alt Hacker NewsIs chicken really German though? A hen is called "Huhn" (Das Huhn), and chicken may be more appropriately translated as "Geflügel" (or rather, the latter would be poultry; chicken would be "Huhn" or "Hähnchen"). I don't see the germanic origin insinuated here for the word "chicken", whereas I do so it for "hen" <- "Huhn" quite easily. (And "Geflügel" has "Flügel" which relates more easily to flight/to fly, or better Flügel=wing).
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In the same family of languages (proto-germanic), you'll have Swedish for which the word for the meat is "kyckling" which more pronounced like "chickling".
Modern German might have changed along the way, but if you go back far enough, there should be something. I'm not a linguist or a native speaker of a Proto-Germanic language, so I don't know enough to pinpoint this better.
In German, you can also use the word Küken, which is very clearly a cognate of English chicken.
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Wiktionary [0] seems pretty confident ("Germanic" includes all of the languages below, not just modern German).
[0] From Middle English chiken (also as chike > English chick), from Old English ċicen, ċycen (“chicken”), of uncertain origin. Possibly from Proto-West Germanic kiukīn (“chicken”), or alternatively from Proto-West Germanic kukkīn, equivalent to cock + -en.
Compare North Frisian schückling (“chicken”), Saterland Frisian Sjuuken (“chicken”), Dutch kuiken (“chick, chicken”), German Low German Küken (“chick”), whence German Küken (“chick”), (elevated, obsolete) German Küchlein (“chick”) and Old Norse kjúklingr (“chicken”).