Turkey |
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Turkey - The name
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29 Nov 2008 Sat 12:39 am |
The Story of How the Unofficial Bird of the United States Got Named After a Middle Eastern Country (by Giancarlo Casale)
How did the turkey get its name? This seemingly harmless question popped into my head one morning as I realized that the holidays were once again upon us. After all, I thought, there´s nothingmore American than a turkey. Their meat saved the pilgrims from starvation during their first winter in New England. Out of gratitude, if you can call it that, we eat them for Thanksgiving dinner, and again at Christmas, and gobble them up in sandwiches all year long. Every fourth grader can tell you that Benjamin Franklin was particularly fond of the wild turkey, and even campaigned to make it, and not the bald eagle, the national symbol. So how did such a creature e nd up taking its name from a medium sized countryin the Middle East? Was it just a coincidence? I wondered.
The next day I mentioned my musings to my landlord, whose wife is from Brazil. "That´s funny," he said, "In Portuguese the word for turkey is´peru.´ Same bird, different country."
Hmm.
With my curiosity piqued, I decided to go straight to the source. That very afternoon I found myself a Turk and asked him how to say turkey in Turkish. "Turkey?" he said. "Well, we call turkeys ´hindi,´ which means, you know, from India." India? This was getting weird.
I spent the next few days finding out the word for turkey in as many languages as I could think of, and the more I found out, the weirder thingsgot. In Arabic, for instance, the word for turkeyis "Ethiopian bird," while in Greek it is "gallapoula" or "French girl." The Persians, meanwhile, call them "buchalamun" which means, appropriately enough, "chameleon."
In Italian, on the other hand, the word for turkey is "tacchino" which, my Italian relatives assured me, means nothing but the bird. "But," they added, "it reminds us of something else.
In Italy we call corn, which as everybody knows comes from America, ´grano turco,´ or ´Turkish grain.´" So here we were back to Turkey again! And as if things weren´t already confusing enough, a further consultation with my Turkish informant revealed that the Turks call corn "misir" which is also their word for Egypt!
By this point, things were clearly getting out of hand. But I persevered nonetheless, and just as I was about to give up hope,a pattern finally seemed to emerge from this bewildering labyrinth.
In French, it turns out, the word for turkey is "dinde," meaning "from India," just like in Turkish. The words in both German and Russian had similar meanings, so I was clearly on to something. The key, I reasoned, was to find out what turkeys are called in India, so I called up my high school friend´s wife, who is from an old Bengali family, and popped her the question. "Oh," she said, "We don´t have turkeys in India. They come from America. Everybody knows that." "Yes," I insisted, "but what do you call them?" "Well, we don´t have them!" she said. She wasn´t being very helpful. Still, I persisted: "Look, you must have a word for them. Say you were watching an American movie translated from English and the actors were all talking about turkeys. What would they say?""Well...I suppose inthat case they would just say the American word, ´turkey.´ Like I said, we don´t have them." So there I was, at a dead end. I began to realize only too late that I had unwittingly stumbled upon a problem whose solution lay far beyond the capacity of my own limited resources.Obviously I needed serious professional assistance. So the next morning I scheduled an appointment with Prof. Sinasi Tekin of Harvard University, a world-renowned philologist and expert on Turkic languages. If anyone could help me, I figured it would be Professor Tekin.
As I walked into his office on the following Tuesday, I knew I would not be disappointed. Prof. Tekin had a wizened, grandfatherly face, a white, bushy, knowledgeable beard, and was surrounded by stack upon stack of just the sort of hefty, authoritative books which were sure to contain a solution to my vexing Turkish mystery. I introducedmyself, sat down, and eagerly awaited a dose of Prof. Tekin´s erudition. "You see," he said, "In the Turkish countryside there is a kind of bird, which is called a çulluk. It looks like a turkey but it is much smaller, and its meat is very delicious. Long beforethe discovery of America, English merchants had already discovered the delicious çulluk, and began exporting it back to England, where it became very popular, and was known as a ´Turkey bird´ or simply a ´turkey.´ Then, when the English came to America, they mistook the birds here for çulluks, and so they began calling them ´turkey" also. But other peoples weren´t so easily fooled. They knew that these new birds came from America, and so they called them things like ´India birds,´ ´Peruvian birds,´ or ´Ethiopian birds.´ You see, ´India,´ ´Peru´ and ´Ethiopia´ were all common names for the New World in the early centuries, both because people had a hazier understanding of geography, and because it took a whilefor the name ´America´ to catch on. "
"Anyway, since that time Americanshave begun exporting their birds everywhere, and even in Turkey people have started eating them, and have forgotten all about their delicious çulluk. This is a shame, because çulluk meat is really much, much tastier."
Prof. Tekin seemed genuinely sad as he explained all this to me. I did mybest to comfort him, and tried to express my regret at hearing of the unfairly cruel fate of the delicious çulluk. Deep down, however, I was ecstatic. I finally had a solution to this holiday problem, and knew I would be able once again to enjoy the main course of my traditional Thanksgiving dinner without reservation.
Now if I could just figure out whythey call those little teeny dogs Chihuahuas.. ..
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29 Nov 2008 Sat 12:57 am |
amused....
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29 Nov 2008 Sat 01:17 am |
amused....
you know, i always read your nick, just-in-time, is your last anme really time?
or did u purposely do that?
whoaaa taht was freaky1 I just like yawned this huge yawn (does that make any sense?)
why do our eyes get watery?
i imagined myself like a hippo loool! Yaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwn!
BTw i think i read this before
u know something funny?
today i was shopping with my mom, and i wanted somethin but they didnt have my size so the lady called another branch and asked them if they ahd it, and they reserved it for me and then my mom asked the lady where the store was in the mall, (my mom doesnt go to the mall so much ) and i told her that i knew and the cashier lady said yeah, i saw u there before,looool! She s like, i swear i saw u there before loooooooooooool! a million faces p[ass by and she remembers mine hilaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarious!
PS.(im going to sleep now iyi gecler ... )
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29 Nov 2008 Sat 01:43 am |
you know, i always read your nick, just-in-time, is your last anme really time?
or did u purposely do that?
whoaaa taht was freaky1 I just like yawned this huge yawn (does that make any sense?)
why do our eyes get watery?
i imagined myself like a hippo loool! Yaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwn!
BTw i think i read this before
u know something funny?
today i was shopping with my mom, and i wanted somethin but they didnt have my size so the lady called another branch and asked them if they ahd it, and they reserved it for me and then my mom asked the lady where the store was in the mall, (my mom doesnt go to the mall so much ) and i told her that i knew and the cashier lady said yeah, i saw u there before,looool! She s like, i swear i saw u there before loooooooooooool! a million faces p[ass by and she remembers mine hilaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarious!
PS.(im going to sleep now iyi gecler ... )
yeah, time is really my last name..... i´m cool that way... lol (but i might just change my last name to "time" or "case" or "love" or "sane" why not? lol... justinetime, justinecase, justinelove, justinesane.....
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29 Nov 2008 Sat 02:05 am |
Thanks for sharing
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29 Nov 2008 Sat 02:26 am |
TÜRKÃYE
Türkiye´s official name is " TÜRKÃYE", not Turkey, according to Turkish law Constitution.The world history from 200 to 2000 calls "Turks".Turkey is a wrong name, because it is not legal.Law is law.This name must correct as TÜRKÃYE.
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29 Nov 2008 Sat 03:22 am |
TÜRKÃYE
Türkiye´s official name is " TÜRKÃYE", not Turkey, according to Turkish law Constitution.The world history from 200 to 2000 calls "Turks".Turkey is a wrong name, because it is not legal.Law is law.This name must correct as TÜRKÃYE.
What are you trying to say??
Do you say Hollanda in Turkish, or do you call it ´Verenigd Koninkrijk der Nederlanden´ or ´Nederland´ the way we do? I didn´t think so.. Why should foreigners say a country´s name the way its inhabitants say? Turkey isnt a wrong name. It is its name for English speakers, just as Turks say Ãngiltere and not England, just as Dutch people say Turkije and Turkish people say Hollanda.
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29 Nov 2008 Sat 03:22 am |
amused....
+1!
That was a very nice read indeed!
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29 Nov 2008 Sat 01:58 pm |
I think we all have different perspectives on this.But scientific, legal and historic knowledges are important and esteemed .I am afraid I don´t agree with you.And you of course don´t have to agree with me.
"If all people and English speakers say ´the world is flat´, will you believe them?"I dont think so.
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29 Nov 2008 Sat 02:47 pm |
What are you trying to say??
Do you say Hollanda in Turkish, or do you call it ´Verenigd Koninkrijk der Nederlanden´ or ´Nederland´ the way we do? I didn´t think so.. Why should foreigners say a country´s name the way its inhabitants say? Turkey isnt a wrong name. It is its name for English speakers, just as Turks say Ãngiltere and not England, just as Dutch people say Turkije and Turkish people say Hollanda.
i agree with this.... i don´t here Turkish people or Americans call my country Pilipinas (Philippines) the way we do here. Americans and English people call the country Turkey, Turks call it Türkiye, and people from Africa probably have another word for Türkiye... hehehe... i don´t see any problem with this....
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29 Nov 2008 Sat 03:02 pm |
If all people and English speakers say ´the world is flat´, will you believe them?
This is the problem(!)
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29 Nov 2008 Sat 03:07 pm |
I think we all have different perspectives on this.But scientific, legal and historic knowledges are important and esteemed .I am afraid I don´t agree with you.And you of course don´t have to agree with me.
"If all people say ´the world is flat´, will you believe them?"
That quote has nothing to do with it, nor does legal knowledge etc have to do with this. Its very nice of you to say that I dont have to agree with you though My language doesnt have the letter ü, so how are we gonna write Türkiye? As for Istanbul, it is wrong in Turkish to write it with a capital ý (I) and not with a capital i (Ã), but my language also doesn´t have the letter ý and our capital i is an I. Each country has its own way of saying names of foreign places and countries, and even just gramatically wise it is impossible to do otherwise. If you want us to say and write Türkiye the way Turks do, then will you write and say Chinese places also the way Chinese people do?
And I may be wrong, but I think the name Türkiye actually comes from the name that the British and French used in their correspondence with the Ottoman Empire. Speaking of historic knowledge to be taken into account when naming a country...
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29 Nov 2008 Sat 03:11 pm |
If all people and English speakers say ´the world is flat´, will you believe them?
This is the problem(!)
No. And it has nothing to do with it!
If all Turkish people say that my country´s name is Hollanda, will you believe them? Apparantly you do. Because according to Turkish language, my country´s name is Hollanda, its inhabitant is a Hollandalý and its language is Hollandaca (though often Flemenkçe is said) Many foreign languages speak of Nederland (the Netherlands) in terms of Hollanda, Hollandia, Ollanda. But it is wrong. In Dutch, Holland is only a small part of our country. It includes the area where Trudy lives, but Holland isn´t where I live. We both live in Nederland though!
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29 Nov 2008 Sat 04:39 pm |
If all people and English speakers say ´the world is flat´, will you believe them?
This is the problem(!)
ihihihi... i don´t know what this has to do anything with Türkiye, and Turkey.... Not everybody agrees that your country is called Turkey, or Türkiye either... because it may be called differently in other languages (that is what we are trying to get across) the same way Turks call my country differently, do you see my point? .... if the Chinese spelled and pronounced the name of your country differently, will you also take offence?
if so, then i should also get mad for Turks calling my country Filipinler...and for English people to call my country Philippines! it´s called PILIPINAS PEOPLE!!! hehehe... It´s called Pilipinas by the Philippine Constitution (Konstitusyon ng Pilipinas)... and law is law as you say it is yilgun....
... on the other hand... there was a time in history where everybody agreed the whole world IS flat.... hehehe... if that is what you are pointing out, it´s a whole different topic. lol
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29 Nov 2008 Sat 05:49 pm |
When you are speaking Turkish (or Dutch or German or Tagalog or whatever) obviously you will use that language´s name for the country or city or town you are talking about. When you are speaking in your own language then you will obviously use your own language´s version of that name. But it´s rather arrogant to assume your country´s version of it´s name is the one that the rest of the world must use at all times.
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29 Nov 2008 Sat 06:42 pm |
TÜRKÃYE
Türkiye´s official name is " TÜRKÃYE", not Turkey, according to Turkish law Constitution.
Can you tell me what I have to do in the Netherlands with a Turkish law? Do you obey in Turkey to my laws too? Great, when is the first gaymarriage? That is according to our laws ok.
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29 Nov 2008 Sat 06:43 pm |
In Dutch, Holland is only a small part of our country. It includes the area where Trudy lives, but Holland isn´t where I live. We both live in Nederland though!
At least I can say I am from Holland AND from the Netherlands....
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29 Nov 2008 Sat 06:51 pm |
At least I can say I am from Holland AND from the Netherlands....
I thought that was where Peter Pan lives??
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29 Nov 2008 Sat 06:53 pm |
I thought that was where Peter Pan lives??
And I thought it was where Michael Jackson lived
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29 Nov 2008 Sat 06:56 pm |
And I thought it was where Michael Jackson lived
Yeh - with Peter Pan and the Little Lost Boys! (allegedly)
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29 Nov 2008 Sat 06:57 pm |
Yeh - with Peter Pan and the Little Lost Boys! (allegedly)
Hmmm anyway, Trudy and DK are wrong...they live in Neverland
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29 Nov 2008 Sat 06:57 pm |
As I walked into his office on the following Tuesday, I knew I would not be disappointed. Prof. Tekin had a wizened, grandfatherly face, a white, bushy, knowledgeable beard, and was surrounded by stack upon stack of just the sort of hefty, authoritative books which were sure to contain a solution to my vexing Turkish mystery. I introducedmyself, sat down, and eagerly awaited a dose of Prof. Tekin´s erudition. "You see," he said, "In the Turkish countryside there is a kind of bird, which is called a çulluk. It looks like a turkey but it is much smaller, and its meat is very delicious. Long beforethe discovery of America, English merchants had already discovered the delicious çulluk, and began exporting it back to England, where it became very popular, and was known as a ´Turkey bird´ or simply a ´turkey.´ Then, when the English came to America, they mistook the birds here for çulluks, and so they began calling them ´turkey" also. But other peoples weren´t so easily fooled. They knew that these new birds came from America, and so they called them things like ´India birds,´ ´Peruvian birds,´ or ´Ethiopian birds.´ You see, ´India,´ ´Peru´ and ´Ethiopia´ were all common names for the New World in the early centuries, both because people had a hazier understanding of geography, and because it took a whilefor the name ´America´ to catch on. "
"Anyway, since that time Americanshave begun exporting their birds everywhere, and even in Turkey people have started eating them, and have forgotten all about their delicious çulluk. This is a shame, because çulluk meat is really much, much tastier."
Prof. Tekin seemed genuinely sad as he explained all this to me. I did mybest to comfort him, and tried to express my regret at hearing of the unfairly cruel fate of the delicious çulluk. Deep down, however, I was ecstatic. I finally had a solution to this holiday problem, and knew I would be able once again to enjoy the main course of my traditional Thanksgiving dinner without reservation.
Now if I could just figure out whythey call those little teeny dogs Chihuahuas.. ..
__._,_.___
Interesting!!
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29 Nov 2008 Sat 06:59 pm |
Hmmm anyway, Trudy and DK are wrong...they live in Neverland
I suspected it for a while, and now it is finally proven: Brits and Americans are both very, very bed!!
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29 Nov 2008 Sat 07:06 pm |
I suspected it for a while, and now it is finally proven: Brits and Americans are both very, very bed!!
Now Im caught up in the middle
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29 Nov 2008 Sat 07:11 pm |
Now Im caught up in the middle
Though you are not from Holland, you are excused.
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29 Nov 2008 Sat 09:18 pm |
A bit late, and already mentioned (the remark about the chinese) but would the Russians be offended if we call their country Russia instead of Ρоссиа, or the lebanese with their unpronounceable countryname
لبنان
???
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30 Nov 2008 Sun 07:54 am |
Hmmm anyway, Trudy and DK are wrong...they live in Neverland
Michael Jackson and the little lost boys in Netherland.... ahahaha!!! poor boys....
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30 Nov 2008 Sun 09:22 am |
TÜRKÃYE
Türkiye´s official name is " TÜRKÃYE", not Turkey, according to Turkish law Constitution.The world history from 200 to 2000 calls "Turks".Turkey is a wrong name, because it is not legal.Law is law.This name must correct as TÜRKÃYE.
Nice job Alpha! I appreciate your effort on this and thanks for the information
What Yýlgün saying is true. But i don´t really care if my country is called Turkey by others.
Plussss, i am glad that all the West countries celebrate our day.. Ha haa..
They bless Turkey on that day. By the way we are remaining famous.
As it is said "It doesn´t matter if the advertisement is good or bad. What is important is the conclusion..."
Well however i insist on typing Türkiye.
Loves....
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30 Nov 2008 Sun 10:18 am |
Plussss, i am glad that all the West countries celebrate our day.. Ha haa..
Huh? All Western countries? Where do I live then in that case, we certainly don´t celebrate Thanksgiving.
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30 Nov 2008 Sun 10:23 am |
Exaggerating is a literal art dear Trudy haha Of course i don´t mean "all" in mathematically
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30 Nov 2008 Sun 01:14 pm |
IN THE LETTERS, WHICH YOU SEND TO TÜRKÃYE, PLEASE WRITE TÜRKÃYE ON THE ENVELOPE - NOT TURKEY- . IF YOU REALLY LOVE TÜRKÃYE.
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30 Nov 2008 Sun 01:17 pm |
IN THE LETTERS, WHICH YOU SEND TO TÜRKÃYE, PLEASE WRITE TÜRKÃYE - NOT TURKEY- . IF YOU REALY LOVE TÜRKÃYE.
Dont shout
If I send a laptop, money and a cell phone, I dont think my dudu will complain how I spell Turkiye
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30 Nov 2008 Sun 01:18 pm |
IN THE LETTERS, WHICH YOU SEND TO TÜRKÃYE, PLEASE WRITE TÜRKÃYE - NOT TURKEY- . IF YOU REALY LOVE TÜRKÃYE.
Ok - if you promise not to address letters to Ingiltere but to England
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30 Nov 2008 Sun 01:21 pm |
IN THE LETTERS, WHICH YOU SEND TO TÜRKÃYE, PLEASE WRITE TÜRKÃYE ON THE ENVELOPE - NOT TURKEY- . IF YOU REALLY LOVE TÜRKÃYE.
I´ll write ´Turkije´ - in Dutch, as you will use my countries name in Turkish as well.
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30 Nov 2008 Sun 01:24 pm |
Actually you are wrong Yilgun. If you are addressing a letter, the COUNTRY part should be in the language of the country you are posting it (so the postal staff of that country can understand and ensure it reaches the correct country).
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30 Nov 2008 Sun 01:30 pm |
Thank you.
(Bu konuyu araþtýracaðým)
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30 Nov 2008 Sun 01:30 pm |
Actually you are wrong Yilgun. If you are addressing a letter, the COUNTRY part should be in the language of the country you are posting it (so the postal staff of that country can understand and ensure it reaches the correct country).
Exactly what I was thinking...given the state of our RM these days, it´s the safest bet.
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30 Nov 2008 Sun 01:36 pm |
Exactly what I was thinking...given the state of our RM these days, it´s the safest bet.
Considering that where I live letters just get left on the outside wall or stuck in the hedge or left at the nearest approximately correct address you could put Turkey, Türkiye or just ´somewhere south Istanbul´ it´s still pot luck whether or not we get the mail!!
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30 Nov 2008 Sun 02:16 pm |
Considering that where I live letters just get left on the outside wall or stuck in the hedge or left at the nearest approximately correct address you could put Turkey, Türkiye or just ´somewhere south Istanbul´ it´s still pot luck whether or not we get the mail!!
So true, that´s why I have to get my mail delivered to my work address rather than where I live!! Even correct addresses don´t see their recipients.
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