Erdogan goes old school with call to drop ‘kampus’ for ‘kuliyeh’

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has proposed that university campuses be called “kulliye,” a word with Arabic roots that would replace the English-inspired word “kampus,” Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News reported Wednesday.

Speaking during the opening ceremony of a new campus at the Yildrim Beyazit University in Ankara, he said he had discussed introducing the word, widely used in Ottoman Turkey, with the education minister.

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“We just had a discussion with the education minister about the word kampüs. Should this be the word? … I thought of revisiting our history and thought perhaps külliye would be better. It would be a first in this new period,” he said.

Erdogan then moved that the new campus should be called “Esenboğa Külliyesi” instead of “Esenboğa Kampüsü.”

Separately, the Hurriyet reports that the Turkish president had recently sought to introduce the Ottoman language in schools, adding that it will be taught whether critics “like it or not.”