TURKEY, s. This fowl is called in Hindustani perū, very possibly an indication that it came to India, perhaps first to the Spanish settlements in the Archipelago, across the Pacific, as the red pepper known as [Chili] did. In Tamil the bird is called vān-kōṛi, 'great fowl.' Our European names of it involve a complication of mistakes and confusions. We name it as if it came from the Levant. But the name turkey would appear to have been originally applied to another of the Pavonidae, the [guinea-fowl], Meleagris of the ancients. Minsheu's explanations (quoted below) show strange confusions between the two birds. The French coq d'Inde or Dindon points only ambiguously to India, but the German Calecutische Hahn and the Dutch Kalkoen (from Calicut) are specific in error as indicating the origin of the Turkey in the East. This misnomer may have arisen from the nearly simultaneous discovery of America and of the Cape route to Calicut, by Spain and Portugal respectively. It may also have been connected with the fact that Malabar produced domestic fowls of extraordinary size. Of these Ibn Batuta (quoted below) makes quaint mention. Zedler's great German Lexicon of Universal Knowledge, a work published as late as 1745, says that these birds (turkeys) were called Calecutische and Indische because they were brought by the Portuguese from the Malabar coast. Dr. Caldwell cites a curious disproof of the antiquity of certain Tamil verses from their containing a simile of which the turkey forms the subject. And native scholars, instead of admitting the anachronism, have boldly maintained that the turkey had always been found in India (Dravidian Gramm. 2nd ed. p. 137). Padre Paolino was apparently of the same opinion, for whilst explaining that the etymology of Calicut is "Castle of the Fowls," he asserts that Turkeys (Galli d'India) came originally from India; being herein, as he often is, positive and wrong. In 1615 we find W. Edwards, the E.I. Co.'s agent at Ajmir, writing to send the Mogul "three or four Turkey cocks and hens, for he hath three cocks but no hens" (Colonial Paper, E. i. c. 388). Here, however, the ambiguity between the real turkey and the guinea-fowl may possibly arise. In Egypt the bird is called Dik-Rūmī, 'fowl of Rūm' (i.e. of Turkey), probably a rendering of the English term.
c. 1347.—"The first time in my life that I saw a China cock was in the city of Kaulam. I had at first taken it for an ostrich, and I was looking at it with great wonder, when the owner said to me, 'Pooh! there are cocks in China much bigger than that!' and when I got there I found that he had said no more than the truth."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 257.
c. 1550.—"One is a species of peacock that has been brought to Europe, and commonly called the Indian fowl."—Girolamo Benzoni, 148.
1627.—"Turky Cocke, or cocke of India, avis ita dicta, quod ex Africa, et vt nonulli volunt alii, ex India vel Arabia ad nos allata sit. B. Indische haen. T. Indianisch hun, Calecuttisch hun.... H. Pavon de las Indias. G. Poulle d'Inde. H. 2. Gallepauo. L. Gallo-pauo, quod de vtriusque natura videtur participare ... aves Numidicae, à Numidia, Meleagris ... à μέλας, i. niger, and ἄγρος, ager, quod in Æthiopia praecipuè inveniuntur.
"A Turkie, or Ginnie Henne ... I. Gallina d'India. H. Galina Morisca. G. Poulle d'Inde. L. Penélope. Auis Pharaonis. Meleágris....
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"A Ginnie cocke or hen: ex Guinea, regione Indica ... vnde fuerunt priùs ad alias regiones transportati. vi. Turkie-cocke or hen."—Minsheu's Guide into Tongues (2d edition).
1623.—"33. Gallus Indicus, aut Turcicus (quem vocant), gallinacei aevum parum superat; iracundus ales, et carnibus valde albis."—Bacon, Hist. Vitae et Mortis, in Montague's ed. x. 140.
1653.—"Les François appellent coq-d'Inde vn oyseau lequel ne se trouue point aux Indes Orientales, les Anglois le nomment turki-koq qui signifie coq de Turquie, quoy qu'il n'y ait point d'autres en Turquie que ceux que l'on y a portez d'Europe. Ie croy que cet oyseau nous est venu de l'Amerique."—De la Boullaye-le-Gouz, ed. 1657, p. 259.
1750-52.—"Some Germans call the turkeys Calcutta hens; for this reason I looked about for them here, and to the best of my remembrance I was told they were foreign."—Olof Toreen, 199-200. We do not know whether the mistake of Calcutta for Calicut belongs to the original author or to the translator—probably to the proverbial traditore.