学进去

The U. S. Thanksgiving holiday is symbolized (象征) by its traditional food-roast turkey. But turkey is certainly not from Turkey. In fact, its English name is based on one big mistake. We could say it is a case of mistaken identity. The word "Turkey" has meant "the land of the Turks" since ancient times. In the mid-1500s, the word "turkey" was first used to refer to the bird in the English language.

The misunderstanding over the word happened because of two similar-looking kinds of birds.

There is an African bird called the guinea fowl(珍珠鸡). It has dark feathers with white spots and a patch of brown on the back of its neck. Traders brought the guinea fowl to Europe through North Africa. This foreign bird came to Europe through Turkish lands. So, the English thought the bird as a "Turkish chicken".

When Europeans came to North America, they saw a bird that looked like the guinea fowl. This bird was native to the North American continent. But they thought that it was the guinea fowl，which. at that time, was called the “turkey cock"，so they gave it the same name.

Hundreds of years later, we continue to call this North American bird ‘turkey", even though it has no connection at all with the country Turkey, or even with Europe.

But English is not the only language with interesting names for this North American bird.

The Turkish call turkey “hindi”, the Turkish name for India. The reference(涉及)to India probably conies from the old. wrong idea that the New World was in Eastern Asia.

The French call it "dinde", a name that also connects the bird to India. "Dinde" means "from India" in the French language. "Turkey" has similar names in several other languages.