Word of the Moment: Turkey

Football.  Pumpkin Pie. Gravy.  Mmmm, gravy.  There are many reasons to love Thanksgiving, not the least of which, in my opinion, is the lack of obligatory holiday shopping.  There are also lots of reasons to love Turkey: extensive archaeological sights, legendary hospitality and cheap smokes.  If you're confused, you're not the only one.  I once saw a debate on Turkish television in which a radical cleric condemned  Thanksgiving as a Western celebration of Christian crusades which culminates in the ceremonial carving up of  "Turkey."

Kinda makes you look at that Norman Rockwell painting differently, eh? 

All kidding aside, why do we call our traditional holiday poultry a "turkey?"  Is there a connection with the country of the same name?  If so, how did it come to be?  What do they call a turkey in Turkey?  In honor of tomorrow's Thanksgiving holiday, this edition of the Word of the Moment will a closer look at "turkey."

"Turkey" (the country) came first, taking it's name from the word "türk," a self-identifying term for millions of Turkic language speakers from Munich to Urumqi even today.  This, of course, does not explain how a bird from Mexico came to share the name of a country named after a race of Central Asian nomads.  As is often the case in the world of words, the answer has to do with an international case of mistaken identity.

We begin with a group of birds known as "gamefowl" or, to be more precise, the Galliformes, an order of animals that includes partridges, quails and other plump-bodied avians that taste fantastic in a tarragon cream sauce.  Humans have a long history of game fowl, which are native to every continent on earth.  Some, like the grouse and pheasant, are mostly hunted, while others were long ago domesticated.  The chicken, for example, was first tamed and bred in Southeast Asia, an animal that ultimately (allegedly?) gave us the McNugget. 

In Africa, there is a family of galliform birds with featherless heads collectively referred to as "Guinea fowl."  The best known species of Guinea fowl (Numida meleagris ), comes to us from south of the Sahara and was exported to Europe as a domestic bird  in or around the 16th century.  By whom?  Well, I can't say for certain that it was the Turks, but given that the Turkish Ottoman Empire controlled a sizable portion of North Africa at the time, it's not surprising that the Guinea fowl became known in England as a "Turkey fowl."

Meanwhile, in the early 1500's the Spanish were bringing back a New World galliform bird that had been the pride of Aztec breeders: Meleagris gallopavo, known as "huehxolotl" (also spelled huexoltl or uexoltl).  I suppose that the English thought that these birds looked a lot like their long-lost African cousins, because shortly after their introduction they also began to be called "Turkey fowls."  From this point, it's a small jump to "turkey," in much the same way we got "hockey" from "ice hockey" or "danish" from "Danish pastry."

Now, I would be negligent if I didn't mention a few other theories of how the turkey got it's name: (1) Christopher Columbus, believing that he had reached India, called the North American turkey the Tamil word for "peacock," supposedly "tuka" or (2) Louis de Torres, a doctor working for Christopher Columbus named the bird after the Hebrew word for "big bird," supposedly "tukki" or (3) the word Turkey is a mispronunciation of a Native word, "firkee."

On the other hand, I would be be down right irresponsible if I didn't bring up a few objections.  For starters, can anyone prove to me that Christopher Columbus or anyone on his crew spoke Tamil?  A quick search at the J. P. Fabricus English-Tamil dictionary brought up the following entries for "peacock": kalāpam, kēkayam, catapattiram, cantiraki, caraṇam, cikaṇṭi, cikāvalam, cikaṇṭi, cikāvalam, ñamali, naviram, pōttu, maññai, mayil, mayūram, mārccārakam.  None of which look like "tuka" to me.  Neither does the Hebrew " ציפור גדולה," look much like "tukki," as far as I can tell.  Of course, if anyone reading this happens to know any Tamil or Hebrew, I would love to hear from you. 

As far as "firkee" is involved, I can't find any reference to which native American languages this word is supposed to come from. Furthermore, (as far as I could determine) the turkey was only found on the mainland of the North American continent, lands that Columbus only visited once, on his fourth and last voyage.  As always, anyone who can offer conflicting evidence or wild, irrational speculation to the contrary is welcome to say whatever they want on the Internet.

Speaking of wild speculation... the English weren't the only people confused about the origin of the turkey.  The French called it a "chicken from India," or "poulet d'inde," which was eventually shortened to the modern French "dinde."  The Turks of the Ottoman Empire either inherited French misconceptions or made the same mistake, because they also named the bird for the country from where they believed it came.  Which is why a "turkey" in Turkey is called an "Indian" ("hind" in Turkish).

As we have seen with other words, the urge to metaphor is too great for humanity to resist.  The domestic turkey being, apparently, an enormously stupid creature, a "turkey" can be either a foolish person, a poor investment or a theatrical bust.  A "turkey shoot" is an easy task but, on the other hand, bowling three strikes in a row is also a "turkey." 

In contrast to its domestic brethren, the wild turkey is one of North America's leanest and meanest natives.  Much like bourbon.  According to the sepia toned Wild Turkey Bourbon web page, in 1940 Thomas McCarthy, a distillery employee in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, brought some of his private stash of bourbon along on a wild turkey hunt with some hunting buddies.  When they asked him to bring some more of "Wild Turkey" bourbon next year, the name not only stuck, but became a brand.  How much of this is true and how much is marketing is up to you to decide.  As someone who grew up within spittin' distance of the Kentucky shore of the Ohio river, I'm willing to buy it.  Besides, Wild Turkey makes one hell of a Manhattan.

So, whether you call it a  "huehxolotl," "dinde," "Hind" or even a "firkee," let's take a moment and give thanks for the modern turkey.  While Benjamin Franklin may not have succeeded in making this bird America's national symbol, it nevertheless looms large in the pantheon of American symbols.  Which is a good thing, because Bald Eagle probably tastes terrible.

---

Research for this article came from the Oxford English Dictionary,  J. P. Fabricus English-Tamil dictionary(updated 2002) and the Online Etymological Dictionary, as well as the Encyclopedia Britannica, Wikipedia and the accumulated scrapings of my own brain. Phonetic pronunciations are approximate and probably wildly inaccurate. If you would like to be notified whenever a new Word of the Moment is posted, send an eMail to Schendo.