Why are Turkeys called Turkeys?

[maxsolomon]

this thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2289654 got me thinking, but its topic is to tragic for humor.

so:

i get the whole Turks live in Turkey thing, but WHY are there Turks & also TurkMEN, as in Turkmenistan, and if so, why isn't Turkey known as Turkistan?

and why are Turkeys (the birds) called Turkeys in 'Murka? is it a native word? is it carried here from the Ottoman empire somehow?

i COULD google this, but i am too lazy.

[maxsolomon]

1. never mind

When Europeans first encountered these species in the Americas, they incorrectly identified them with the African Helmeted Guineafowl (Numida meleagris), also known as the turkey-cock from its importation to Europe through Turkey, and the name of that country stuck as also the name of the American bird. The confusion is also reflected in the scientific name: meleagris is Greek for guinea-fowl.

[Road Scholar]

2. Because that's what they are. LOL You wouldn't call a freaking

tree a turkey and you wouldn't call a turkey a pick up truck. :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[wildhorses]

3. because a turkey by any other name would still be

a turkey and taste as sweet:rofl:

[Whoa_Nelly]

4. Word Origin

http://www.wordorigins.org/wordort.htm

Turkey
The bird we today call a turkey is native to America. Yet, how did it become associated with the country of Turkey?

The answer is that the American wildfowl is not the only bird called a turkey. That, since 1552, is also a name for the guinea-fowl. That bird, native to Africa, was brought to Europe via Turkey. When Europeans arrived in America, they noticed similarities between the guinea-fowl and the American bird and called the latter turkey. So, the name is from the country although the bird is in no way associated with it.

Theatrical use of turkey to mean a flop dates to 1927. General disparaging use dates to 1951. Exactly why the word was first used to refer disparagingly to a person is uncertain, but it is probably because of the bird's fabled low intelligence.

[China_cat]

5. because chicken was already taken

[cemaphonic]

6. Others have handled the bird...

As for the people, Turks are an linguistic/ethnic grouping that extends from Turkey to western China. All of the ex-Soviet -stan states are of mostly Turkic ethnicity, and indeed at one point that whole area was referred to by Europeans as Turkistan. The country we now call Turkey (the name of the region itself is Anatolia or Asia Minor) used to be a huge chunk of the Byzantine Empire, and was mostly ethnically Greek. During the 11th century Turkic nomads traveling westward from Central Asia gradually settled into Anatolia, pushing the Greeks westward, and eventually supplanted them completely (although there was a large Greek population in some of the coastal cities that existed until being forcibly deported in the 20th century.

History lesson over.

[jukes]

7. Pocahontas got

the pilgrims high on mushrooms and told them that was their name for a joke.

since puritans have no sense of humour, they never got it. they thought the hallucinations were from yahweh.