为什么美国人称火鸡为"土耳其"

 　　How a New World bird came to be named after countries halfway¹ around the globe.

　　这种新世界的鸟类为什么会以半个地球外的国家的名字来命名。

　　Within the turkey lies the tangled² history of the world.

　　在土耳其境内有着错综复杂的世界历史。

　　为什么美国人称火鸡为“土耳其”1.jpg

　　OK, not quite. But not far off, either.

　　好吧，或许并非如此，但也相差无几了。

　　"Turkey" the bird is native to North America. But "turkey" the word is a geographic³ mess—a tribute to the vagaries⁴ of colonial trade and conquest. As you might have suspected, the English term for the avian creature likely comes from Turkey the country. Or, more precisely⁵, from Turkish merchants in the 15th and 16th centuries.

　　"火鸡"这种鸟是原产于北美洲。但是"turkey"一词来源是一种地理上的大杂烩 — — 是对殖民地贸易和征服的异想天开的献礼。你可能认为这种鸟类的英文名字可能来自于土耳其这个国家的名字。或者，更确切地说，从第十五和十六世纪的土耳其商人那里得名。

　　How exactly the word "turkey" made its way into the English language is in dispute. The linguist⁶ Mario Pei theorized that more than five centuries ago, Turks from the commercial hub of Constantinople (which the Ottomans conquered in the mid-15th century) sold wild fowl⁷ from Guinea in West Africa to European markets, leading the English to refer to the bird as "turkey cock" or "turkey coq" (coq being French for "rooster”), and eventually "turkey" for short. When British settlers arrived in Massachusetts, they applied⁸ the same terms to the wild fowl they spotted⁹ in the New World, even though the birds were a different species than their African counterparts. The etymology¹⁰ expert Mark Forsyth, meanwhile, claims that Turkish traders brought guinea fowl to England from Madagascar, off the coast of southeast Africa, and that Spanish conquistadors then introduced American fowl to Europe, where they were conflated with the "turkeys" from Madagascar. Dan Jurafsky, another linguist, argues that Europeans imported guinea fowl from Ethiopia (which was sometimes mixed up with India) via the Mamluk Turks, and then confused the birds with North American fowl shipped across the Atlantic by the Portuguese¹¹.

　　“土耳其”这个单词如何出现在英语语言中依然有争议。语言学家Mario 裴理推测大概在五个多世纪前，君士坦丁堡这个商业中心的土耳其人 (在15 世纪中叶被土耳其人征服）将来自西非几内亚的野禽（即珍珠鸡）卖到欧洲市场 ，所以那时的英国人称这种鸟为"土耳其公鸡"，并最终以"土耳其"来简称这种动物。当英国移民抵达（美国）马萨诸塞州时，在这块新大陆上他们用同一个词来称呼他们在这片土地上看到的野禽，尽管这里的野禽不同于非洲的那种。词源学专家马克福赛思说土耳其商人把几内亚的这种野禽从马达加斯加带到英国，而西班牙征服者把美洲的野禽引到欧洲，所以就和来自马达加斯加的“土耳其”混合在一起了。丹 Jurafsky，另一个语言学家，认为欧洲人通过马穆鲁克土耳其人从埃塞俄比亚 (有时候人们将埃塞俄比亚同印度混在一起了） 进口几内亚野禽，然后与葡萄牙通过大西洋从北美进口的野禽混淆在一起了。

　　为什么美国人称火鸡为“土耳其”2.jpg

　　The guinea fowl (left) vs.the North American turkey (Wikipedia)

　　珍珠鸡（左图）和北美火鸡对比（图片来源：维基百科）

　　Here's where things get even more bewildering. Turkey, which has no native turkeys, does not call turkey "turkey." The Turks "knew the bird wasn't theirs," Forsyth explains, so they "made a completely different mistake and called it a hindi, because they thought the bird was probably Indian." They weren't alone. The French originally called the American bird poulet d'Inde (literally¹² "chicken from India"), which has since been abbreviated¹³ to dinde, and similar terms exist in languages ranging from Polish to Hebrew to Catalan. Then there's the oddly specific Dutch word kalkoen, which, as a contraction¹⁴ of Calicut-hoen, literally means "hen from Calicut," a major Indian commercial center at the time. These names may have arisen from the mistaken belief at the time that the New World was the Indies, or the sense that the turkey trade passed through India.

　　事情还要更复杂。土耳其当地没有火鸡，他们也不把火鸡叫做“turkey”。他们“知道这玩意不是他们国家的“， 福赛斯是这么解释的，因此他们犯了一个完全不同的错误，把火鸡叫做hindi（印度语的意思），因为他们认为这玩意也许是印度的。有这种想法的人不止是土耳其人。法国人一开始把这种美国鸡称为poulet d'Inde（字面意思为来自印度的鸡），后来简称为dinde，类似的称谓也存在于波兰语、希伯来语和加泰罗尼亚语中。还有一个非常奇怪的特定荷兰语称谓kalkoen，是从Calicut-hoen这个词提炼出来的，字面意思是“来自卡利卡特的母鸡”， 卡利卡特曾是印度的主要商业中心之一。这些名称的来源也许是因为当时他们认为新世界指的是西印度群岛一带，或者是认为火鸡贸易途径印度。

　　So what is the bird called in India? It may be hindi in Turkey, but in Hindi it's arki. Some Indian dialects, however, use the word piru or peru, the latter being how the Portuguese refer to the American fowl, which is not native to Peru but may have become popular in Portugal as Spanish and Portuguese explorers conquered the New World. The expansion of Western colonialism only complicated matters: Malaysians call turkey ayam blander¹⁵ (“Dutch chicken”), while Cambodians opt¹⁶ for moan barang (“French chicken”).

　　那么火鸡在印度被称为什么呢？在土耳其他们称之为hindi，但是在印度语里他们称之为?arki。在一些印度方言里使用piru或者peru这个词，后者是葡萄牙语对美国火鸡的叫法，火鸡的原产地不是秘鲁，但是在西班牙和葡萄牙征服新大陆时在葡萄牙很受欢迎。西方殖民主义的扩张使事情更加复杂：马来西亚人把火鸡叫做ayam blander（荷兰鸡的意思），缅甸人选择了moan barang这个叫法（意思是法国鸡）

　　Then there are the turkey truthers and linguistic¹⁷ revisionists. In the early 1990s, for instance, a debate broke out in the "letter to the editor" section of The New York Times over the possible Hebrew origins of the word "turkey." On December 13, 1992, Rabbi Harold M. Kamsler suggested (as a follow-up to a Thanksgiving-themed piece titled "One Strange Bird") that the New World fowl received its English name from Christopher Columbus's interpreter, Luis de Torres, a Jewish convert to Catholicism. In an October 12, 1492 letter to a friend in Spain, de Torres had referred to the American bird he encountered as a tuki, the word for "peacock" in ancient Hebrew and "parrot" in modern Hebrew (a more dubious¹⁸ version of this story claims that Columbus himself was a Jew who hid his identity in the aftermath of the Spanish Inquisition but drew on his lineage to christen the fowl).

　　然后出现了火鸡真相者和语言学上的修正主义者。比如在1990年代初期的时候，在《纽约时报》的“给编者的话”板块上就引发了一场有关“火鸡”这个词可能来自希伯来语的可能性的争论。1992年12月13号，犹太拉比Harold M. Kamsler认为这种新世界飞禽的英文名字源于航海家哥伦布的口译人员 Luis de Torres（他是一名犹太人，后来皈依天主教）。在1492年12月12号给西班牙一位朋友的信件中， Luis de Torres将他在美国遇到的这种飞禽称为tuki，在古希伯来文中指的是“孔雀”的意思以及在现代的希伯来文中指的是“鹦鹉”的意思（而在一个更加可疑的故事版本中称哥伦布本人就是个犹太人，在西班牙宗教法庭建立后他隐藏了自己的身份，但是利用自己的血统为这种飞禽命名）。

　　Kamsler's letter, however, was met with a firm rebuttal from the president of the Association for the Study of Jewish Languages, David L Gold. "Rabbi Kamsler's explanation, not original with him, is an old yarn¹⁹ spun²⁰ in uninformed Jewish circles," Gold wrote. "Along with countless²¹ other pseudoscientific claims about supposed Hebrew influence on English and other languages, the myth of the Hebrew origin of 'turkey' was quietly exploded in volume 2 of Jewish Linguistic Studies (1990)."

　　Kamsler的看法遭到了犹太语言研究协会主席David L Gold的反驳。“拉比Kamsler的解释简直胡说八道。可以在《犹太语言研究》的第二卷（1990）中找到证据证明：“火鸡”这个词并非来自希伯来语。

　　The turkey's scientific name doesn't make much more sense than its vernacular²² one. Its binomial nomenclature, Meleagris gallopavo, is a hodgepodge. The first name comes from a Greek myth in which the goddess Artemis turned the grieving sisters of the slain²³ Meleager into guinea fowls²⁴. The second name is a portmanteau: Gallo is derived²⁵ from the Latin word for rooster, gallus, while pavo is the Latin word for peacock. So, effectively, the official name for a turkey is guinea-fowl-rooster-peacock.

　　火鸡的科学命名并不比它的俗称更有意义。双名命名法，Meleagris gallopavo（吐绶鸡），本来就是一个大杂烩。第一个词来自于希腊神话：月亮女神阿耳忒弥斯将被杀死的梅利埃格的悲伤姐妹变成了珍珠鸡（guinea fowl）。第二个词是一个混合词：Gallo来源拉丁词”公鸡“，pavo来源拉丁词”孔雀“。所以，最终，火鸡的正式名称就是：珍珠鸡-公鸡-孔雀（guinea-fowl-rooster-peacock）。

　　Reflecting on his interview with Mario Pei, NPR's Robert Krulwich noted²⁶ that "for 500 years now, this altogether American, very gallant²⁷ if not particularly intelligent animal has never once been given an American name." But the turkey does have many authentically²⁸ American names—Americans just choose not to use them. After all, pre-Aztec and Aztec peoples domesticated²⁹ the turkey more than a millennium³⁰ before Columbus reached the New World (the Aztecs called the bird huehxolotl). There are numerous Native American words for the bird, including the Blackfoot term omahksipi'kssii, which literally means "big bird." It's a bit vague, sure, but it certainly beats guinea-fowl-rooster-peacock.

　　回顾语言学家利奥-佩（Mario Pei）的采访，美国国家公共电台（NPR）的罗伯特-科尔维奇（Robert Krulwich）提到过”500年来，所有美国人非常殷切期盼这种并不太聪明的动物能有一个美国化的名字。”但是火鸡却有很多真正的美国名字，只是美国人没选用而已。毕竟，在哥伦布到达新世界前，阿兹特克人驯养火鸡（阿兹特克人称火鸡为“huehxolotl”）已经超过一千年了。有很多原生美国词汇形容这种鸟，包括黑脚部族把它叫做“omahksipi'kssii”，意思是“大鸟”。这么叫是有点含糊，没错，但是确实好过“珍珠鸡-公鸡-孔雀（guinea-fowl-rooster-peacock）”。

1 halfway   

adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途

参考例句：

• We had got only halfway when it began to get dark.走到半路，天就黑了。
• In study the worst danger is give up halfway.在学习上，最忌讳的是有始无终。

2 tangled   

adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• Your hair's so tangled that I can't comb it. 你的头发太乱了，我梳不动。
• A movement caught his eye in the tangled undergrowth. 乱灌木丛里的晃动引起了他的注意。

3 geographic   

adj.地理学的，地理的

参考例句：

• The city's success owes much to its geographic position. 这座城市的成功很大程度上归功于它的地理位置。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Environmental problems pay no heed to these geographic lines. 环境问题并不理会这些地理界限。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

4 vagaries   

n.奇想( vagary的名词复数 )；异想天开；异常行为；难以预测的情况

参考例句：

• The vagaries of fortune are indeed curious.\" 命运的变化莫测真是不可思议。” 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• The vagaries of inclement weather conditions are avoided to a certain extent. 可以在一定程度上避免变化莫测的恶劣气候影响。 来自辞典例句

5 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

6 linguist   

n.语言学家；精通数种外国语言者

参考例句：

• I used to be a linguist till I become a writer.过去我是个语言学家，后来成了作家。
• Professor Cui has a high reputation as a linguist.崔教授作为语言学家名声很高。

7 fowl   

n.家禽，鸡，禽肉

参考例句：

• Fowl is not part of a traditional brunch.禽肉不是传统的早午餐的一部分。
• Since my heart attack,I've eaten more fish and fowl and less red meat.自从我患了心脏病后，我就多吃鱼肉和禽肉，少吃红色肉类。

8 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

9 spotted   

adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的

参考例句：

• The milkman selected the spotted cows,from among a herd of two hundred.牛奶商从一群200头牛中选出有斑点的牛。
• Sam's shop stocks short spotted socks.山姆的商店屯积了有斑点的短袜。

10 etymology   

n.语源；字源学

参考例句：

• The hippies' etymology is contentious.关于嬉皮士的语源是有争议的。
• The origin of OK became the Holy Grail of etymology.OK的出典成了词源学梦寐以求的圣杯。

11 Portuguese   

n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语

参考例句：

• They styled their house in the Portuguese manner.他们仿照葡萄牙的风格设计自己的房子。
• Her family is Portuguese in origin.她的家族是葡萄牙血统。

12 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

13 abbreviated   

adj. 简短的，省略的 动词abbreviate的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He abbreviated so much that it was hard to understand his article. 他的文章缩写词使用太多，令人费解。
• The United States of America is commonly abbreviated to U.S.A.. 美利坚合众国常被缩略为U.S.A.。

14 contraction   

n.缩略词，缩写式，害病

参考例句：

• The contraction of this muscle raises the lower arm.肌肉的收缩使前臂抬起。
• The forces of expansion are balanced by forces of contraction.扩张力和收缩力相互平衡。

15 blander   

adj.（食物）淡而无味的( bland的比较级 )；平和的；温和的；无动于衷的

参考例句：

• Generally speaking, I prefer Blander food. 一般说来，我更喜欢吃清淡的食物。 来自互联网
• First turn on the blander, and then pour 2 teaspoons of yogurt into the blander. 首先把搅拌器打开，然后把两勺酸奶倒进搅拌器。 来自互联网

16 opt   

vi.选择，决定做某事

参考例句：

• They opt for more holiday instead of more pay.他们选择了延长假期而不是增加工资。
• Will individual schools be given the right to opt out of the local school authority?各个学校可能有权选择退出地方教育局吗？

17 linguistic   

adj.语言的，语言学的

参考例句：

• She is pursuing her linguistic researches.她在从事语言学的研究。
• The ability to write is a supreme test of linguistic competence.写作能力是对语言能力的最高形式的测试。

18 dubious   

adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的

参考例句：

• What he said yesterday was dubious.他昨天说的话很含糊。
• He uses some dubious shifts to get money.他用一些可疑的手段去赚钱。

19 yarn   

n.纱，纱线，纺线；奇闻漫谈，旅行轶事

参考例句：

• I stopped to have a yarn with him.我停下来跟他聊天。
• The basic structural unit of yarn is the fiber.纤维是纱的基本结构单元。

20 spun   

v.纺，杜撰，急转身

参考例句：

• His grandmother spun him a yarn at the fire.他奶奶在火炉边给他讲故事。
• Her skilful fingers spun the wool out to a fine thread.她那灵巧的手指把羊毛纺成了细毛线。

21 countless   

adj.无数的，多得不计其数的

参考例句：

• In the war countless innocent people lost their lives.在这场战争中无数无辜的人丧失了性命。
• I've told you countless times.我已经告诉你无数遍了。

22 vernacular   

adj.地方的，用地方语写成的；n.白话；行话；本国语；动植物的俗名

参考例句：

• The house is built in a vernacular style.这房子按当地的风格建筑。
• The traditional Chinese vernacular architecture is an epitome of Chinese traditional culture.中国传统民居建筑可谓中国传统文化的缩影。

23 slain   

杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词)

参考例句：

• The soldiers slain in the battle were burried that night. 在那天夜晚埋葬了在战斗中牺牲了的战士。
• His boy was dead, slain by the hand of the false Amulius. 他的儿子被奸诈的阿缪利乌斯杀死了。

24 fowls   

鸟( fowl的名词复数 )； 禽肉； 既不是这； 非驴非马

参考例句：

• A great number of water fowls dwell on the island. 许多水鸟在岛上栖息。
• We keep a few fowls and some goats. 我们养了几只鸡和一些山羊。

25 derived   

vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取

参考例句：

• Many English words are derived from Latin and Greek. 英语很多词源出于拉丁文和希腊文。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He derived his enthusiasm for literature from his father. 他对文学的爱好是受他父亲的影响。 来自《简明英汉词典》

26 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

27 gallant   

adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的

参考例句：

• Huang Jiguang's gallant deed is known by all men. 黄继光的英勇事迹尽人皆知。
• These gallant soldiers will protect our country.这些勇敢的士兵会保卫我们的国家的。

28 authentically   

ad.sincerely真诚地

参考例句：

• Gina: And we should give him something 2 authentically Taiwanese. 吉娜：而且我们应该送他有纯正台湾味的东西。
• A loser is one who fails to correspond authentically. 失败者则指那些未能做到诚实可靠的人。

29 domesticated   

adj.喜欢家庭生活的；（指动物）被驯养了的v.驯化( domesticate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He is thoroughly domesticated and cooks a delicious chicken casserole. 他精于家务，烹制的砂锅炖小鸡非常可口。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The donkey is a domesticated form of the African wild ass. 驴是非洲野驴的一种已驯化的品种。 来自《简明英汉词典》

30 millennium   

n.一千年，千禧年；太平盛世

参考例句：

• The whole world was counting down to the new millennium.全世界都在倒计时迎接新千年的到来。
• We waited as the clock ticked away the last few seconds of the old millennium.我们静候着时钟滴答走过千年的最后几秒钟。