The bird we today call a turkey is native to America. Yet, how did it become associated with the country of Turkey?
Turk, the name of the people, is of unknown origin. It has cognates in the Romance languages, Byzantine Greek, Persian, and Arabic. It may even be related to the Chinese Tu-kin, a name given to a nomadic people thought to be who we now call the Huns. The Tu-kins occupied the land south of the Altai mountains in Asia in the 3rd century B.C.E.
Copyright 1997-2015, by David Wilton