Skip to content

Wait...How Do You Pronounce Turkey???

2026-06-13 (said on 2026-06-12 — implied: date said in the video; uploaded 1 day later) · letter vlog · Hank, John · 6:24 · watch on YouTube

Topic: History & curiosities (also: Sports) · mode: Curiosity & trivia

Prompted by John's World Cup video, Hank explains that the turkey bird was named after guinea fowl traded through Turkey and that only Mexico names it correctly, then muses on toponyms such as Sakartvelo, Türkiye's 2022 UN request and Ukraine, saying only people change language and he doesn't know which names should win.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Thanks for John's World Cup video; a clip of John on Turkey's group; how is Turkey pronounced?

00:00:29 — Turkey the country and the bird: guinea fowl, Ottoman trade routes, the bird's names across languages, guajolote

  • ★★ Hank says Turkey, like Georgia and perhaps Hungary, is a country whose most common English name is used more often for something other than the country. — 00:00:29
  • ★ China may once have shared this problem, but nobody calls their dishes china anymore. (hedged) — 00:00:29 · China
  • ★★ Hank says the turkey bird is in fact named after the country, though turkeys don't live anywhere near Turkey. — 00:00:58
  • ★★★ Turkeys were named after guinea fowl, which were traded to Europe through Ottoman trade routes and so called turkey fowl. — 00:01:27 · Europe
  • ★★ In Turkey the birds were called Hindi, as if from India; in India they are sometimes called Peru, though Peru has no turkeys. — 00:01:27
  • ★★ Guinea fowl come from Sub-Saharan Africa, so their English name is now roughly correct. — 00:01:56
  • ★★ In Turkish, French, Russian, Polish, Hebrew, Armenian, Georgian and other languages, the turkey's name basically means 'from India'. — 00:01:56
  • ★★ In Greek and Scottish the turkey is a kind of French bird, in Levantine Arabic the Ethiopian rooster, and in Albanian the sea rooster. — 00:01:56
  • ★★★ Only Mexico, where turkeys are from, names the bird correctly: in Mexican Spanish guajolote, from the Nahuatl name given by the people who domesticated it. — 00:02:26

00:02:55 — Toponyms: Sakartvelo, language change, Türkiye's 2022 UN request, Ukraine and Kyiv

  • ★★★ Hank says the video is really about toponyms, which are crazy: our names for other places often have nothing to do with what locals call them. — 00:02:55
  • ★★ The people of Georgia call their country Sakartvelo. — 00:02:55
  • ★★ Hank can't call Georgia Sakartvelo since it isn't the word in his language and no one would understand, though it would have spared Americans confusion when Russia invaded Georgia. — 00:02:55 · United States
  • ★★★ Hank says he doesn't know what to do about the discourse over such names: Chile, Qatar, Georgia or Sakartvelo. (unsure) — 00:03:24
  • ★★★ Hank says language feels unchangeable yet changes constantly; entirely constructed and performed by human minds, it can only be changed by people. — 00:03:24
  • ★★★ Hank says one aim of language is clear communication, and intentional changes can get in its way, as Türkiye made him think about pronunciation rather than the team. — 00:03:53
  • ★★★ In 2022 Turkey's government asked the UN to change the country's English name so it would not share a word with the bird. — 00:03:53
  • ★ 'Turkey' is also an uncommon, mild slang term for a fool, something said to a kid. — 00:04:22
  • ★★ Hank is fine with a country asking another to use Türkiye instead of Turkey. — 00:04:22
  • ★★ John's video was perhaps the first time Hank heard someone say Türkiye instead of Turkey, so the change doesn't seem to have caught on much. (hedged) — 00:04:52 · John Green
  • ★★ Ukraine never liked being called 'the Ukraine', as Hank called it growing up, because it implies being part of another thing. — 00:04:52
  • ★★★ Hank says the change suddenly gained moral weight, since 'the Ukraine' implied a Russian borderland, and quickly permeated the culture: no one says 'the Ukraine' anymore. (hedged) — 00:05:21
  • ★★ No one says Kiev anymore, the more Russian pronunciation, though people still say chicken Kiev. — 00:05:21
  • ★★ Hank suspects Georgians would not mind English speakers saying Sakartvelo, which would prevent some confusion. (hedged) — 00:05:21

00:05:53 — Which place names will change; making a language together; sign-off

  • ★★ Hank is glad Mumbai is no longer called Bombay. — 00:05:53
  • ★★★ Hank does not expect English speakers to start calling Japan Nippon. — 00:05:53
  • ★★★ Hank thinks Czechia will eventually win out over the Czech Republic. — 00:05:53
  • ★★★ Hank doesn't think English speakers will ever call Germany Deutschland. — 00:05:53
  • ★★ Hank says he is happy to create a language with John and a billion or so other people, a really weird activity. (playful) — 00:05:53 · John Green

In the description and comments

  • ★ The description says Hank simply forgot to upload this video the day before, with a lot going on in the household. — video description

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Language change · Toponymy · Turkey · Turkey (bird)

Also: Organizations: United Nations

Concepts: Guineafowl · Nahuatl · Spanish language

Places: Chile · China · Czech Republic · Europe · Georgia (country) · Georgia (U.S. state) · Germany · Hungary · India · Japan · Kyiv · Mexico · Mumbai · Ottoman Empire · Peru · Qatar · Russia · Sub-Saharan Africa · Ukraine · United States

Events: FIFA World Cup · Russo-Georgian War

Also centred on Language change: Cat...I Farted.

Replies to

← Previous: Your 1-Sentence Guide to EVERY TEAM in the 2026 World Cup · Next → My First Novel in Nine Years Has a Cover