Cellphone localisation glitch turned deadly in Turkey
A COUPLE in Ankara careened into tragedy over a mobile phone localisation error. The story deserves entry in the doubles category of the Darwin Awards.
Ramazan Çalçoban, 24, and his wife Emine, 20, separated and perhaps headed for divorce, argued with each other as couples in such situations sometimes do.
Having split up, they carried on arguments via cellphone text messages, until Ramazan texted "you change the topic every time you run out of arguments."
With that one message, a localisation mismatch between his mobile phone and Emine's set in motion a tragic misunderstanding that had grave consequences.
Ramazan's cellphone had the capability to enter and display the Turkish letter "ı" or closed "i" -- without the dot -- whereas Emine's cellphone didn't have it.
All Turkish cellphones have the letter "i" but not all of them have the letter "ı".
Although Ramazan's cellphone transmitted the word "sıkısınca", which means to "run out of arguments", Emine's cellphone displayed what she read as "sikisince ", which means something like "they are fornicating you" in Turkish.
Events then spun out of hand fast. Emine showed the text message to her father who, in a rage, called Ramazan and accused him of calling Emine a prostitute.
Mortified, Ramazan went to the family's home to explain and apologise for the misunderstanding. He was met by Emine, her father, two sisters... and knives.
Bleeding and with a knife in his chest, Ramazan tried to escape. Emine was still trying to finish him off at the door when he managed to take the knife out of his chest and lashed back at her with it in self defence, seriously wounding Emine.
Ramazan escaped but was picked up by the police. Emine bled to death before an ambulance was able to reach the house through Ankara's crosstown traffic.
Injured and confused, according to Hurriyet (in Turkish), and perhaps fearing prison, revenge by Emine's family, or both, Ramazan committed suicide in jail.
Emine's father and sisters were arrested too, but there's no word as to whether they were ever charged or convicted of any crime related to this deadly melee.
Turkish press have called for better cellphone localisation to avoid such errors. µ
L'Inq
Gizmodo
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...how do you pronounce a dotless ı?
How does that current TV ad for mobile phones go ? 

Ah, yes; "A Connected World is a Better World".
It's a wild, wild West out there. Seriusly.
Haha, yeah it's CLEARLY the cellphone that needs to be fixed, clearly that's the issue.
And not better personal communication? Or anger management? 

Just like the press after a terrible tragedy... blame some stupid device because it's easier than blaming the people who chose to do wrong.... 

Does anyone seriously believe the cellphone made the family greet the young man with knives? Sigh.
Perhaps investing more into trying to not be a 3rd world country is what is needed.

21st century technology, 11th century mentality. w00t for behaving in a civil manner.
Do not use cellphone SMS for serious matters.
Even if localized properly, transmission errors can still occur.
It's a modern-day fairy tale.
I think Turkey has larger problems at hand than just cellphone localization...
But you know what, that relationship probably wasn't going to last anyway.
I couldn't help but notice that your "link" to the Turkish source for this story is nothing but an anchor, not a link at all.

The link's over on Gizmodo, but I never got to read the story. I was too busy reading all the comments. (Poor sister Tilde.)
this has been a problem for a while, and still is with online chatting programs like msn (if you run an english version and they run a turkish one). That dot above the i really does give it a whole new meaning....
...and I am hearing a thundering sigh of relief from some mobile phone SW companies that this did not happen on US territory. Else some company or other would be sure to sued to bits and eventually go broke over this matter.
You might want to visit www.darwinawards.com yourself and read up on the rules before making a claim that a story like this is appropriate for that site. Not only are "lovers quarrels" between two people exceedingly common (not to mention deaths resulting from these types of fights) but there's no self-selection occurring here either. This story wouldn't qualify for at least those two reasons.
As someone who is fluent in turkish, i can understand that the dotted "i" and the undotted "i" can cause confusion.
I am very confused about how the phone changed the "a" at the end of his word to an "e" that appeared on her phone (which would grammatically change the context and make it clear that's NOT what he meant).