pulke

The Yiddish term for "chicken leg" or "drumstick" is pulke (פולקע), and it has entered Hebrew as well (פולקה). Stahl writes that the origin is in the Russian word pol, meaning half or side. This root is found in a number of Slavic languages, including Czech, where it appears as pul. This is the source of the dance Polka - which according to this site, is Czech for "half-step", referring to the rapid shift from one foot to the other.

On this site we find that pul derives from a more ancient Indo-European root meaning "split or half", which leads to many words in the various languages of the Indo-European family, including such words as split and splice.

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