In Hebrew, the bird is known as hodu, which is the Hebrew name for India.
In Hebrew the word for corn is tiras. According to Klein, in his Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language, this was a mistaken name given to maize by Jews of the period of the Haskalah (1750-1880) because the biblical Tiras, the son of Japeth (Genesis 10:2) was translated in the Talmud as Beit Tireiki. Tireiki sounds like Turkey, and since maize is known as “Turkish wheat” in many languages, they called it tiras. Klein rejects this because the Talmud was written much earlier than the country was known as Turkey.
One place that is associated with the area of Turkey in the bible is Togarma. (the brother of Tiras, Genesis 10:3, also Ezekiel 27:14 and 38:6). Togarma (or Takarama in other non-biblical writings from that time) doesn’t sound that dissimiliar from Turkey to my ears, but I could be wrong. According to one note that I have, the Armenians identify themselves with Togarma.
The name Turk (Türk-Türük) was first used in a written document in 8th century A.D. by the Eastern Gokturks (meaning sky-turks) who are also called as Eastern Kokturks (meaning root-turks). These writings were carwed on stone monuments and can be seen in today’s Mongolia. These monuments are known as the “Orhon writings”. The writings were translated by the Danish scientist Wilhelm Thomsen in 1898. The word was used as the name of the people of Kokturks in the writings. Curwin’s comment on the issue saying: “The Turks got their name from the Chinese. By 500A.D., Chinese records clearly call these early ancestors of the Huns, Tu-Kue.” is also true but in Kokturk writings the word “Turk” was used exactly as we use the word today. Thus, the word in Chinese documents is “Turk”, meaning the name of the people or the race, according to a theory which could not be proven. On the contrary, the word “Turk” that was written on the “Kokturk Writings” was proved to be name of the people of the Turkic state of Kokturks.
The word “turkey” used for the bird came up as a result of a double misuse. First, Cristof Colomb thought the continent of America he discovered was India (actually he started the expedition in order to reach India by using an alternative route). As a result the Native Americans were called “indians” and “turkey the bird” was called “hindi” in Spanish and also by Turks who learned the name from the Spanish (we still call it hindi).
However there was a direct commerce in those years between the Ottoman Empire and Spain. Thus, Ottomans imported “hindi” earlier than the British could. British could import “hindi” not from the Spanish but from the Ottomans. As a result they named the bird as “Turki” or “Turkey” because it was coming from the Turks.
As you can also see in the staff report about the issue British called the Turks people as “Turki” as early as 13th century. Consequently they called the “bird” “Turki” or “Turkey” just as Spanish and the Ottomans named the bird “Hindi” presuming that it came from India.
The name of the Republic of Turkey (Türkiye) was given by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Republic. He gave such a name because of its Western tonation. The underlying motivation was to choose a name that would stress the nations progress towards a modern western style nation-state based on secularism and democracy. It has nothing to do with Thrace. Türkiye means the state, land of Turks just like Slovak-ia or Sloven-ia or Bulgar-ia. Actually traditionally the word used in the last part of the name of a country in turkish is -istan. Such as Uzbek-istan Turkmen-istan or Kazak-istan (all are turkic Republics). However Ataturk found that type of name old fashioned or not suitable to his objectives to stress a modern Turkey.
Yeah, well, about the supposed ancient Aztec word xuehxolotl.
I’ve come up totally dry on a net search for this word. Either (a) it’s the only word in human ken that doesn’t appear anywhere on the Internet (until now!) or (b) he made it up.
Made it up? What kind of sick puppy could make something like that up? I saw the word spelled about a half dozen different ways. I’m not sure if I ever saw it spelled the same way twice. I admit that for comic effect I chose the most bizarre spelling I could find. No matter how you spell it, this is the word that gave rise to the modern Mexican Spanish word for the bird, guajalote. Other ways to spell the Nahuatl word include uexolotl, huexótl, and guaxalote.
For kicks, I made a list of some (only some) of the names the bird has been called in Spanish over the centuries:
ave de la tierra
gallina
gallina de la tierra
gallina de las Indias
gallina de papada
gallina por barba
gallina silveste
gallinas monteses
gallipavo
gallopavo
guajalote
guajalote del monte
guajalote monte
guajalote salvaje
guanajo
pauonum
pavo
pavo común
Made it up? What kind of sick puppy could make something like that up? I saw the word spelled about a half dozen different ways. I’m not sure if I ever saw it spelled the same way twice. I admit that for comic effect I chose the most bizarre spelling I could find. No matter how you spell it, this is the word that gave rise to the modern Mexican Spanish word for the bird, guajalote. Other ways to spell the Nahuatl word include uexolotl, huexótl, and guaxalote.
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First of all, I am impressed, astounded, floored, brought to my feet in salute and applause at this Staff Report. This is a masterpiece. Bravo.
As to how to pronounce all those words: “wash-oh-lot('l)” or “(ch’)wash-a-lot('l)” should be close. When transcribing mesoamerican languages, most modern scholars assign the character “x” to a sound similar to the English “sh” or German “sch”; however, it would seem from (Mexico->Méjico) and (Xavier->Javier) that at some point it represented something closer to the Castillian “j” (a soft back-of-palate sound, similar to the German “ch” in “ich”). “gua”, “güe”, “hua” and “ue” are all ways that you would transcribe in strict Spanish phonics a syllable that in modern English could be represented by “wa”.
American’s use countries, region’s, and cities for the names of many, many foods. While some foods may originate from the area they’re named after, it’s not necessarily true… here’s just a few I could think of…
French Fries French Dressing Italian Dressing Greek Salad American Cheese Phillie Steak & Cheese (named after Philadelphia) English Peas Spanish Rice Canadian Bacon
…and back to Turkey, Turkish Coffee.
Going back to animals, breeds of dogs and cats…
Irish Setter German Shepherd Scottish Terrier
Persian cats Himalayan cats
And then, to furniture…
Ottoman (lol, back to the Turks)
So, it seems to me that the only oddity about turkey (the bird) and Turkey (the country) is that turkeys aren’t from Turkey.
