Friday, June 6, 2014

India, Turkey, Hindistan and the Russian connection

One February morning when I walked towards Istanbul's Taksim Square, a middle-aged man stopped me near the Armenian church and asked me if I was from Pakistan, when I replied, "Hindistan," the man got excited and warmly shook my hand. 

The word "Hindi" means turkey (the bird) in Turkish. Turks believe that the bird's origin is India and so India is the land of turkeys. So what does any of this have to do with Russia?  Nothing, I would have thought until I read this on the Russia & India Report. 

Alexey Mikheeyev writes, "Last but not least, the Asians indianka (an “Indian woman”) and koreiyanka (a “Korean woman”) also have their abridged counterparts: indeika and koreika: where the former refers to a female turkey..."

So somewhere this connection with India and the bird spread from Turkey to Russia. 

Isn't it wonderful that we're all connected in the strangest of ways? 

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