Lack Of Labeling In A Foreign Language On Medicine And Food Packages In Turkey

Abstract

Food and drug labels have great importance, especially for some groups of society that suffer from allergies
or some diseases, and they must be in the local language of the people of the country. In Turkey, food and
drug labels must be in Turkish. Turkey is characterized by flexible laws that make it easier for foreigners to
reside there, and officials in Turkey do their utmost best to attract tourists. In this study, we studied the
effect of using the Turkish language only on food and drug labels. Foreigners, whether residents or tourists,
have been asked to complete a questionnaire seeking their opinions about the problems they face when
purchasing food and drug labels and ways to solve them. The study shows that a large percentage of the
participants (58.8%) faced problems because of the language used on food and drug labels, and this
encouraged most of them (80.2%) to bring their own medicines and food from their country and to try to
get their needs from stores that recruited people who speak their language or a language they understand.
Also, the absence of a foreign language on food and drug labels has had a negative impact on some tourists.
Therefore, we advise in this study to use another language such as English because of its positive impact on
the economy, whether directly or indirectly.