To have a rumbling stomach

Karnı zil çalmak is a wonderful Turkish idiom that describes someone being extremely hungry. Have you ever heard that strange and funny sound coming from your stomach after returning home from school or after playing outside with friends for hours? That is precisely when your stomach is trying to tell you something: “I’m hungry, give me energy!”

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In our language, we often use idioms to express our emotions or situations more vividly. “Karnı zil çalmak” is one such idiom, used to describe moments when we are desperately in need of food. For example, while waiting for lunchtime at school, you might turn to a friend and say, “I haven’t eaten anything today, my stomach is ringing!”

Sometimes, when we order dinner at home, we eagerly wait for the doorbell to ring. In such a situation, we might say, “I wish the order would arrive soon, my stomach is ringing now,” humorously emphasizing just how hungry we are.

When our stomach is empty, it produces a “gurul gurul” sound. In the past, people compared this noise to the ringing of a school bell. Just as the school bell signals it is time to enter class or take a break, the stomach’s “bell” signals that it is time to eat.

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Our writers and thinkers have frequently used this beautiful idiom in their works. For instance, the renowned writer İsmail Hakkı Baltacıoğlu, while describing a character’s condition in one of his stories, wrote: “At that moment, his stomach was ringing; he had become wealthy but had no strength left even to step into a restaurant.” Here, we understand that the character is extremely hungry yet too exhausted to move.