From Mr Evangelos T. Pantelidis.
Sir, I have read with interest A. Nurhan Becidyan’s very informative letter (August 30). May I make a small correction concerning his closing sentence?
He writes: “One thing they did not realise was that Istanbul itself was derived from a Greek name (Stanbolin).”
In fact, the name Istanbul probably derives from the Greek “is tin Poli”, which means “to the Polis” (city). When travellers were asked: “Where are you going?” they would answer: “Is tin Poli” – “to the Polis of Constantine”. For Greeks, “i Polis” always refers to the great city: Constantinople.
Another view is that the name Istanbul is just a shortened form of Constantinople, which was hard to pronounce.
Evangelos T. Pantelidis,
Athens, Greece
FT.com / Comment & analysis / Letters – To Greeks, there is only one great city.