A Lesson in Hebrew

Today I was talking with a Jewish friend, who was telling me about one Thanksgiving he spent in Antwerp. He wanted to buy a Kosher turkey for the holiday. He found a Kosher butcher, but that guy only spoke Flemish and Hebrew. My friend speaks Hebrew, but didn’t know the word for ‘turkey.’ It was a funny story about him mimicking gobble sounds until the guy got the idea and told him the right name. 

Hebrew was revived for spoken use in the 19th century, so the ancient language doesn’t really have a word for ‘turkey,’ as it was originally spoken in the Middle East and died out before the discovery of the Americas. Thus, the name of the bird was invented after the origin of our holiday. 

The name has an ambiguous translation, which can mean “rooster of India” or “chicken of thanks.” Columbus thought he’d gone to India, after all. That the same word can also mean thanking or praising is a happy coincidence.