# tak tavuk



## Luiz Eduardo Brandão

Hello, does this expression have a special meaning? Is it a joke, a pun? The name of a real chicken farm? What is the meaning of tak?

I found it in Orhan Pamuk's _Sessiz eve_. Context:

Sonra çayırın daha ilerisinden bana bakan, bir yüksek apartman iriliğindeki budala tavuğu gördüm: Tak Tavuk! Bir tavuk çiftliğinin çelik payandalarla desteklenen kocaman reklamından bana bakıyor. Yabancı dergilerden yürütüldüğü hemen anlaşılan, askılı kısa bir pantolon giymiş, sevimli olması istenmiş, budala, yerli, taklit ve umutsuz. Tak Tavuk Çiftliği. Kurnaz olmak isteyen ahmak bakış. Bakma. Canım dönüp gitmek istedi, ama daha değil.

Thank you!


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## Guner

It is the name of the chicken farm and apparantly it is an unexpected logo/icon located in such an unexpected place.

Interestingly though the meaning of the word "tak-ığu" is closely related to chicken (or domesticated birds in general) in old Turkish/Uiygur. In Mongolian it is "tak-ijan" ("piliç") and in Korean it is "tark" or "tak".
Hence maybe the writer is on to something here picking that name for the farm  I am sure linguists in this forum would know better though.

Hope this helps...


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## Luiz Eduardo Brandão

Thank you, Guner. I thought it was a pun or that the author was just playing with sounds: tak / tav.


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## Guner

Luiz Eduardo Brandão said:


> Thank you, Guner. I thought it was a pun or that the author was just playing with sounds: tak / tav.


 
Maybe he was also playing with the sounds  He is a Nobel Prize winner after all


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## Luiz Eduardo Brandão

After your explanation, I think he does both things: he plays with the sounds, but these sounds are somehow echos of etymological and other senses of the word (as _tak_ -> takmak emir kipi).
Thank you again, Guner.


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## Guner

Luiz Eduardo Brandão said:


> After your explanation, I think he does both things: he plays with the sounds, but these sounds are somehow echos of etymological and other senses of the word (as _tak_ -> takmak emir kipi).
> Thank you again, Guner.


 
Yep, why not? ie: chicken on skewers - "tavuk şiş" would require the cook to put the chicken on skewers, which can be somewhat translated into Turkish as "Şişe tavuk tak-mak" and hence the advertised farm name "Tak Tavuk"...


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## Luiz Eduardo Brandão

Ah, you have propably found the origine of Pamuk's pun! Here in Brazil, chicken prepared like that is a veritable national institution. Bakeries, rotisseries roasts the chickens in a machine with a kind of glass-door, you can see the chickens been roasted on the skewers disposed in many rows. We call it "dog's TV". Here you can see why...

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_BdZwY9RKlqQ/S_XmUXJu1ZI/AAAAAAAABHM/onJYT-9PGxQ/s1600/tvcachorro.jpg


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