Thanksgiving Turkey: Bureaucrat Explains Confusion Behind The Bird's Name

Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer Parveen Kaswan, who regularly shares interesting facts about wildlife, shared another interesting fact about Turkey. In a recent Twitter post, Mr Kaswan talked about the bird with confused origin. Turkey has become a staple of Christmas dinner and of Thanksgiving feast.

Ms Kaswan shared that the bird is often referred to by different geographic locations in various languages across the globe. He wrote, "Imagine how confused bird Turkey is. There are no native Turkey in Turkey. But named after Turkey only. In Turkey, they don't call them Turkey. They call them Hindi. Turks thought it was an Indian bird, so mistakenly started calling them Hindi."

He further wrote, "In English, it's called turkey, Turkey calls it Hindi, In Hindi it's called Peru pakshi, Arabs call it a Roman bird, Greeks call it French bird, the French call it poulet d inde (Indian chicken), Japanese call it Chinese bird, Dutch call it Calicut hen."

Check out the post here:
 

Imagine how confused bird Turkey is. There are no native Turkey in Turkey. But named after Turkey only. In Turkey they don't call them Turkey. They call them Hindi. Turks thought it was an Indian bird, so mistakenly started calling them Hindi. Pic Wiki. pic.twitter.com/itcJjdK4I2

— Parveen Kaswan, IFS (@ParveenKaswan) May 27, 2020

Since being posted, the post has garnered over 2 lakh views on Twitter and several comments on Twitter.

Commenting on the post, a user wrote, "It is not that the bird is confused. We, humans are."

Another user wrote, "Talk about an identity crisis! The poor bird must be thoroughly confused with all these different names. From Turkey to Hindi to Peru pakshi and beyond, it's truly a global citizen.!"

The third user commented, "Fortunately, turkey doesn't know what it is called! Whatever humans call it, ultimately it ends but in their stomach! Sad!"

"The turkey must feel like a globetrotting superstar with an identity crisis, going by more names than a spy with multiple passports," the fourth wrote.

The fifth user wrote, "Wow! Got to learn something new - I can also use the term Calicut Hens to describe people whom I used to call Turkeys!"