turkey and Turkey

The etymology of the country Turkey derives from the Medieval Latin term Turchia, which in turn comes from the Greek word Τουρκία (Tourkia), meaning "land of the Turks." The term "Turkey" was first recorded in Middle English as Turkye and later evolved into Turkey. In 2022, Turkey officially adopted the name Türkiye to distinguish itself from the bird.

The etymology of Turks, meaning the people, is not definitively known, but it is believed to have originated from the name of a nomadic people known as the Tujue, as given by the Chinese.

But the quintessential American bird, famously sought after for the November Thanksgiving, is actually a misnomer.

Spanish explorers arrived in Mexico in the 1500s, and they encountered a plump, impressively feathered bird that the Aztecs had long domesticated and called huexolotl. The Spaniards brought these birds back to Europe, where they quickly became a hit on farms and dinner tables.

It is believed that because Europeans had already encountered a somewhat similar bird, the African guinea fowl, which was known as “Turkey cocks” or “Turkey hens,” it was assumed this new bird came from the same place. The African guinea fowl reached Europe earlier via trade routes controlled by the Ottoman Empire of the Turks. 

Another source says the bird’s name arose simply because, at the time, the Ottoman Empire was at its peak, and Europeans were apt to designate all new imports as “Turkish.” 

The misnomer stuck, and English speakers call the bird a “turkey.” But move into other languages and the name changes. The French used coq d’Inde (“rooster of India”) thinking it came from the Indies. In Portuguese it became a peru, in Malay, a “Dutch chicken.” In Turkish, it became a hindi, meaning “from India.” 

Much confusion about the literal origin place of the bird,

Countries Ending in -stan

Have you noticed how may countries end with -stan? This suffix comes from the Proto-Indo-European language which was a prehistoric Eurasian language. Linguists have reconstructed it and find it in many language descendants.

In Russian -stan means “settlement.” In other Slavic languages it means “state.” But it is the ancient Indo-Iranian peoples (descendants of Proto-Indo-Europeans who moved east and south from the Eurasian steppe) who used -stan to mean “place” or “place of” that we find in the names of the modern countries.

Urdu and Pashto, the official languages of Pakistan and Afghanistan respectively, both descend from the Indo-Iranian language. Also the former Soviet -stan countries have historically been mostly ethnically Turkic and speak languages from the Turkic family.

So, Afghanistan is the "Land of the Afghans.”

Kazakhstan is the “Land of the Kazakhs” and Kazakh is derived from a Turkic word meaning “independent.”

Kyrgyzstan being the “Land of the Kyrgyz” and Kyrgyz is thought to come from the Turkic word for “forty” being a reference to forty clans that banded together.

Though Pakistan - “Land of the Pure” in Urdu could come from the Indo-Iranian pak, word for “pure/clean”), the country’s name was constructed as an acronym in the 1930s. It referes to the area’s constituent cultures: Punjabi + Afghani + Kashmiri + Sindhi + Balochistan with an "i" inserted to aid pronunciation.

Tajik historically was used by Turks to refer to “non-Turks” that spoke Iranian-related languages, so Tajikistan is the "Land of the Tajiks.”

Turkmenistan is the “Land of the Turkmen.”

Uzbeki+stan rom Uzbek which either comes from Uzbek Khan, a tribal leader who united different groups in the region, or a combination of Turkic words meaning “his own master.”


Source: Mental Floss