On Turkey, turkeys and chompipes

Probably you already know that the word "turkey", the bird, is named after Turkey, the country, and not the other way around.

But why is it called like that and what's the real name of the bird?

When these birds were first brought to Europe from their native North and Central America, they were completely unknown. Nobody had seen them before or had a clue of what they were. In the UK, they began calling it "turkey" because it looked similar to the "turkey fowl", a different bird originary from Turkey (the country).

In France they called it "dinde" (d'Inde) because they thought the birds came from "India". But they didn't mean the same India that you are thinking about right now. As you might recall from the adventures of Christopher Columbus, Europeans thought they had arrived to India = the new World = the American continent. Following the same logic, the conquistadores who brought the birdsback to Spain called it "gallo de Indias" (Indian rooster). Many European countries still use a name that involves "India" for the same reason, eg. "gall dindi" in Catalá?

In other languages, the bird is also associated to a geographical place. For example, in Portuguese it is called "do peru" in reference to Peru, the country, which is quite strange because the Incas never knew about this bird. This is probably because the word Peru is derived from "Birú", who was local ruler who lived in Panama in the early 16th Century. When Spanish explorers visited Biru's territories in 1522, this was the Southernmost part of the New World known to the Europeans. Thus, any territory in the south of the new continent came to be designated as Birú or Perú which, in reality, corresponded geographically to Central America.

In Mexico and the northern part of Central America, the natives used to call it "guajolote", which is a mispronunciation of the aztec word "huehxolotl". At the same time, the Aztecs took the animal from the Mayas, who first domesticated the bird and inhabited in Central America. The Mayas used to called it "chunto" or "chompipe", which is the name still used by many in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. So I don't know if this is the real name or not, but it seems to be the oldest one given to the bird.

How do they call it in your language? Write it down in the comments!

In any case, for those celebrating, I hope you enjoy a perfectly cooked chompipe dinner wherever you are.

Happy Thanks Giving!