You see, I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name,
It felt good to be out of the rain.
In the desert you can remember your name,
‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain.
La, la, la la la la, la la la, la, la
La, la, la la la la, la la la, la, la

One of those interesting mis-transfers of language occurs with the turkey, that eccentric, flightless bird that we in America and a half dozen other countries thankfully consume every fourth Thursday in November.

In the English-speaking world, we say “turkey.” But in Turkey, the fellow is known by the name hindi, meaning one who is from India. The reason for this, according to a quick Wikipedia search, lies in commerce, the ancient Silk Road.

Imagine: you are a merchant in ancient times. You are in Istanbul (or Constantinople). A shipment arrives from the East. Among the goods are a pack of these gobbling birds. “What you got here?” you enquire from the tradesman. “These?” he scratches his head. “I forget the name, brother, but they come from India.”
“Right,” you say. “OK, how much for the lot?”

The transaction is done. The following day, an English captain shows up at one of the city’s bazaars. He asks the merchant about the birds. “Hindi,” the man says. The exchange is probably a mixture of Turkish, Latin, French and English, a loud, gesticulating swirl of lingua franca.

Back in London a couple of weeks later, or however long the journey over the Continent took in those days, our English captain hands over the goods to his countrymen. They take one look:

“What the hell kind of bird is that?” one of the tradesman inquires, peering at our gobbling friends.

The Englishman scrambles, to no avail, to remember the name his Turkish counterpart said on that noisy market street in Istanbul several weeks ago.

“Christ,” he finally says, giving up. “It’s from Turkey, for fuck’s sake.”

And thus, legends are born, names are given. The language of commerce may not be always given to accuracy, but the sovereign pound carries the day. The deal is done.

Later, over in the Americas, the pilgrims are busy trying to avoid the fate of the Lost Colony. A few young men are out exploring the frontier.

“Hey, check it out, brother,” one of them says, pointing.

“Is that what I think it is? A turkey?”

And so it is. Halfway around the world, on this sprawling continent, this same bird lives and thrives. Since nobody apparently bothered to ask the Native Americans what they called it (a common failing of New World protocol), the name turkey-cum-hindi, gets passed on.

“Globalization can transfer capital, can transfer knowledge, but globalization cannot transfer cultures.” — Sani Sener, CEO, TAV Construction, a Turkish construction firm currently building airports throughout the Middle East.

This recent observation by Mr. Sener, told to CNN in a recent report on Turkish construction firms expanding globally, is worth noting. By culture, I think Sener means identity, since culture, in the simplest terms, simply means who people are.

As a teacher these past eight years, I’ve had the opportunity to travel and live on three continents, in more than a dozen countries. I’ve had the privilege to meet people from all over the world, and from every class: university students, auto mechanic salesman, top government officials, artists, senior citizens and children.

I’ll never forget one friend from Bangladesh, who asked me if spaghetti comes from Italy. Or a Czech student who was adamant that Madonna was English, not from Michigan. On my end, it was interesting and enlightening to find out that St. Nicholaus, known to most of the world as Santa Claus, actually hails from a city that is now called Demre in Turkey, and not the North Pole, as children’s books led me to believe.

The further you travel (as our feathered friend will attest) the more you are astonished (in a healthy way) at how much misinformation gets passed along in day to day life, and lives on. By the way, this is not intended to be some sort of thesis, or to set the record straight. From what little I could gather in an admittedly hasty Internet search, the truth is nobody seems really sure where the hell this damn bird comes from. Dim theories persist that perhaps it hails, as the Turks say, originally from India, and thanks to the trade routes made their way across Central Asia to Europe. In that sense, they are like the gypsy Roma of birds, a citizen of nowhere, the eternal, eccentric, lonesome traveller.

In this light, a more appropriate name just may well be the Roma, or gypsy bird. It is interesting to consider that this bird has become so much a part of our traditions in America, and yet the name he is given belongs to some merchant in bygone times, in a distant land, who couldn’t even remember the name of what he was buying.
All of this musing aside, I realize the importance of Thanksgiving is to be with family, with friends. It’s not a time to question what is put in front of you. In Turkey, this same wisdom is observed; don’t fuss, just eat and give thanks.

James Tressler was a reporter for the Times-Standard. His books, “Conversations in Prague” and “The Trumpet Fisherman and Other Istanbul Sketches,” are available at Amazon.com and Lulu.com. He lives in Istanbul.