Thanksgiving, Language, and the Northwest Passage

Last week, I had a brief conversation with some Smith students about a confluence of words in Hebrew and English related to the (then) upcoming holiday of Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Hodu (Hebrew for thanks and the Land/Country India). Turkey (The Land/Country, but also the bird we eat on Thanksgiving). There is a series of linguistic connections between India and Turkey and the bird we call Thanksgiving. I am not the first to note this connection. In 2002, someone asked a question about this topic on Google Answers. The reply on Google Answers offers more information on this linguistic issue than I could hope to assemble.

What makes this linguistic issue worth mentioning is the early questions around the Kashrut status of Turkey (I first learned of this issue from a classmate. His mother, a Lapidus, is a descendant of Yom Tov Lipman Heller–often referred to as the Tosofot Yom Tov after the name of his commentary to the Mishnah. While they acknowledge that Turkey is Kosher, they retain a family tradition not to eat it. For more information on this and similar family traditions to not eat Turkey, see note 67 in the Kashrut.com article).

The linguistic connections came up twice during Thanksgiving break–first during Thanksgiving dinner with my mother’s family and again over Shabbat during a conversation with my father-in-law, Efrem Bromberg. He reminded me that the Americas were discovered while trying to find a Western route to India and the other countries in the East. He then said, “they never found what they were looking for but that may change if we don’t get our act together.” It is always difficult to map conversations, but this came after a discussion about global warming.

After talking with Efrem, I associate the linguistic confusion/connections with the Northwest Passage and through a jump–global warming. This morning, I read a brief passage in the Smithsonian Magazine that mentioned that this summer marked the first time in history that the Northwest Passage was passable by ships! An article in National Geographic on this topic makes a lesser claim (that it is not necessarily the first time in history that the Northwest Passage existed but the first time since satellite photos have been tracking the changes of ice in the area starting in 1978).

While my family and I have a lot to be thankful for this past weekend, it is this somber note that I expect to carry with me next time I discuss Thanksgiving and Turkey in Hebrew.

I welcome your comments and look forward to seeing this web-community develop,

Rabbi Bruce (Ravbruce)

Note that the article on Kashrut.com assigns some of the questions about Kashrut status to the linguistic confusion that prompted this posting:

As the turkey’s acceptance spread through Europe, somehow, Jews also started eating it, and eventually the question of its kosher status was posed to various rabbis, who usually permitted it. ⁵⁰
A major problem in analyzing the responsa is the confusion surrounding the turkey’s name, which relates to the confusion of where Columbus had landed and where this new bird came from. About 1530 when this new dish started appearing on English tables, it had been brought to England by merchants trading in the eastern Mediterranean. These merchants were called
“Turkey merchants” because the whole area was then part of the Turkish empire and the bird as called “Turkey bird” or “Turkey cock”. It became so popular so rapidly that only sixty years later Shakespeare (Twelfth Night, Act 4, Scene 5) was able to refer to it and assume his audience knew what it was.
The English are among the few who related this bird to Turkey. Nearly everyone else thought it came from India, whereas in reality it came from Mexico, which was then known as The Spanish Indies or the New Indies. Thus, in most European languages, Arabic, and Hebrew it is called something like the “bird of India”. Even in Turkey they call it hindi, as though it came from hindistan, which is Turkish for India. The modern Hebrew (tarnagol hodu) and Yiddish (hendika hen) names both mean “Indian chicken”.
Many Rabbis believed that turkey came from India, and as will be seen, included this as part of their discussion of its kosher status. The confusion of the name has led to there being responsa that talk about perlahener, indika hen, anglisher hen, or even tavas. Many of these deal with the turkey, but some discuss pheasant, guinea fowl or peacock.