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Turkeys communicate with a wide variety of noises, most sounding like a rusty gate squeaking shut.  Hunters only need to know how to yelp and perhaps cluck to succeed in the woods, but if you visit a place, it's always good to learn the language.  Here's a Turkey-To-English guide of the most common sounds, and their uses by both turkeys and hunters.  Click on the sound's name in bold to hear what it sounds like - you must have window media player.

• Cackle - (15 or 20 yelps, starts very fast, then slows): Hens often cackle loudly as they fly up and down to the roost.  Some hunters imitate the cackle early in the morning while beating their hat against their leg to simulate wingbeats.
  Cackling at dusk can help you locate birds by making them gobble in response.  A cackle at that time also sets the stage for the next morning, since the gobbler has heard a new hen (you) close by.
• Cluck - (like a chicken's cluck, usually with long pauses between each cluck): Turkeys cluck when they're happy, feeding, or just walking around.  It's a soft, distracted sound, as if they were humming tunlessly.  Clucks let other turkeys know where they are, in a low-key way.  For hunters, clucks are good calls to use when birds have been pressured with a lot of aggressive calling.
  The Sound is a little popping noise.  When gobblers cluck, it sounds as if they've got peanut butter stuck to the roof of their mouths.  You'll often hear jakes gobbler-clucking when they come to a hen call.
• Cutt - (Cutts are a series of fast, syncopated puck sounds):  Cutts are a series of sharp, syncopated clucks made by excited hens.  You'll hear as many as 10 or 15 fast clucks when a hen cutts.  Gobblers often respond to cutting by gobbling, making the cutt an excellent locator call and a call used by "run and gun" -style hunters.
• Drumming - (a ffft sound, then a low hum): Drumming is a humming sound made by the gobbler as he struts.  It's a low-frequency hum, so some people cannot hear drumming turkeys at all, no matter how close the bird may be.  Others can hear toms drum 100 yards away and, since turkeys will often strut without gobbling, it's a real advantage to learn to recognize the sound
• Gobbling - (sounds like a high-pitched Gil-obble-obble-obble; hard to mistake for anything else): Turkeys actually gobble year round.  Male turkeys gobble to assert dominance over one another , to stake out territories, to attract hens, and as a reflex, or "shock gobble."
  Most gobbling occurs on the roost, especially in the morning but sometimes in the evening as well.  Merriam's and Rio Grandes gobble all day long and generally more often than do easterns.
  Some hunters will gobble at dominant gobblers to challenge them during the hunt or to locate them on the roost either in the morning or the evening.  For safety's sake, always remember that the gobble call makes you sound exactly like the bird other hunters are trying to shoot;  then decide if you really think it's a good idea to gobble at that time and place
• Kee Kee - (three to five shrill whistles, sounds like hurry, hurry, hurry):  Known as the whistle, it's a poult's attempt at a yelp.  The high-pitched series of whistles, sometimes followed by a few yelps, is a very important call in the fall after you've broken up a flock.
• Purr - (a trilled trrrrr sound; turkeys often make several short purrs): Purrs, like clucks, are primarily contentment noises.  Turkeys will cluck and purr about happily as they feed.  Turkeys also purr loudly when they're angry, and gobblers will purr as they posture before and during a fight.  Quite clucking and purring works will on pressured birds.
  So-called "fighting purrs" can bring gobblers in exacly the same way rattling horns attract whitetails.
• Putt - (sounds like Putt! or Pert!; a short and explosive sound; turkeys usually make just one or two): Turkeys putt when they 're nervous.  A bird that's spotted danger - say, you, with a gun - will become quite agitated and putt.  Beginning hunters live in terror of accidentally making the alarm putt, which differs only from the cluck in intensity.  Don't worry about it; if you make a sound you think is a putt, just throw in some quiet clucks or purrs.
  Some hunters will putt loudly on purpose to make a turkey com out of strut and stick his head up for a clear shot.
• Yelps - (yawk, yawk, yawk, often a series of five to eight yelps): Along with the cluck, the yelp is the basic turkey noise.  Hunters used to call hen yelps "love yelps" because they are the primary sound hens make to gobblers in the spring.  Hens also yelp to gather their young.  Gobblers yelp, too.  Gobbler yelps are lower-pitched, coarser, and slower than hen yelps.  If a gobbler yelps back to your calls, he may have mistaken you for a gobbler that wants to fight.
  If you learn no other call, you can end up killing plenty of turkey simply by yelping at them first.