The Egyptians and Persians were among the first to mine turquoise, with the Egyptians mining in the Sinai peninsula and the Persians in the Nishapur region of modern-day Iran. This precious stone was traded by both civilizations with the Turks, who then brought it to Europe. The French named it pierre turqueise, meaning “Turkish stone”, which was later borrowed into English in the 1560s. The term began to be used metonymically to describe the color of the mineral in the mid-nineteenth century. The word turquoise is derived from Turk, the Turkish self-appellation, although its etymology remains unknown. It may have roots in Proto-Turkic turi (“ancestry”), the Tu-Kin people group (known by a Chinese name), or related to words meaning “strength” or “barbarian”. As of 2019, turquoise accounted for 0.000153% of all words used in English-language books.
