Turkey

[skywalker]

Sometimes you think of odd thinks [img]smile.gif[/img] ...

Like what was named first, the country Turkey or the bird? Is there any connection at all? Curiouser and curiouser!



Mark

[Sio]

I dont have a clue to be honest! but I love both the country and the food [img]smile.gif[/img] Lovely people in the country, and the place itself is very beautiful, only downside is those people who scream thru the megaphones from the towers at 6 in the morning each day [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Neuromancer]

The term turkey was originally applied to the "Guinea-fowl", apparently because the bird was imported through Turkish territory. When the American bird we now know as the turkey was introduced to the British in the mid 16th century it reminded them of the " Guinea fowl " from Turkey and they called the bird a Turkey bird. ( Source : Ayto Dictionary of Word Origins)

The official name of the country is Turkiye Cumhuriyeti, which means "Republic of Turkey" . The Turkish government has announced that the word "TURKIYE" would be used on all official correspondences and documents - even international ones, where "Turkey" should be used instead.
The reason - to prevent the confusion that is caused by using the same word for the animal "turkey".
(Source : my ex-girlfriend, Turkish , so I consider that first-hand-info [img]smile.gif[/img] )

Neuro

[Neuromancer]

Originally posted by Sio: downside is those people who scream thru the megaphones from the towers at 6 in the morning each day [img]smile.gif[/img]

You get used to those. Their monotone droning actually put me back to sleep. Just wait 'till an important football match is scheduled. A lot of people don't sleep then ... and so you don't either [img]smile.gif[/img]

Neuro

[skywalker]

After much searching on Google, I found this page ( http://www.quinion.com/words/articles/turkey.htm ):

TALKING TURKEY
Names for a much-travelled bird

About 1530, a new dish began to be put on English tables, a fowl a little larger than the traditional goose, but with a lot more meat and a refreshingly new taste. This bird had been brought to England by merchants trading out of that area of the eastern Mediterranean called the Levant but whom the English called "Turkey merchants" because that whole area was then part of the Turkish empire. The new bird was therefore called a "Turkey bird", or "Turkey cock". Within a few years it had become a favourite and familiar domestic fowl, to the extent that, sixty years later, Shakespeare knew his groundlings would understand the reference to the turkey's aggression display of blowing out its breast and strutting when he described the posturings of Malvolio:

SIR TOBY BELCH: Here's an overwheening rogue!
FABIAN: O, peace! Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him; how he jets under his advanced plumes!
[Twelfth Night, Act 4, Scene 5]

The interesting thing about the mistake over the turkey's origins is that the English were the only people to believe they came from Turkey; nearly everyone else, including the Turks, thought they originated in India, or at least in the place they then thought was India. Turkeys actually came from Mexico and were first brought back from there about 1520, at a time when that area was called The Spanish Indies or the New Indies, illustrating the confusion in people's minds about the true location of this new land that Columbus had found. As a result, a lot of European languages, as well as others like Arabic and Hebrew, called it something like the "bird of India".

But in a few languages, including Danish, Dutch, German, Finnish and Norwegian, the bird was named instead as coming from Calicut (German Calecutishe Hahn, Dutch kalkoense hahn, Danish kalkun), which is a seaport on the Malabar coast of India, the same place after which calico is named. As the turkey didn't reach India for about a hundred years after its European introduction and naming, this looks mysteriously specific. But there may be an explanation. The turkey was introduced into Europe only about twenty years after the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama had pioneered the route round the Cape of Good Hope, up the east coast of Africa and across to India, where he landed in 1498 - at Calicut. It could be that people made the connection "bird of India" = "bird of Calicut" because they had heard about the Portuguese explorations and mistakenly thought the bird had been brought back from there, instead of the New Indies.

To compound the difficulties the English had with this immigrant, at about the same time, the 1530s, Portuguese merchants reintroduced the guinea-fowl from West Africa, which had last been seen in England at the time of the Romans. As it was the same Levant merchants who brought this into the country, the guinea fowl was also known for a time as the "Turkey bird", though this confusion didn't last long. For example, the heraldic arms granted to William Strickland in 1550 featured "a turkey-bird in his pride proper" and the bird shown is quite definitely a proper turkey. The only surviving instance of this confusion between the turkey and the guinea-fowl - but it's a big one - was caused by Linnaeus; when he invented the new generic name for the turkey and its relatives he called it meleagris, which had been the name in classical Rome for ... the guinea-fowl.

As an aside to this, and to illustrate the total confusion over its origins by everyone, when the turkey did arrive in India, it was brought there via the Spanish possessions in the East Indies, and one name for it was the "Peru bird", most probably because that was what the Portuguese, with their strong colonial presence in India, called it; still quite wrong, because there were no turkeys in Peru, but at least they had the right area of the world.

And the domestic turkey was re-introduced into North America from Britain, taken there circuitously by the colonists of New England and Virginia, who were surprised to find it living there wild. Benjamin Franklin once suggested its wild cousin should become the national bird of the United States. If of any country, it should be Mexico of course, but because of its wide travels and the total confusion over its origins, perhaps instead the turkey ought to be the official bird of the world.

References

Muir, Frank The Frank Muir Book, Corgi Books, 1976, pp325-6.
Tannahill, Reay Food in History, Penguin Books, 1988, pp 210-11.
Theriault, Alain The Turkey in LINGUIST List, Vol. 7, No. 174, 4 Feb 1996.

World Wide Words is copyright © Michael Quinion, 1996-. All rights reserved.
Page created 7 February 1996.

I found it interesting and perfect for today. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Mark

[ 11-28-2002, 08:12 AM: Message edited by: skywalker ]

[9_1_6]

Now why the hell would you want to talk about Turkey the animal and Turkey (TURKIYE) the country...
Skywalker, haven't you got better things to think about..?
Who cares what came first...? What difference is it going to make?

[ 11-28-2002, 11:24 AM: Message edited by: 9_1_6 ]

[skywalker]

Because it's Thanksgiving in America today?

Mark

[ 11-28-2002, 11:25 AM: Message edited by: skywalker ]

[skywalker]

Oh and BTW... on a day off from work... I don't have better things to think about, actually .

Mark

[Donut]

This the sort of thing that runs through my head all day. I have to find out or I won't sleep tonight. The other thin that is keeping me awake is the vacuum flask. It keeps hot things hot and cold things cold. How does it know?

[Donut]

And another thing. The Pilgrim Fathers set sale from Plymouth, sailed right across the Atlantic Ocean, and landed at Plymouth in Massachusetts. What are the odds on that! That's just too coincidental to be true. Personally I think it's one of those urban miffs.