstanbul was the common name for the city in normal speech in Turkish even since before the conquest of 1453, but in official use by the Ottoman authorities, other names such as Kostantiniyye 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 chancelery and courts used Kostantiniyye as part of intricate formulae in expressing the place of origin of formal documents, such as be-Makam-ı Darü's-Saltanat-ı Kostantiniyyetü'l-Mahrusâtü'l-Mahmiyye^[8] In 19th century Turkish bookprinting it was also used in the impressum of books, in analogy to the foreign use of Constantinople. At the same time, however, İstanbul too was part of official language, for instance as part of the titles of the highest Ottoman military commander (İstanbul ağası) and the highest civil magistrate (İstanbul efendisi) of the city.^[9] İstanbul and several other variant forms of the same name were also widely used in Ottoman literature and poetry.^[2]

After the creation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, the various alternative names besides İstanbul became obsolete in the Turkish language. With the Turkish Postal Service Law of March 28, 1930, the Turkish authorities officially requested foreigners to cease referring to the city with their traditional non-Turkish names (such as Constantinople, Tsarigrad, etc.) and to adopt Istanbul as the sole name also in their own languages.^[10] Letters or packages sent to "Constantinople" instead of "Istanbul" were no longer delivered by Turkey's PTT, which contributed to the eventual worldwide adoption of the new name (except in Greek speaking countries).

[edit] Stamboul

Stamboul or Stambul is a variant form of İstanbul. Like Istanbul itself, forms without the initial i- are attested from early on in the Middle Ages, first in Arabic sources of the 10th century and Armenian ones of the 12th. Some early sources also attest to an even shorter form Bulin, based on the Greek word Poli(n) alone without the preceding article.^[11] (This latter form lives on in modern Armenian.)

Stamboul was used in Western languages as an equivalent of İstanbul, until the time it was replaced by the official new usage of the Turkish form in the 20th century. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, English-speaking sources often used Constantinople to refer to the metropolis as a whole, but Stamboul to refer to the central parts located on the historic peninsula between the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus.^[12]

[edit] Islambol

Islambol (full of Islam) or Islambul (find Islam) were folk-etymological adaptations of Istanbul created after the Ottoman conquest of 1453 to express the city's new role as the capital of the Islamic Ottoman empire. It is first attested shortly after the conquest, and its invention was ascribed by some contemporary writers to Sultan Mehmed II himself.^[2] Some Ottoman sources of the 17th century, most notably Evliya 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 took place in 1703 (1115AH) during the reign of Sultan Ahmed III. The term Kostantiniyye still appears, however, into the nineteenth century.

[edit] Other Ottoman names

Like the Byzantines, the Ottomans used to refer to the city by a range of other honorary appellations. Among them are Dersaadet (در سعادت 'Gate of Felicity'), Derâliye (در عاليه) or Bâb-ı Âlî باب عالی 'The Sublime Porte', or Pâyitaht (پایتخت, 'The Seat of the Throne'), Asitane ('The Doorstep' of the Sultan/Government). The 'Gate of Felicity' and the 'Sublime Porte' were literally places within the Ottoman Sultans' Topkapı Palace, and were used metonymically to refer to the authorities located there, and hence for the Ottoman government as a whole. This usage is mirrored in the use of Sublime Porte or simple The Porte in Western diplomacy before the 20th century.

Further information: Porte

[edit] Historical names in other languages

Many peoples neighboring on the Byzantine Empire used names expressing concepts like "The Great City", "City of the Emperors", "Capital of the Romans" or similar.

[edit] Old Norse

It has been suggested that Miklagard be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

In Old Norse the city was called Miklagard. From 700-1000 AD Vikings would frequent the city, and thus, it needed a name in the northern regions of Europe.

[edit] Slavic

East and South Slavic languages referred to the city as Tsarigrad or Carigrad, 'City of the Caesar (Emperor)', from the Slavonic words tsar ('Caesar') and grad ('city'). Cyrillic:Цариград. This was presumably a calque on a Greek phrase such as Βασιλέως Πόλις (Basileos Polis), 'the city of the emperor [king]'. The term is still occasionally used in Bulgarian, whereas it has become archaic in Russian and Serbian. In Slovenian it is regulary used in form Carigrad to denote specially the historical city from its foundation to the end of Eastern Roman Empire, but it is a living alternative name also for the modern city. In Czech language (West Slavic) this Slavic name is used in the form Cařihrad (used in 19th century, now only occasionally). It was also borrowed from the Slavic languages into Romanian in the form Ţarigrad.

Further information: Tsargrad

[edit] Germanic

The medieval Vikings, who had contacts with the Byzantine empire through their expansion through eastern Europe (Varangians) used the Old Norse name Miklagarðr (from mikill 'big' and garðr 'city'). This name lives on in the modern Icelandic name Mikligarður and Faroese Miklagarður.

[edit] Persian and Arabic

Besides Kustantiniyyah, Persian, Arabic and other languages of the Islamic world used names based on the title Cesar ('Emperor'), as in Persian Kayser-i Zemin,^[2] or on the ethnic name Rum ('Romans'), as in Arabic Rūmiyyat al-kubra ('Great City of the Romans') or Persian Taxt-e Rum ('Throne of the Romans').^[11]

[edit] Hebrew

In Hebrew, the city was sometimes referred to as "Kushtandina" קושתנדינה or shortened to "Kushta" קושתא, an alteration of Kostantiniyye.

[edit] Modern languages

Most modern Western languages have adopted the name Istanbul 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 (Κωνσταντινούπολη Konstantinupoli in Modern Greek) or simply "The City" (η Πόλη i Poli). Languages that use forms based on Stamboul include Russian, Polish, Lithuanian, Albanian, and Kurdish. Spanish form is Estambul. Armenian uses Bolis, based on the Greek Poli(s) 'City'. Icelandic preserves the old Norse name Miklagarður.

Further information: List of names in European languages

[edit] See also

• Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

[edit] Bibliography

• Demetrius John Georgacas, "The Names of Constantinople", Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 78:347-367 (1947) at JSTOR

[edit] Notes