Have you ever wondered about that?
Here's the hidden story.
If you’ve ever visited
Turkey, you probably ate
shwarma, but it’s unlikely that you were served a crispy, golden turkey leg. The former center of the
Ottoman Empire isn’t exactly a breeding ground for the bird that we most closely associate with Thanksgiving. In fact, the turkey is native to North America.
So why do they share the same name?
First, let’s get the facts on the two turkeys.
The republic of Turkey straddles Asia and Europe and has coastline along the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, and the
Aegean. Its capital city is
Ankara.
Here’s how they are related. In the 1540s, the
guinea fowl, a bird with some resemblance to the Thanksgiving avian, was imported from
Madagascar through Turkey by traders known as turkey merchants. The guinea fowl was also nicknamed the
turkey fowl. Then, the Spanish brought turkeys back from the Americas by way of North Africa and Turkey, where the bird was mistakenly called the same name. Europeans who encountered the bird in the Americas latched on to the “turkey fowl” name, and the term was condensed simply to “turkey.” Turkeys have fared better than their guinea fowl relatives on the international scene, perhaps explaining why you probably have never heard of guinea fowl until right now.
The Turkish name for the bird is
hindi, which literally means “
Indian.” This name likely derived from the common misconception that
India and the
New World were one and the same.
The turkey’s acceptance into the
Old World happened quickly. By 1575, the English were enjoying the North American bird at Christmas dinner.
We want to acknowledge, as some commenters have noted, that our previous explanation of “turkey” confusion was a bit, well, confusing. We hope that our revisions are clearer. We at the Hot Word aren’t too chicken to admit when our writing is a turkey; hopefully, with our meatier explanation, your appetite for nomenclature knowledge is sated (let us know if you’re still confused.)
Source : http://hotword.dictionary.com/turkey/#7OL57fW7dp8MAlhy.99
