Why do we eat Turkey at Thanksgiving?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ต.ค. 2015
- The #etymology & origin of the #Turkey, and what its history tells us about #Thanksgiving, colonialism, globalization, and guinea pigs!
A correction: "kalkoen" is associated with the trading city Calicut, in Kerala rather than Calcutta.
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Transcript: www.alliterative.net/turkey-tr...
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Great video. Also, as Turkish, we call turkeys "Hindi" which means India. And we call oranges "portakal" which simply means Portugal. Trade routes are used to be really big deal right?
+Okko Kooks I knew the "hindi" name, but I didn't know that about oranges in Turkish -- that's really cool! Sort of parallel, actually, to the odd origin of the word in English (www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/lexicon_valley/2014/09/lexicon_valley_the_etymology_and_history_of_the_word_orange_with_lexicographer.html). Yeah, I guess you could say trade routes were pretty important! ;)
The same thing applies to the Greek word for orange, "portokali." Simply delete the Greek suffix "i" and you have the Turkish word "portokal." Unsurprisingly, though, "portokali" also means the colour "orange" in modern Greek.
Thanks for the link to the podcast, btw!!!
A correction: "kalkoen" is associated with the trading city Calicut, in Kerala rather than Calcutta.
In Finnish a turkey is a kalkkuna. It's interesting to see how words travel and change to fit the pronunciation of different peoples.
Similarly, when corn (maize) was first brought to central Europe (Habsburg Empire), it was known as 'turkish wheat'.
Oh, interesting! I know that it could be called 'blé d'Inde" in French, so the pattern holds there too.
@@Alliterative or simply "tengeri" ("from the sea") in Hungarian.
I love you videos, they're so informative!
And if I may add: The Turkish word for the turkey bird is 'hindi' which is also our word for India.
and our word for corn is 'Misir' which is also our word for "Egypt."
Thanks! Seems like place names make it into food names in odd ways all over the place!
a great discussion! i really wish more people watched this channel
+Umbert Lapagoss Thanks! Of course I wouldn't disagree... ;)
Hot damn! You provide us with so much information, but it's in the way you present that allows me retain the experience. Thank you, Bruv.
Live. Love. Be. Believe.
Fantastic! Only thing is, I have this mysterious feeling of hunger now... Keep up the great work!
+mcmasti Good thing there'll be turkey on our menu soon, then! :)
Oddly enough, the turkey is called "deek habashi" in Arabic which translates into Ethiopian rooster, using the old Arabic name for Ethiopia.
Interesting! It really is the most oddly-named animal I know of.
Brilliant video again.
Kalkoen is pronounced as "kalkoon" though. -> en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kalkoen has a sound file.
All 'oe' in Dutch words are pronounced as 'oo' and if we want to separate the 2 vowels (like in the English word 'coefficient'), then we put 2 dots on the 'e' (as in the Dutch word 'coëfficiënt' (the Dutch 'ie' is pronounced as 'ee' btw).
+Willem van de Beek Darn! I knew that! I was concentrating so hard on pronouncing the Aztec words that I didn't pay enough attention to the Dutch. Sorry! And thanks. :)
Great video, as usual. I think I will assign it to the tutorials I am leading in the globalization course.
+larkvi Thanks! I'm glad if it's of use to your classes--that's always good to hear. Oh, and the blog post I wrote for the video expands on the globalization theme, in particular about food production.
I just found out that 'peru' is the Portuguese word for 'turkey'. I wonder if this similarity to the name of the South American country also came about by association with secret trade routes.
It must come from trade, certainly, but maybe not so secret, since it's a lot closer to the actual origin of the bird than 'turkey'!
hahaha I adore your videos and wonder why the don't have many more thousand of viewers.
I see that a Turkish viewer has already written about the name of the turkey and the corn in Turkish. I, being Bulgarian, which means that my ancestors were being in the Ottoman Empire for 500 years, will add that in some Bulgarian dialects both the turkey and the corn are called мисир, мисирка, which means Egypt in Turkish :)
Also a Guinea pig is called морско свинче (sea piglet) in Bulgarian which has been a mystery to me for many years until i found out it's called zamorac in Croatian (another South Slavic language) which means something form over the sea...:) So probably some hundreds of years ago it was called отвъдморско свинче or overseas piglet in Bulgarian...
Thank you for these great explorations of language and history and myth! I really really enjoy them immensely
Thanks for those additional details! That's fascinating. Overseas piglet is my new favourite animal name!
Interesting video! It made me go look up something I've been curious about for a long time, too. In Japanese, the turkey is known as the 七面鳥 [ʃitʃimentʃo:], or "seven-face bird", and I never understood why. But apparently, it's because of all the colours in the turkey's face (and perhaps also down into its feathers). I don't think there are seven, but sometimes seven was used to express that there were a lot of some thing.
So on top of the cool lesson from you, it motivated me to learn more, even. Thanks! ^_^
+The Ling Space Thanks! And it's funny, I was writing the blog post to go with the video today, and I was thinking about including some stuff about the words for turkey in other languages; your comment reminded me about the interesting Japanese name, so I've put that in (the blog post will be posted tomorrow). I didn't actually know why it had that name, though, so thanks for that!
In Armenian the word for turkey is հնդկահավ [hindkahav] which translates to Indian hen. Also, the word for corn (maize) is եգիպտացորեն [egyptacoren] which translates to Egyptian wheat.
Great video, I like how the connections become more and more intricate. Also, as an Italian, I have always been curious about the origins of the English use of "Turkey" for a bird that actually originated from the Americas.
I have just looked up the roots of the Italian for Turkey, "tacchino" - and apparently we are one of the few peoples who made up a whole new word for that through onomatopoeia. Still, the guinea fowl in Italian is known as "(gallina) faraona" - literally, a "pharaoh hen." Another transnational connection.
+Andrea Ciribuco Very interesting! At least 'pharoah hen' is pretty close -- it's an African bird, and it may well have been found throughout north Africa, at least by Roman times. Thanks!
Yes, it was probably because the Romans imported it from Egypt - or rather that, in Roman times, Egypt served as a 'catalyst? for all things African on that shore of the Mediterranean...
Because they show up in the yard when the acorns start to drop?
In Polish guinea pig is called świnka morska, literally "sea piggy"' as a short for original świnka zamorska "the overseas piggy"
Oh, and turkey is indyk derived from India, or more precisely from Latin indicus, as in gallus indicus "Indian rooster".
That is fabulous! 'sea piggy' is my new favourite animal name. Thanks for those pieces of additional info!
Thanks! I always wondered what was the relation between turkeys and Turkey, and what was Thanksgiving really about. Now I want to learn where the Spanish word for turkey (pavo) comes from. Did you know that peacocks are called 'pavo real' in Spanish? it means royal turkey. And Guinea pigs are called 'conejillos de Indias': little rabbits from the Indies. But where I come from, Chile, it's more common to call them 'cuy' or 'cuye', the pre-columbian name. And we use 'conejillo de Indias' figuratively, as someone being used for an experiment. Oh, and when kids go through puberty and look and act really awkward we say they are going through 'la edad del pavo', the age of the turkey.
So, 'pavo' is the Latin for peacock (origin uncertain); so it's interesting that it's become the word for 'turkey', and now needs an extra qualifier to mean 'peacock'. I do like the 'little rabbit from the Indies' name, though, that's adorable! And not surprising that you don't call them that in Chile, since the geographical misnomer would be obvious! The figurative uses are fascinating, though. Thanks!
Wow, thanks! that's so cool and funny how the meaning of pavo has changed! I think it has to do with the same reason why Cuyes are called 'from the Indies', since they thought they were in India, they saw a huajolotl and thought it was a type of peacock. Oh... I just thought of something! maybe 'pavo real' is not royal pavo as I always assumed, but real pavo!! In Spanish, royal and real are the same word and we only know which one it is from the context. But since peacocks are so elegant it could be interpreted both ways.
I knew about the animal but I didn't know about it's connection to the turquoise rock. : D
Fascinating stuff!! In Portuguese the word for the bird Turkey is Perú.
Thanks!
The Turanians were said to be an Iranian people in the Avestan age who inhabited the lands to the northeast of modern Iran as far north as the Ural Mountains and as far easy as the Altai Mountains. According to Firdowsi’s Shahnameh, they were named after Tur, one of the three sons of King Fereydun.
It has been proposed that when nomadic tribes from Siberia made their way south, they encountered the Turanians whom they conquered and from whom they adopted the Turanian name and mythology as their own. These people are said to have become the “Turkic” people... and possibly explains the origins of the word “Turkey”?
I would like your thoughts on these proposals.
Turkey in Malay is Ayam Belanda, which literally means dutch chicken. Idk why lmao
Heh, I can see it now... a turkey being dropped from a hot air balloon above the grand canyon as the iconic eagle screech pierces through my speakers. 'MURICA!
It seems apparent that the Pilgrims thought of themselves as being pilgrims, since the first child born after they reached North America was named Peregrine White.
That's a good point; but they didn't refer to themselves collectively as such at the time.
@@Alliterative I very much enjoy your vids, incidentally.
Thanks!
In Ukrainian turkey is "indyk" which refers to India and guinea pig is "morska svynka" - sea pig, apparently because of the way they got to Europe.
Pilgrim and peregrine have the same root!? Yet another ornithological connection. Mind is blown!
I subbed not long after making this comment by the way.
Wow i did not abput this
11:47 I thought it said fuck
You missed some fun details. Peregrine White was the first baby born in Plymouth. And I humbly suggest you check out Edward Winslow's "Good newes from New-England" and tweak some of your Thanksgiving jive. Turkey. archive.org/details/goodnewesfromnew00wins
Answer to question: we eat turkey because we are canniibals.
Wooww western Christianity is kinda backwards... thnaksgivings observed with fasting? Sure...
Нахрена у меня это появилось???