The reason for this connection between Turks and turkeys is that Europeans, who first saw turkeys originating from the United States, likened this bird to a guinea fowl, which they called Turkey fowl because it was imported through Turkey.
Therefore, to avoid confusion with the word “turkey”, Turkey has started to be used as Türkiye instead of Turkey. By using the word “Türkiye” instead of “Turkey”, the confusion with the English word “turkey”, which is widely known in the world, and speculation on this subject will be prevented.
Europeans and Americans, who had called the turkey Turkey fowl for a long time, started to call it Turkey for short after a while.
In other words, this unfortunate name similarity between turkeys and Turks is just a result of the fact that English-speaking settler to first name the bird was too lazy to give a new name to an animal they saw for the first time. lol
Especially those of us who know English in Türkiye have always found it strange that the name of Türkiye is “Turkey” in English (maybe there have been some who felt uncomfortable). Because “turkey” means “turkey” in English. However, there is nothing to be disturbed about, because the name of this animal is always used to take the names of different nations when the languages are analysed, and this is quite interesting.
In languages, it is often unknown why words are said the way they are, and in linguistics this is called the principle of causality.
The strange thing is this: Meleagris gallopavo, which we know as the turkey, is not native to Turkey, India, France or Peru. Its homeland and the region where it evolved is North America. It was domesticated about 2000 years ago and became what it is today through artificial selection. Therefore, it is one of the last domesticated animal species.
Turkey is not the only country to suffer from this situation. A similar situation exists in France. In Greek (“gallopoúla”), Cimmerian (“moan barang”) and Gaelic (“cearc frangach”) the word for turkey is “French chicken”.
