Q: I would like to know whether Gitche Gumee is a true Ojibwa name and if the popularly accepted translation is accurate.
A: Thank you for writing. Yes, that is the Ojibwe name for Lake Superior.
In the modern Ojibwe spelling system it is spelled Gichigami (pronounced
gih-chih-guh-mih) and it literally means "big lake."
Hope that is what you were looking for. Have a good day!
Further reading:
Ojibwe language
Native American names in Longfellow's Hiawatha
Native American lakes
Showing posts with label Place Names. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Place Names. Show all posts
Monday, November 9, 2015
Monday, April 13, 2015
How could Chwewamink turn into Wyoming?
Q: I saw on your website that the name of Wyoming came from a Native American word Chwewamink. How is that even possible? Those two words don't look anything alike!
A: Have you ever seen children play a game of "telephone," where each child in line whispers a sentence to the next and eventually a sentence that started out as "I like to eat bread" ends up as "My mice are all dead"? The same thing basically happened with a lot of Native American placenames (and people's proper names as well, to the frustration of many people trying to trace their genealogy only to find the same ancestor's name spelled 16 different ways.) As the names were passed from person to person, none of whom even spoke the original language, they became changed, corrupted, and ultimately barely even recognizable.
In this case, the Lenape word "chwewamink" is actually pronounced similar to chwayo-wa-mink. The ch sound in the beginning is similar to the raspy "ch" in German "ach"; most English speakers couldn't pronounce that at all, so undoubtedly that was quickly simplified to wayo-wa-mink. "K" and "g" are easily mistaken for each other; now you've got wayo-wa-ming. Somebody probably had an accent in which "way" sounded more like "why"; now you've got why-o-wa-ming. Then somebody else contracted it to why-o-ming and there you are.
So how do people know what the actual origins of these names really are if they become that corrupted from the original source? Historical texts, mostly. The people who lived there at the time recorded plenty of intermediate forms and alternate spellings of the names that make it easier to guess where they came from, and also wrote down the purported meanings, which makes it easier to find out what the original Native American name could have been.
Hope that's interesting to you, have a good day!
Further reading:
Wyoming Indian history
Lenape language
Native American names
A: Have you ever seen children play a game of "telephone," where each child in line whispers a sentence to the next and eventually a sentence that started out as "I like to eat bread" ends up as "My mice are all dead"? The same thing basically happened with a lot of Native American placenames (and people's proper names as well, to the frustration of many people trying to trace their genealogy only to find the same ancestor's name spelled 16 different ways.) As the names were passed from person to person, none of whom even spoke the original language, they became changed, corrupted, and ultimately barely even recognizable.
In this case, the Lenape word "chwewamink" is actually pronounced similar to chwayo-wa-mink. The ch sound in the beginning is similar to the raspy "ch" in German "ach"; most English speakers couldn't pronounce that at all, so undoubtedly that was quickly simplified to wayo-wa-mink. "K" and "g" are easily mistaken for each other; now you've got wayo-wa-ming. Somebody probably had an accent in which "way" sounded more like "why"; now you've got why-o-wa-ming. Then somebody else contracted it to why-o-ming and there you are.
So how do people know what the actual origins of these names really are if they become that corrupted from the original source? Historical texts, mostly. The people who lived there at the time recorded plenty of intermediate forms and alternate spellings of the names that make it easier to guess where they came from, and also wrote down the purported meanings, which makes it easier to find out what the original Native American name could have been.
Hope that's interesting to you, have a good day!
Further reading:
Wyoming Indian history
Lenape language
Native American names
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Skeneda
Q: I am looking for the meaning of the Indian name for a creek that runs through our families property. The name of this creek is Ske-ne-da which is a Winnebago/Hochunk name. The creek is located in Dane County, WI. The name is from a 1835 map made by Horace Greely I ran across at the State Historical Society. Today it is called Door Creek.
A: This is probably what is called a "pseudo-Indian" or "faux Indian" name, made up by non-Indian mapmakers in the 1800's based on Indian words. (We have a lot of those in Minnesota thanks to Henry Schoolcraft.) It was said to mean "pure water" in the Ho-Chunk language. "Ske" does mean "pure" in Ho-Chunk, and "Nira" does mean "water" (it was frequently written as "Nida" in English sources in the 1800's.)
The reason our Ho-Chunk volunteer believes this was a faux Indian name rather than a real one is that adjectives almost always attach to the end of nouns in the Ho-Chunk language. If this were a real Ho-Chunk name it should have been Niraske, not Skeneda. So it looks to us more like the cartographer picked the words from a dictionary (or, as is usually more common, from a book of legends or folklore,) than that he adapted it from the Ho-Chunk name for the creek. With place names though, it's hard to ever know their origin with 100% certainty unless you find the diary of the person who recorded the name-- proper names get corrupted so much over time that it's hard for native speakers of the original language to even recognize them sometimes!
Hope that helps, have a good day,
Native Languages of the Americas
Further reading:
Ho-Chunk language
Ho-Chunk people
American Indian names
A: This is probably what is called a "pseudo-Indian" or "faux Indian" name, made up by non-Indian mapmakers in the 1800's based on Indian words. (We have a lot of those in Minnesota thanks to Henry Schoolcraft.) It was said to mean "pure water" in the Ho-Chunk language. "Ske" does mean "pure" in Ho-Chunk, and "Nira" does mean "water" (it was frequently written as "Nida" in English sources in the 1800's.)
The reason our Ho-Chunk volunteer believes this was a faux Indian name rather than a real one is that adjectives almost always attach to the end of nouns in the Ho-Chunk language. If this were a real Ho-Chunk name it should have been Niraske, not Skeneda. So it looks to us more like the cartographer picked the words from a dictionary (or, as is usually more common, from a book of legends or folklore,) than that he adapted it from the Ho-Chunk name for the creek. With place names though, it's hard to ever know their origin with 100% certainty unless you find the diary of the person who recorded the name-- proper names get corrupted so much over time that it's hard for native speakers of the original language to even recognize them sometimes!
Hope that helps, have a good day,
Native Languages of the Americas
Further reading:
Ho-Chunk language
Ho-Chunk people
American Indian names
Monday, October 7, 2013
Tichigan
Q: I want to understand the meaning behind the lake I live on. I've heard different meanings. The lake is called Tichigan. In the past this was spelled Tish Shar Gan.
A: Unless somebody contemporary wrote down what the meaning of the name was supposed to be, there's a lot of educated guesswork involved in puzzling out place names. The final version of the name rarely bears enough resemblance to the original to be 100% certain of its origins. In his book Native American Placenames of the United States, the extremely reliable linguist Bill Bright suggested it might have been shortened from "tchigi-kitchi-gama," from the Ojibwe words jiigew-gichigami, which mean "along the great lake." We'd add that it could even have just been corrupted from gichigami, "great lake." Although it's not exactly common for English speakers to change a "g" into a "t" unprovoked, stranger things have happened.
In either case, the final spelling of "Tichigan" was probably influenced by the better-known place name Michigan, which comes from a different Ojibwe synonym for "big lake" or "great lake" (mishigami).
Hope that helps, have a good day!
Native Languages of the Americas
Further reading:
Native American Indian names
Ojibwe language
Michigan tribes
A: Unless somebody contemporary wrote down what the meaning of the name was supposed to be, there's a lot of educated guesswork involved in puzzling out place names. The final version of the name rarely bears enough resemblance to the original to be 100% certain of its origins. In his book Native American Placenames of the United States, the extremely reliable linguist Bill Bright suggested it might have been shortened from "tchigi-kitchi-gama," from the Ojibwe words jiigew-gichigami, which mean "along the great lake." We'd add that it could even have just been corrupted from gichigami, "great lake." Although it's not exactly common for English speakers to change a "g" into a "t" unprovoked, stranger things have happened.
In either case, the final spelling of "Tichigan" was probably influenced by the better-known place name Michigan, which comes from a different Ojibwe synonym for "big lake" or "great lake" (mishigami).
Hope that helps, have a good day!
Native Languages of the Americas
Further reading:
Native American Indian names
Ojibwe language
Michigan tribes
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Place Name Miscommunications
Q: Thanks for an interesting site. I am designing some curriculum about the
many uses of maps, and I wonder if you might be able to guide me to
some information.
Specifically, I have heard stories (which might be not true) about place names given to North American regions, towns, features (mountains, rivers, etc.) which were the result of European misunderstanding or arrogance. For example (this is just made up), a European tries to communicate with a Native American by pointing at an island and saying "What is that called?" in French or Spanish. The Native American responds by saying, "What is the funny-looking man pointing at?," and the European thinks that the words he just heard are the name of the place or thing, so the river is called "What is the funny-looking man pointing at?" from then on.
I have tried many different resources and search tools. While I have found many, many references to names that actually (at least somewhat) relate to their native American equivalents, such as tribal names, etc. But I have not had luck in the material I am looking for. Possibly it doesn't exist and these stories are just urban(?) legend.
If it would not be too inconvenient for you, any help or direction you might suggest would be appreciated.
A: Thanks for writing. That's an interesting question, and we can look into it for you. Probably the most common one is the many rivers named a Native American word for "river." I can just imagine the European explorers pointing at the river and asking "What is this river called?" and the Native people patiently telling them "That's a river." :-)
Regrettably, I'm pretty sure that the indigenous names most commonly said to mean "I don't know" or "I don't understand you," like "kangaroo" and "Yucatan," do not actually have that meaning. But there may be more like that. I know of one funny example in an early Algonquian dictionary where an Englishman wrote down what is clearly the phrase "I will give you food" and translated it as "hungry." Obviously when he tried to pantomime hunger in an attempt to elicit the Algonquian word for "hungry," his host mistook him as being actually hungry and went to fetch him something to eat. :-)
ETA: We've got one for you, though it's roundabout: Pima County, in Arizona, is named after the Pima tribe. Their own name for themselves is Akimel O'odham. "Pima" is thought to be a Spanish corruption of the O'odham word for "I don't know," which is Pinimahch. If that's true, then that name was undoubtedly the product of a misunderstanding!
As for the redundant names, I know I've seen many over the years, but never thought to write them down, and they turn out to be very difficult to search for. One we were able to think of is Askom Mountain in Canada. "Askom" definitely comes from the Lillooet word for "mountain," askwem. So Askom Mountain does indeed mean "Mountain Mountain."
Hope that helps, have a good day!
Further reading:
American Indian names
Algonquian languages
Pima language
Specifically, I have heard stories (which might be not true) about place names given to North American regions, towns, features (mountains, rivers, etc.) which were the result of European misunderstanding or arrogance. For example (this is just made up), a European tries to communicate with a Native American by pointing at an island and saying "What is that called?" in French or Spanish. The Native American responds by saying, "What is the funny-looking man pointing at?," and the European thinks that the words he just heard are the name of the place or thing, so the river is called "What is the funny-looking man pointing at?" from then on.
I have tried many different resources and search tools. While I have found many, many references to names that actually (at least somewhat) relate to their native American equivalents, such as tribal names, etc. But I have not had luck in the material I am looking for. Possibly it doesn't exist and these stories are just urban(?) legend.
If it would not be too inconvenient for you, any help or direction you might suggest would be appreciated.
A: Thanks for writing. That's an interesting question, and we can look into it for you. Probably the most common one is the many rivers named a Native American word for "river." I can just imagine the European explorers pointing at the river and asking "What is this river called?" and the Native people patiently telling them "That's a river." :-)
Regrettably, I'm pretty sure that the indigenous names most commonly said to mean "I don't know" or "I don't understand you," like "kangaroo" and "Yucatan," do not actually have that meaning. But there may be more like that. I know of one funny example in an early Algonquian dictionary where an Englishman wrote down what is clearly the phrase "I will give you food" and translated it as "hungry." Obviously when he tried to pantomime hunger in an attempt to elicit the Algonquian word for "hungry," his host mistook him as being actually hungry and went to fetch him something to eat. :-)
ETA: We've got one for you, though it's roundabout: Pima County, in Arizona, is named after the Pima tribe. Their own name for themselves is Akimel O'odham. "Pima" is thought to be a Spanish corruption of the O'odham word for "I don't know," which is Pinimahch. If that's true, then that name was undoubtedly the product of a misunderstanding!
As for the redundant names, I know I've seen many over the years, but never thought to write them down, and they turn out to be very difficult to search for. One we were able to think of is Askom Mountain in Canada. "Askom" definitely comes from the Lillooet word for "mountain," askwem. So Askom Mountain does indeed mean "Mountain Mountain."
Hope that helps, have a good day!
Further reading:
American Indian names
Algonquian languages
Pima language
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