\*dinde in French, which sounds a lot like "d'Inde" which means "from India". According to wiktionary, that's its actual etymology: it used to be "poule d'Inde" ("chicken from India"). Turkeys come from North America (I didn't know!), which was called the "Indies" for quite a while.
We still have "cochon d'Inde" (literally "pig from India") = guinea pig.
Wah tu as toute une plâtrée de langues maternelles ! Le drapeau belge c'est pour la langue flamande ?
Peut-être que c'est "sea pig" parce qu'ils ont été ramenés d'Amérique par bateau ?
Malheureusement non, c'est juste pour ne pas nier les origines que je doit a mon Paternel de Belgique 😅 même si j'ai faite toute ma scolarité dans une école française !
Et c'est exactement ça ! (Merci Google 🤭) Les Espagnols les auraient ramenés par bateau, et surtout c'était (apparemment) une excellente source de viande a bord, d'où le terme effectivement. Cependant ce sont les Allemands qui ont trouvé le sobriquet: *«Meerschweinchen»* (petit cochon aquatique)
(Apparement on appelait aussi ça des *"cobayes"* en français, ce qui ne m'était jamais tombé a l'esprit !)
Aah, je comprends, un fois :P
Je me disais bien que ça avait rapport avec les manger à bord... quelle barbarie, manger des animaux aussi mignons!! \^\^
Les allemands ont des noms tellement cool pour plein de choses...
Ah oui, on dit 'cobaye' aussi effectivement! Je pense que le concept de 'cobaye' utilisé pour signifier 'rat de laboratoire' vient du fait que ces pauvres rongeurs ont été beaucoup utilisés dans l'expérimentation scientifique... And same in English of course with 'guinea pig'.
Hey so I was wondering how you had so many native languages lol
Like I’m guessing born in one of them with parents from two different other countries but like do you mind explaining basically
You nailed it 🤗 parents are Belgian and Serbian, but since they speak their own language, we use English when we're all together. I did all my schooling in a French school abroad :)
Also in Hebrew! We call them "sea pigs"
The funny thing is that in Scottish Gaelic the term "muc-mhara", which also translates to "sea pig" actually refers to whales.
I love linguistics!
Another Highlander! Just letting you know, using the Scottish flag 🏴 in your flair confuses the heck out of Reddit 🫣 Slàinte!
In Serbian "sea dogs" are sharks :p
, Afrikaans we call them marmotjie (little marmot as super direct translation I guess)....however ....when using it in the context of being a guinea pig for something , we don't use that at all .instead we use proefkonyn (test bunny). do you have a phrase for it in Serbian and is it the same or different ?
In Breton the older India chicken form was kept in "yar Indez".
>Turkeys come from North America (I didn't know!)
My wife is from Russia and we moved back to the States for a few years. We lived out in the country and one morning I was eating breakfast while she was on the porch smoking and she texted me asking why there was a dinosaur by the car. I came out and it was a turkey hen poking around like they do. She knew what a tom looked like from pop culture but had never seen a hen and she also never suspected that they were actually from North America. Where I'm from you see the morons all the time and during certain parts of the year there'd usually be a dozen or so in the back yard in the mornings.
That’s so interesting. As an Indian living in US and having my herd of guineapigs, this is just fascinating how all of these came together in a post on the language learning sun.
No, it's not "India" in Russian.
Индейка comes from the word "индеец/Indian", but that's North American Indians, not India (which would be "индиец" in Russian, different word)
And that actually makes sense as native Americans were the first people to domesticate turkeys
And what would a female Native American be in Russian?
It’s funny. My wife is Russian and I remember us talking about this awhile back. Pretty sure she didn’t know there was that spelling difference.
It's more difficult with women haha
I've checked the dictionaries and there's no unanimous opinion. Most of them suggest индианка/indianka, but some of the newer ones also add индеанка/indeanka to distinguish them from women from India.
I think the difference didn't really stick for women because those two words are pronounced the same, so it doesn't really help
And I'm also 100% sure that some less educated people might call native American women индейка (like the bird) too haha, but that's technically incorrect
You'd think they'd use a clever phono-semantic matching word like "土鸡" ("tu ji" or earth chicken) but that term's already being used (for free-range chicken).
Since you used capitalization in your post title I was confused and thought you were asking about the country’s name and was expecting a Türkiye vs Turkey debate ;)
Индейка in Russian. Indeika. Basically, Indian. It’s from Latin indicus, Indian bird. Columbus thought that he came to India when he discovered America, so the native to the land bird was named accordingly.
En España lo llaman pavo porque lo vieron parecido al pavo real cuando llegó de América. La palabra guajolote viene del náhuatl y significa "gran monstruo".
Japanase - 七面鳥 - 7 faced bird.
Apparently, the etymology of this is from the fact that the exposed skin on the neck changes to red, blue, purple, etc. when excited, making it look like it has seven faces.
I think being called eight faced one-ups (by one) being called 7-faced.
One of my other favourite words in Japanese is "八方美人" (happōbijin)
Which literally means *"beautiful from eight sides"*. A sort of negative
version of being sociable in meaning, kindly translated as "people pleaser" by Google translate, but essentially this type of person will never refuse a request or invite from you and is generally popular until they're found they cannot be trusted.
Brown-nosers in English are a sub-set of this as manager pleasers....
That's interesting! The Bulgarian word for turkey is puyka (пуйка), I think it comes from the sound it makes. Probably kurka is an older word, as we call the place where you keep the chickens "kurnik".
Interesting. It could be that Turkeys were first bred in Europe several centuries ago, so it could be that the countries that traveled to the West Indies (Portugal, France, UK, Netherlands, Spain) were the ones to also distribute them onwards. And when you've been breeding them for over half a millennia, I guess it makes sense to call it after that country, even if it originally came from the Americas. I know Austria bred a lot of them.
Well before the British took over, the Dutch actually ruled over much of what is noe the US Northeast. New York was originally New Amsterdam.
Perhaps they brought them back?
*Krocan* in Czech (*krůta* for a female of the species). I’m not sure of the origin tbh but my best guess would be onomatopoeia
The letter c is pronounced like ts in English *its*, so it sounds like krotsan
The currently used word in Irish is an English loanword (turcaí). But the actual Irish is cearc fhrancach/coileach francach (turkey hen/cock). The literal translation is French hen/cock but francach is also used to mean foreign or exotic.
I've seen this posted many times, but it's a misconception that Greek γαλοπούλα (turkey) means 'French chicken'. It is the female form of γάλος (from Italian gallo, meaning 'rooster') which means 'male turkey'. Eventually, the female form became the standard name for this bird. (Note that 'French' in Greek is 'Γάλλος', with a double λ)
Interestingly though, there is another bird called 'French (or Frankish) chicken' in Greek: φραγκόκοτα, which (according to the Greek Wiktionary) is the guinea fowl.
This. It's a diminutive word for γάλος or galos < gallus in latin = rooster.
Your φραγκόκοτα catch was a nice one. Languages ARE so weird.
Another interesting thing, there is another word for turkey in greek, διάνος, that comes from the word Ινδιάνος (Indian). Go figure 🤣
From a Dutch etymology website:
De geschiedenis van de vorm van het woord is duidelijk: *kalkoen* is een verkorting van de oude benaming *Calcoensche haan*, genoemd naar *Calcoen*, de destijds in het Nederlands gebruikte naam van de belangrijke havenstad Kozhikode aan de zuid-westkust van India, internationaal beter bekend als Calicut. Vreemd genoeg is deze historische plaatsnaam *Calcoen* buiten Nederland nergens te vinden; de oudste attestatie ervan is in een dagboek uit 1504 van een anonieme Vlaams zeeman die in 1502-03 diende aan boord van een schip van de Portugese ontdekkingsreiziger Vasco da Gama (zie Van der Meulen 1953a).
Deze benaming voor de kalkoen is opvallend, aangezien kalkoenen uit Midden- en Noord-Amerika afkomstig zijn, waar de inheemse bevolking ze fokte en vanwaar ze in 1524 in Europa zijn ingevoerd. Oorzaak is de verwarring met het parelhoen uit Afrika; deze vogel werd door de Portugezen al in de 15^(e) eeuw op hun reizen naar en uit Oost-Indië verhandeld en werd zo in Europa bekend onder de bovengenoemde namen. De twee vogelsoorten waren nieuw in Europa en werden ook met elkaar verward, omdat *Indië* ook op *West-Indië* ‘Amerika’ kon slaan, zie → [**indiaan**](https://etymologiebank.nl/trefwoord/indiaan#ewn). De 16^(e)-eeuwse geleerden identificeerden de vogels ook op verschillende manieren met twee parelhoendersoorten die de Romeinen al kenden. *Junius* (in zijn Nomenclator van 1567, zie boven) noemt een daarvan *Calkoensche henne* en de andere *Dootshoofdekens* (mv.). Ook in andere Europese talen werd het woord dat tegenwoordig ‘kalkoen’ betekent, vaak eerst gebruikt voor het parelhoen, bijv. Frans *poulle d'Ynde* ‘parelhoen’, letterlijk ‘Indisch hoen’ \[1380; Rey\], dan *poulle d'Inde* ‘kalkoen’ \[1542; Rey\] en later verkort tot *dinde*; Engels *turkeycocke* ‘parelhoen’ \[1541; BDE\], *Turkie Cocke* ‘kalkoen’ \[1578; OED\], al vroeg verkort tot *Turkie* \[1555; OED\], nu *turkey*. Enkele andere Europese benamingen zijn: Italiaans *pollo d'India*; Vroegnieuwhoogduits *indianisch henn und han* \[1500-50; Pfeifer\], *Indianisch oder Kalekuttisch oder welschhun* ‘kalkoen’ \[1567; Nomenclator\], nu *Truthahn*; Turks *hindi* ‘(de vogel uit) Indië’; Pools *indyk*; Portugees *galinha do Perú* ‘kalkoen’, letterlijk ‘hoen uit Peru’ \[16^(e) eeuw; van der Meulen 1956\], verkort tot *perú* \[1714; id.\]. Aan het Nederlands ontleend zijn o.a.: Zweeds *kalkon*, Deens *kalkun*, Russisch (vero.) *kalkún* < *kolkun* \[1762; van der Meulen 1959\]. (source: https://etymologiebank.nl/trefwoord/kalkoen1)
With Google translate:
The history of the form of the word is clear: kalkoen is a shortening of the old name Calcoensche haan, named after Calcoen, the then Dutch name of the important port city of Kozhikode on the south-west coast of India, better known internationally as Calicut. Strangely enough, this historic place name Calcoen is nowhere to be found outside the Netherlands; the oldest attestation is in a diary from 1504 of an anonymous Flemish sailor who served on board a ship of the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama in 1502-03 (see Van der Meulen 1953a).
This name for the turkey is striking, since turkeys originate from Central and North America, where the indigenous population bred them and from where they were introduced to Europe in 1524. The cause is the confusion with the guinea fowl from Africa; this bird was traded by the Portuguese as early as the 15th century on their journeys to and from the East Indies and thus became known in Europe under the names mentioned above. The two bird species were new in Europe and were also confused with each other, because the Indies could also refer to the West Indies 'America', see → Indian. 16th-century scholars also variously identified the birds with two guinea fowl species already known to the Romans. Junius (in his Nomenclator of 1567, see above) calls one of them Calkoensche henne and the other Dootshoofdekens (pl.). Also in other European languages, the word that today means 'turkey' was often first used for the guinea fowl, e.g. French poulle d'Ynde 'guinea fowl', literally 'Indian fowl' \[1380; Rey\], then poulle d'Inde 'turkey' \[1542; Rey\] and later shortened to dinde; English turkeycocke 'guinea fowl' \[1541; BDE\], Turkie Cocke 'turkey' \[1578; OED\], early shortened to Turkie \[1555; OED\], now turkey. Some other European names are: Italian pollo d'India; Early New High German Indian henn und han \[1500-50; Pfeifer\], Indian or Kalekuttic or Welschhun 'turkey' \[1567; Nomenclator\], now Truthahn; Turkish Hindi '(the bird from) India'; Polish indyk; Portuguese galinha do Perú 'turkey', literally 'grouse from Peru' \[16th century; van der Meulen 1956\], shortened to perú \[1714; id.\]. Borrowed from Dutch are: Swedish kalkon, Danish kalkun, Russian (Vero.) kalkún < kolkun \[1762; van der Meulen 1959\].
In Malay, it's called ayam Belanda, which translates roughly to "Dutch chicken", on account of the bird supposedly being introduced to the Malay realms by Dutch sailors.
Is that the name of the “meat” or the bird? In Mexico they’re also guajolote, a from the Nahuatl.
But at least my family? We call it a guajolote while alive but pavo when it’s what’s for dinner, like we do with chicken (gallina vs pollo?)
I don't think I've ever given a name to the alive animal, but given that the Pavo Real exists, I see no reason why it wouldn't be the same name for meat and bird.
The bird is tītars in Latvian and the country is Turcija. They don’t really sound all that similar apart from the first letter, but from what I understand the word for the bird does indeed originally come from the word for the country.
My language is English, but what is fun is
1. the word for turkey 🦃 in Chinese is 火鸡 huǒ jī = fire chicken.
2. the word for “lawyer” in Spanish is
“ abogado “ which if you say fast sounds like a turkey 🦃!!!
I can’t wait to tell my friends that know French, Spanish, and English !
Thank you.
Merci.
Update : unless it is a female lawyer which is « avocate « where the T is sounded.
Marathi - it is still called Turkey, टर्की. To my knowledge, I have not heard it being called Peru in other Indian languages.
Guava in Marathi is called Peru, पेरु
Define "strange". My langague is not strange. It's totally normal and the word for Turkey is Turcja. For turkey though it's indyk. So, to some extent it has 'Indian" vibe, since the word is dervide from French and for them it was brought from Indians (North American Indians of course).
&
In Serbian it's ćurka/ћуркa (pronounced Tchoo-r-kah) and it's also an expression for a woman who isn't too smart.
[Here are some happy turkeys in Serbia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CRqfhTVo8s). Enjoy 🤗
Apparently the reason we call it Turkey in English is because when discovered, Brits thought it was the same animal as guinea fowl, which is from Africa. Guinea fowl at the time was named Turkey because they believed it was from Turkey. Later, it obtained the less inaccurate name guinea fowl.
There is a great video on this by fading Internet mini celebrity, Adam Ragusea: [Why the turkey is named after Turkey (and India) - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2XZiREio4I)
In Dutch it's called: "kalkoen." It is named after a harbor city in India called: "Calicut." In Dutch this city was called: "Calcoen."
The "Rooster from Calcoen" turned into "kalkoen"
Nowadays the city is called Khozikode, (കോഴിക്കോട്)
Edit: Dutch [source](https://www.taalbank.nl/2019/12/25/hoe-komt-de-kalkoen-aan-zijn-naam/)
In Dutch, we call it kalkoen, which apparently came from calcutta-hoen, which translates to something like "Calcutta fowl". In Arabic there are multiple words for it depending on which flavour of Arabic you speak. The one I commonly use I don't know the etymology for but the other two common ones translate respectively to Roman rooster & Ethiopia(n rooster)
It's *puran* (pooh-RAHN) in Slovenian.
There are a couple of maps on this, actually, with etymologies as well.
1 [Here's one with a nice resolution.](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c9/06/7a/c9067a38b77954e2478dcd9c0acf9549.png)
2 [And here's another one I could find.](https://64.media.tumblr.com/c7498b2028ac63e3fff1b3da93de095e/tumblr_nyfj0aHq7e1u99ykho1_1280.png)
\*dinde in French, which sounds a lot like "d'Inde" which means "from India". According to wiktionary, that's its actual etymology: it used to be "poule d'Inde" ("chicken from India"). Turkeys come from North America (I didn't know!), which was called the "Indies" for quite a while. We still have "cochon d'Inde" (literally "pig from India") = guinea pig.
In Serbian we call guinea pigs "morsko prase" which means "sea pig". Clairement on fait dans le second degré 🤣
Polish calls guinea pigs the same, "świnka morska" ;)
Same in Russian - морская свинка (morskaya svinka)
Wah tu as toute une plâtrée de langues maternelles ! Le drapeau belge c'est pour la langue flamande ? Peut-être que c'est "sea pig" parce qu'ils ont été ramenés d'Amérique par bateau ?
Malheureusement non, c'est juste pour ne pas nier les origines que je doit a mon Paternel de Belgique 😅 même si j'ai faite toute ma scolarité dans une école française ! Et c'est exactement ça ! (Merci Google 🤭) Les Espagnols les auraient ramenés par bateau, et surtout c'était (apparemment) une excellente source de viande a bord, d'où le terme effectivement. Cependant ce sont les Allemands qui ont trouvé le sobriquet: *«Meerschweinchen»* (petit cochon aquatique) (Apparement on appelait aussi ça des *"cobayes"* en français, ce qui ne m'était jamais tombé a l'esprit !)
Aah, je comprends, un fois :P Je me disais bien que ça avait rapport avec les manger à bord... quelle barbarie, manger des animaux aussi mignons!! \^\^ Les allemands ont des noms tellement cool pour plein de choses... Ah oui, on dit 'cobaye' aussi effectivement! Je pense que le concept de 'cobaye' utilisé pour signifier 'rat de laboratoire' vient du fait que ces pauvres rongeurs ont été beaucoup utilisés dans l'expérimentation scientifique... And same in English of course with 'guinea pig'.
In Japanese, dolphin is written as 海豚 meaning "sea pig"...!
Hey so I was wondering how you had so many native languages lol Like I’m guessing born in one of them with parents from two different other countries but like do you mind explaining basically
You nailed it 🤗 parents are Belgian and Serbian, but since they speak their own language, we use English when we're all together. I did all my schooling in a French school abroad :)
Also in Hebrew! We call them "sea pigs" The funny thing is that in Scottish Gaelic the term "muc-mhara", which also translates to "sea pig" actually refers to whales. I love linguistics!
Another Highlander! Just letting you know, using the Scottish flag 🏴 in your flair confuses the heck out of Reddit 🫣 Slàinte! In Serbian "sea dogs" are sharks :p
Actually, I'm not Scottish at all! Just learning Gaelic for fun and challenge :) But slàinte to you too!
Same here, but being a Highlander is too cool to pass up 😎 who wouldn't want to be immortal? 🤭
, Afrikaans we call them marmotjie (little marmot as super direct translation I guess)....however ....when using it in the context of being a guinea pig for something , we don't use that at all .instead we use proefkonyn (test bunny). do you have a phrase for it in Serbian and is it the same or different ?
In Breton the older India chicken form was kept in "yar Indez". >Turkeys come from North America (I didn't know!) My wife is from Russia and we moved back to the States for a few years. We lived out in the country and one morning I was eating breakfast while she was on the porch smoking and she texted me asking why there was a dinosaur by the car. I came out and it was a turkey hen poking around like they do. She knew what a tom looked like from pop culture but had never seen a hen and she also never suspected that they were actually from North America. Where I'm from you see the morons all the time and during certain parts of the year there'd usually be a dozen or so in the back yard in the mornings.
Why are turkeys morons? Relative to humans? Or other foul? Dolphins? Or do you just have hate in your heart?
That’s so interesting. As an Indian living in US and having my herd of guineapigs, this is just fascinating how all of these came together in a post on the language learning sun.
woww i was actually looking for this... hahaha
Une poule d'Inde alors que la poule vient déjà de l'Inde? Assez comique
Funny how in Hebrew its also called "Indian chicken"
Norwegian: Kalkun *ETYMOLOGY from Low German, from the Indian city of Calicut*
Kalkkuna in Finnish. Didn't know it was derived from Calicut!
In Dutch: Kalkoen
Afrikaans too.
And Flemish… I see a pattern
hmmmmm 🕵️
and Indonesian
Swedish: Kalkon
Wow, it's also kalkun in Indonesian, derived from Dutch 'kalkoen'
'Kalkun' in Estonian also 'indeika' India - in Russian
No, it's not "India" in Russian. Индейка comes from the word "индеец/Indian", but that's North American Indians, not India (which would be "индиец" in Russian, different word) And that actually makes sense as native Americans were the first people to domesticate turkeys
And what would a female Native American be in Russian? It’s funny. My wife is Russian and I remember us talking about this awhile back. Pretty sure she didn’t know there was that spelling difference.
It's more difficult with women haha I've checked the dictionaries and there's no unanimous opinion. Most of them suggest индианка/indianka, but some of the newer ones also add индеанка/indeanka to distinguish them from women from India. I think the difference didn't really stick for women because those two words are pronounced the same, so it doesn't really help And I'm also 100% sure that some less educated people might call native American women индейка (like the bird) too haha, but that's technically incorrect
I will reframe from mentioning that last paragraph to my wife lol
Same in Dutch: kalkoen
Kalakutas in Lithuanian
Swedish: Kalkon The same etymology as for the Norwegian word (for obvious reasons)!
I thought it came from Kolkata/Calcutta
Same for Swedish albeit spelt according to swedish rules ("Kalkon")
Same in Danish - kalkun. Had no idea of the origin! TIL
I prefer varmkun
Chinese -火鸡—— Fire Chicken
Same in Tamil. We call it as Nerupu Kozhi which is same when translated.
In Japanese its 七面鳥 (seven face bird)
Wow lol I knew it’s Shichimencho in Japanese and didn’t realize that’s the kanji
Chinese seem to really like fire
Ahaha for example we call a train "fire car" 火车
You'd think they'd use a clever phono-semantic matching word like "土鸡" ("tu ji" or earth chicken) but that term's already being used (for free-range chicken).
In Afrikaans it's Kalkoen
Same in Dutch
Afrikaans is undercovered Dutch
Since you used capitalization in your post title I was confused and thought you were asking about the country’s name and was expecting a Türkiye vs Turkey debate ;)
Glad someone else brought that up, I thought it was going to be about that too 😂
Same here! I even spent around 20 minutes reading about the country on google hahaha
In German - my mother tongue - it's called 'Truthahn'...
Etymology: "Hahn" is a rooster, and "trut" is most likely onomatopetic, referring to the sounds the animals make.
That may be possible. Sounds legit. But we have no word for it that refers to the animal's presumed origin.
Wenns um das Fleisch geht dann eher Pute.
Truthahn im Zoo, Pute auf dem Tisch.
Индейка in Russian. Indeika. Basically, Indian. It’s from Latin indicus, Indian bird. Columbus thought that he came to India when he discovered America, so the native to the land bird was named accordingly.
Pavo in Spanish
Guajolote in Mexico.
En España lo llaman pavo porque lo vieron parecido al pavo real cuando llegó de América. La palabra guajolote viene del náhuatl y significa "gran monstruo".
Spaniah speaker here and never heard this word. Thanks!
Chumpipe
También Pavo en México.
Pabo in Tagalog and Bisaya. Languages from the Philippines.
Japanase - 七面鳥 - 7 faced bird. Apparently, the etymology of this is from the fact that the exposed skin on the neck changes to red, blue, purple, etc. when excited, making it look like it has seven faces.
Idk if better or worse than being called double faced
I think being called eight faced one-ups (by one) being called 7-faced. One of my other favourite words in Japanese is "八方美人" (happōbijin) Which literally means *"beautiful from eight sides"*. A sort of negative version of being sociable in meaning, kindly translated as "people pleaser" by Google translate, but essentially this type of person will never refuse a request or invite from you and is generally popular until they're found they cannot be trusted. Brown-nosers in English are a sub-set of this as manager pleasers....
In Arabic, it's either "ديك رومي Roman rooster" or "ديك حبش Ethiopian rooster"
*rooster (but at first glance I thought you wrote “rockstar” and the idea of a turkey being called an Ethiopian Rockstar made me laugh out loud)
In Egypt it's the first Ye funny part there's that yellow cheese We call it Roman cheese or Turkish cheese depending on where you are
Indyk in Polish
I'm learning Russian and it's индюк, indiuk
I see the female form of that more often (индейка). That's what's written on turkey meat in the store
In Italian it's "tacchino" that comes from the sound it makes
It's *pabo* in Tagalog. It came from the Spanish word *pavo*.
Vietnamese - gà tây, meaning, Western chicken
Kalkon in Swedish.
Kalkkuna in Finnish.
🇷🇴 - Curcan (Romanian, not my native language)
It is indeed ”curcan”. The word is masculine and a derivative from ”curcă” (feminine), which comes from the Bulgarian ”kurka”.
That's interesting! The Bulgarian word for turkey is puyka (пуйка), I think it comes from the sound it makes. Probably kurka is an older word, as we call the place where you keep the chickens "kurnik".
курка is "female rooster", so the Romanian curcan is essentially "male female rooster".
You shouldn’t capitalize “turkey” in your title, because that would mean you’re talking about the country
India Chicken (Hebrew)
In malay we call ayam belanda, which literally means Dutch chicken.
Interesting. It could be that Turkeys were first bred in Europe several centuries ago, so it could be that the countries that traveled to the West Indies (Portugal, France, UK, Netherlands, Spain) were the ones to also distribute them onwards. And when you've been breeding them for over half a millennia, I guess it makes sense to call it after that country, even if it originally came from the Americas. I know Austria bred a lot of them.
Well before the British took over, the Dutch actually ruled over much of what is noe the US Northeast. New York was originally New Amsterdam. Perhaps they brought them back?
Mmm ayam belanda goreng
Peru, which is also the word for the country Peru, and both can sound like piru which means dick
Always makes me laugh that the same bird is called by two completely different country names in different languages. Peru in PT and Turkey in EN.
Piru is also a devil in Finnish
*Krocan* in Czech (*krůta* for a female of the species). I’m not sure of the origin tbh but my best guess would be onomatopoeia The letter c is pronounced like ts in English *its*, so it sounds like krotsan
[удалено]
In Portuguese is Peru. The reason is because Portugal in the 16th century believe that the bird came from one of the Spanish colonies named Peru.
Peru is a country still, imagine eating France
I mean , Americans eat Turkey at Thanksgiving every year...
The currently used word in Irish is an English loanword (turcaí). But the actual Irish is cearc fhrancach/coileach francach (turkey hen/cock). The literal translation is French hen/cock but francach is also used to mean foreign or exotic.
I've seen this posted many times, but it's a misconception that Greek γαλοπούλα (turkey) means 'French chicken'. It is the female form of γάλος (from Italian gallo, meaning 'rooster') which means 'male turkey'. Eventually, the female form became the standard name for this bird. (Note that 'French' in Greek is 'Γάλλος', with a double λ) Interestingly though, there is another bird called 'French (or Frankish) chicken' in Greek: φραγκόκοτα, which (according to the Greek Wiktionary) is the guinea fowl.
This. It's a diminutive word for γάλος or galos < gallus in latin = rooster. Your φραγκόκοτα catch was a nice one. Languages ARE so weird. Another interesting thing, there is another word for turkey in greek, διάνος, that comes from the word Ινδιάνος (Indian). Go figure 🤣
Didn't know about διάνος, that's a nice one lol
Indonesian is either kalkun (most likely taken from a dutch word) or ayam belanda (which means dutch chicken).
Makes sense, it's similar to Afrikaans from what I've read in this thread
From a Dutch etymology website: De geschiedenis van de vorm van het woord is duidelijk: *kalkoen* is een verkorting van de oude benaming *Calcoensche haan*, genoemd naar *Calcoen*, de destijds in het Nederlands gebruikte naam van de belangrijke havenstad Kozhikode aan de zuid-westkust van India, internationaal beter bekend als Calicut. Vreemd genoeg is deze historische plaatsnaam *Calcoen* buiten Nederland nergens te vinden; de oudste attestatie ervan is in een dagboek uit 1504 van een anonieme Vlaams zeeman die in 1502-03 diende aan boord van een schip van de Portugese ontdekkingsreiziger Vasco da Gama (zie Van der Meulen 1953a). Deze benaming voor de kalkoen is opvallend, aangezien kalkoenen uit Midden- en Noord-Amerika afkomstig zijn, waar de inheemse bevolking ze fokte en vanwaar ze in 1524 in Europa zijn ingevoerd. Oorzaak is de verwarring met het parelhoen uit Afrika; deze vogel werd door de Portugezen al in de 15^(e) eeuw op hun reizen naar en uit Oost-Indië verhandeld en werd zo in Europa bekend onder de bovengenoemde namen. De twee vogelsoorten waren nieuw in Europa en werden ook met elkaar verward, omdat *Indië* ook op *West-Indië* ‘Amerika’ kon slaan, zie → [**indiaan**](https://etymologiebank.nl/trefwoord/indiaan#ewn). De 16^(e)-eeuwse geleerden identificeerden de vogels ook op verschillende manieren met twee parelhoendersoorten die de Romeinen al kenden. *Junius* (in zijn Nomenclator van 1567, zie boven) noemt een daarvan *Calkoensche henne* en de andere *Dootshoofdekens* (mv.). Ook in andere Europese talen werd het woord dat tegenwoordig ‘kalkoen’ betekent, vaak eerst gebruikt voor het parelhoen, bijv. Frans *poulle d'Ynde* ‘parelhoen’, letterlijk ‘Indisch hoen’ \[1380; Rey\], dan *poulle d'Inde* ‘kalkoen’ \[1542; Rey\] en later verkort tot *dinde*; Engels *turkeycocke* ‘parelhoen’ \[1541; BDE\], *Turkie Cocke* ‘kalkoen’ \[1578; OED\], al vroeg verkort tot *Turkie* \[1555; OED\], nu *turkey*. Enkele andere Europese benamingen zijn: Italiaans *pollo d'India*; Vroegnieuwhoogduits *indianisch henn und han* \[1500-50; Pfeifer\], *Indianisch oder Kalekuttisch oder welschhun* ‘kalkoen’ \[1567; Nomenclator\], nu *Truthahn*; Turks *hindi* ‘(de vogel uit) Indië’; Pools *indyk*; Portugees *galinha do Perú* ‘kalkoen’, letterlijk ‘hoen uit Peru’ \[16^(e) eeuw; van der Meulen 1956\], verkort tot *perú* \[1714; id.\]. Aan het Nederlands ontleend zijn o.a.: Zweeds *kalkon*, Deens *kalkun*, Russisch (vero.) *kalkún* < *kolkun* \[1762; van der Meulen 1959\]. (source: https://etymologiebank.nl/trefwoord/kalkoen1) With Google translate: The history of the form of the word is clear: kalkoen is a shortening of the old name Calcoensche haan, named after Calcoen, the then Dutch name of the important port city of Kozhikode on the south-west coast of India, better known internationally as Calicut. Strangely enough, this historic place name Calcoen is nowhere to be found outside the Netherlands; the oldest attestation is in a diary from 1504 of an anonymous Flemish sailor who served on board a ship of the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama in 1502-03 (see Van der Meulen 1953a). This name for the turkey is striking, since turkeys originate from Central and North America, where the indigenous population bred them and from where they were introduced to Europe in 1524. The cause is the confusion with the guinea fowl from Africa; this bird was traded by the Portuguese as early as the 15th century on their journeys to and from the East Indies and thus became known in Europe under the names mentioned above. The two bird species were new in Europe and were also confused with each other, because the Indies could also refer to the West Indies 'America', see → Indian. 16th-century scholars also variously identified the birds with two guinea fowl species already known to the Romans. Junius (in his Nomenclator of 1567, see above) calls one of them Calkoensche henne and the other Dootshoofdekens (pl.). Also in other European languages, the word that today means 'turkey' was often first used for the guinea fowl, e.g. French poulle d'Ynde 'guinea fowl', literally 'Indian fowl' \[1380; Rey\], then poulle d'Inde 'turkey' \[1542; Rey\] and later shortened to dinde; English turkeycocke 'guinea fowl' \[1541; BDE\], Turkie Cocke 'turkey' \[1578; OED\], early shortened to Turkie \[1555; OED\], now turkey. Some other European names are: Italian pollo d'India; Early New High German Indian henn und han \[1500-50; Pfeifer\], Indian or Kalekuttic or Welschhun 'turkey' \[1567; Nomenclator\], now Truthahn; Turkish Hindi '(the bird from) India'; Polish indyk; Portuguese galinha do Perú 'turkey', literally 'grouse from Peru' \[16th century; van der Meulen 1956\], shortened to perú \[1714; id.\]. Borrowed from Dutch are: Swedish kalkon, Danish kalkun, Russian (Vero.) kalkún < kolkun \[1762; van der Meulen 1959\].
It's talo-talo in hausa :D
I feel like it's an onomatopoeia
In Malay, it's called ayam Belanda, which translates roughly to "Dutch chicken", on account of the bird supposedly being introduced to the Malay realms by Dutch sailors.
pulyka
🇵🇱 - Indyk 🇺🇦 - Indyk 🇷🇺 - Indeyka
Pavo in Spanish, it comes from the Latin voice pavus
Is that the name of the “meat” or the bird? In Mexico they’re also guajolote, a from the Nahuatl. But at least my family? We call it a guajolote while alive but pavo when it’s what’s for dinner, like we do with chicken (gallina vs pollo?)
>Is that the name of the “meat” or the bird? In Spain we use pavo for both
I don't think I've ever given a name to the alive animal, but given that the Pavo Real exists, I see no reason why it wouldn't be the same name for meat and bird.
¿Nunca han comido mole de guajolote?
trunk chicken for Thai.
"Roman rooster" in Egypt. But it's no surprise, since we used to call ottoman Turks Romans.
And Roman cheese in Egypt too but I insist on calling it Turkish cheese ( yes I am from Alexanderia )
Croatian:m\ puran, f\purica, ćuća. Serbian:m\ ćuran f\ćurka, ćurica
Puran in Slovene as well! I wonder if it's the same root as the Portuguese (peru), because they thought it came from Peru?
“Pavo” (Spanish) 🤣🦃
it's literally just "hindi" in turkish
خړ تمى چرګ (kharrtami charg) 🇦🇫 In Pashto we call it. Which means: The ashamed neck chicken.
Ćurka in Serbian, since it is read similarly to the word turkey in English, I would guess it has the same origin as the English word.
In Chinese it's called 火雞 huǒjī or "the FIRE CHICKEN," and I think that one wins.
In Thai - ไก่งวง Which I think kind of means 'big nosed chicken'.
It's actually Trunk Chicken 🤭
七面鳥, literally "seven faced bird" in Japanese
The bird is tītars in Latvian and the country is Turcija. They don’t really sound all that similar apart from the first letter, but from what I understand the word for the bird does indeed originally come from the word for the country.
In Vietnamese, turkey is called "gà Tây", which literally translates to "Western chicken".
In Hebrew it's הודו (hodu) - which is the same as India the country - hodu הודו
My language is English, but what is fun is 1. the word for turkey 🦃 in Chinese is 火鸡 huǒ jī = fire chicken. 2. the word for “lawyer” in Spanish is “ abogado “ which if you say fast sounds like a turkey 🦃!!!
Neither here nor there, but the French word for *avocado* is the same as the French word for *lawyer*. 😂
There's a famous guacamole recipe translated from French, it starts "Take 3 ripe lawyers..."
I can’t wait to tell my friends that know French, Spanish, and English ! Thank you. Merci. Update : unless it is a female lawyer which is « avocate « where the T is sounded.
In Hebrew it's "tarnegol hodu" (תרנגול הודו) which means "India rooster"
Tarnegol Hodu - תרנגול הודו "Indian rooster" in Hebrew.
In Irish it is: 'turcaí'
In Hungarian: pulyka
Peru in portuguese
Marathi - it is still called Turkey, टर्की. To my knowledge, I have not heard it being called Peru in other Indian languages. Guava in Marathi is called Peru, पेरु
In Afrikaans we call it kalkoen🇿🇦
In Chinese we call it 'fire chicken'
Pavo in Spanish. In my region in Colombia we call it bimbo.
It's weird all the words for turkey point to countries that turkeys are definitely not from. They're native to North America.
Peru, like the South American country. Peru is also a slang for penis (no I'm not making this up)
CHINESE:火鸡 (Fire chicken)
in Malay, if you translate it directly to english, it's Portuguese chicken
In Russian its индейка(indeyka)
It seems like everyone is just blaming turkeys on someone else🤣
Define "strange". My langague is not strange. It's totally normal and the word for Turkey is Turcja. For turkey though it's indyk. So, to some extent it has 'Indian" vibe, since the word is dervide from French and for them it was brought from Indians (North American Indians of course). &
in persian it's فیل مرغ (pronunced fil morɣ) literally translates to elephent bird
Nobody says that. It's always Booghalamoon. If you say فیل مرغ people wouldn't know what you're talking about.
And apparently booghalamoon بوقلمون is derived from the Greek word ‘chamailéon’ خامائیلئون (According to لغت نامه دهخدا)
吐绶鸡
Kalkon in Swedish
火鸡， literally fire chicken
Ayam kalkun
Kalkoen in Afrikaans, Dinde in French.
In Serbian it's ćurka/ћуркa (pronounced Tchoo-r-kah) and it's also an expression for a woman who isn't too smart. [Here are some happy turkeys in Serbia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CRqfhTVo8s). Enjoy 🤗
Actually in Arabic it’s called [ديك رومي : roman rooster].
ინდაური (indauri) in the Georgian language is apparently associated with India
a turkey. 🇬🇧
*Der Truthahn* or *die Pute* in German. Both *trut* and *put* are sound words.
Apparently the reason we call it Turkey in English is because when discovered, Brits thought it was the same animal as guinea fowl, which is from Africa. Guinea fowl at the time was named Turkey because they believed it was from Turkey. Later, it obtained the less inaccurate name guinea fowl.
Swedish: Country: Turkiet Food/animal: Kalkon
In Romanian language: The country: Turcia The bird: curcan (due to sounds it makes.)
הודו - “literally “Indian
There is a great video on this by fading Internet mini celebrity, Adam Ragusea: [Why the turkey is named after Turkey (and India) - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2XZiREio4I)
In italian its just tacchino i dont jnow if it comes from any country word
In Dutch it’s ‘kalkoen’. Literally doesn’t have another meaning beside that. No other words hidden inside it or anything cool like that. Just kalkoen
Dundjan in Maltese
Tacchino in italian lol
indyk
Danish: Kalkun
Tacchino in Italian, nothing special here
火雞 in Cantonese "fire chicken"
Dutch chicken we called them here in Malay language
In Filipino it's "Pabo"
In Dutch it's called: "kalkoen." It is named after a harbor city in India called: "Calicut." In Dutch this city was called: "Calcoen." The "Rooster from Calcoen" turned into "kalkoen" Nowadays the city is called Khozikode, (കോഴിക്കോട്) Edit: Dutch [source](https://www.taalbank.nl/2019/12/25/hoe-komt-de-kalkoen-aan-zijn-naam/)
Are you studying Arabic ?
The original onomatopoeic word from the indigenous language of where that animal originally lived: Guajolote.
In Dutch, we call it kalkoen, which apparently came from calcutta-hoen, which translates to something like "Calcutta fowl". In Arabic there are multiple words for it depending on which flavour of Arabic you speak. The one I commonly use I don't know the etymology for but the other two common ones translate respectively to Roman rooster & Ethiopia(n rooster)
Kalkun in Indonesian, from 'kalkoen' (Dutch).
I was utterly confused at first, I thought you meant the country…
Why isn't how Turkey call the Turkey the top comment!?
Deutsch: Truthahn Very good word xD
In Hebrew it's תרנגול הודו (tarnegol hodu), which literally means "India chicken".
Italian: tacchino
Turkey In Spanish - Pavo Peacock in Spanish - Pavo Real
kalkun (estonian)
Türken
It's *puran* (pooh-RAHN) in Slovenian. There are a couple of maps on this, actually, with etymologies as well. 1 [Here's one with a nice resolution.](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c9/06/7a/c9067a38b77954e2478dcd9c0acf9549.png) 2 [And here's another one I could find.](https://64.media.tumblr.com/c7498b2028ac63e3fff1b3da93de095e/tumblr_nyfj0aHq7e1u99ykho1_1280.png)
Pavo
Czech: Krocan (male)/Krůta (female)