yoğurt

Yoğurt comes from the Old Turkic verb yoğurmak—"to knead" or "to be curdled." The first yogurt was likely an accident: milk stored in animal-skin bags in warm climates would naturally ferment.

Turkic nomads on the Central Asian steppes discovered that this curdled milk lasted longer, traveled better, and seemed to keep them healthy. They spread the practice—and the word—wherever they migrated.

Ottoman Turks brought yogurt to southeastern Europe and the Middle East. In the 1900s, Bulgarian scientist Stamen Grigorov identified the specific bacteria (Lactobacillus bulgaricus) responsible. Yogurt went from folk food to health food.

The word's spelling varies wildly across languages—yoghurt, yogourt, joğur, yaourt—because each culture heard the Turkish word slightly differently. The bacteria don't care about spelling.