American Language Supplement 2 (114 page)
Read American Language Supplement 2 Online
Authors: H.L. Mencken
Three other conspicuous American place-names whose pronunciation has kicked up controversy are
Iowa, Los Angeles
and
San Antonio. Iowa
is borrowed from the name of an Indian tribe, and the history of that name was thus told by the late Dr. Frank H. Vizetelly:
The
Iowas
were a branch of the main group of a southwestern Sioux tribe which received the name of
Pahoja
, or
Gray Snow
,
3
which they retained, but they were known to the white people by the name of
Ioways
or
Aiaouez
. This name was spelled phonetically in both cases – one for the guidance of the English-speaking people, and the other for the guidance of the French-speaking people.
In 1689 the spelling
Aiaoua
was that used in American literature, and is to be found in Perrot’s Memoirs, p. 196. The form varied at that time, and the plural was given as
Aiaouais
and
Aiaouez
. In 1702 Iberville used
Ayooués
(the
acute accent gives the word the sound of
e
in
they
). By 1731
Ayoouais
was used by Beauharnois and Hocquet, but varied in 1761 to
Aiauway
, a form to be found in the Journal of Lewis A. Clark. In the following century (1804)
Aieways
was used, and
Aiowais
was used by Pike in his travels (1811), but in 1810 we had
loway
as a variant. In 1824
Iowas
and
Iaways
were used, and in 1825
Ihoway
, which latter form is to be found in Senate Document No. 21 of the Eighteenth Congress, Second Session. The forms current in 1848 were
Ayavais
for the plural and minus the
s
for the singular. And
loway
. By 1858 the name took the form
Ayeovai
in the singular, with an
s
in the plural, and in 1905
Iaways
.
1
Ioway
seems to be preferred by the plain people of the State, and the name so appears in the State song, but the Geographical Board long ago declared for
Í-o-wa
, and it is supported not only by the majority of outsiders but also by a formidable faction within the State. There is even a body of opinion in favor of putting the accent on the second syllable, but it is apparently feeble. Nearly all the accepted authorities ordain
I-o-wa
, but the Thorndike Century Senior Dictionary
2
gives
I-o-way
as an alternative, and the Funk and Wagnalls New Practical Standard Dictionary
3
notes it as used locally. The controversy over the pronunciation of
Los Angeles
has been going on for years, and will probably never end. As I noted in AL4, p. 542, the Los Angeles
Times
, the chief guardian and glory of the local culture, advocates what it renders in type (somewhat darkly) as
Loce Ahng-hayl-ais
, but a dozen other forms are to be encountered in the town. The gabbers of the British Broadcasting Corporation are instructed to use
Loss Anjileez
4
and those of the National Broadcasting Company are encouraged to attempt
Lawsan-j’l-uhs
,
5
but most other authorities wobble. Even Frank H. Vizetelly, usually so sure of himself, could not decide between
Los Anggeles
, with the
o
as in
go
, and
Los Anjuhliz
, with the
o
as in
not
,
6
and one local expert has actually recommended different pronunciations
in successive editions of the same book.
1
Webster 1934 gives both
Los Anggeles
and
Los Anjeles
, the New Practical Standard gives
Los Anjilus, Los Anjileez
and
Los Ang-guh-lus
, Robert Shafer gives four forms in a phonetic alphabet that I refuse to try to interpret,
2
and Kenyon and Knott give half a dozen pronunciations without deciding between them, and record despairingly that “a resident phonetician says: ‘The only one I’ve never heard is
Los Angheles
.’ ”
3
Many of the inhabitants abbreviate the name to
L.A
., and others use
Los
.
4
The controversy over
San Antonio
has to do with the question whether the people there ever call the town
Santóne
. The Hon. Maury Maverick, its best-known citizen, assures me that they do not. “The average person,” he reports, “says
Santónyo
, although the well-informed generally say
San An-tón-i-o
. The Mexicans, of whom there are some 90,000 in San Antonio, pronounce the word with a broad
a
and sound every syllable.”
5
But other observers insist that
Santóne
is in common use, and Charles H. Hogan says that the first syllable is frequently stressed.
6
Dr. E. G. Reuter, a resident, tells me that he has also heard
San Antone
.
7
As I have recorded, the Geographical Board follows local usage, whenever possible, in the spelling of place-names. The same policy with respect to pronunciation was advocated by Noah Webster so long ago as 1803.
8
“The true pronunciation of the name of a place,” he said, “is that which prevails in and near the place.” But he defended and indeed advocated changes in Indian names to bring them
in accord with “the genius of our language, which is accommodated to a civilized people.” This is the line taken by Allen Walker Read in his excellent review of the subject.
1
He rehearses and answers the argument that the pronunciation of place-names should follow the spelling or be decided by self-constituted authorities on language or by legislative action, and concludes that it should be determined “simply by impartial observation of selected speakers in the locality of the places named.” Even this rule, of course, cannot be followed slavishly, for sometimes there is a sharp difference of opinion, even among natives, as to the true pronunciation of a given name, and more often an accepted local form is challenged by another prevailing somewhere else, or even generally. We have just seen examples in the cases of
Arkansas, Los Angeles
and
Iowa
, Another is provided by
Chicago
, which is
Chicawgo
in the city itself but
Chicahgo
in the rest of the country.
Read raises the question as to what is to be done about a name which, while designating the same place or object, differs in pronunciation in two regions,
e.g
., that of the
Arkansas
river. Is it, he asks, “to change its name for different parts of its course? ” Well, why not? If the people of Kansas prefer
Arkánsas
for that part of the river within their boundaries, then it
is
the
Arkánsas
there, and if those of Arkansas prefer
Árkansaw
for their own share of it, then it becomes the
ÁRkansaw
as the border is crossed. The name of
Beaufort
is pronounced differently in the two Carolinas – and both forms are “correct.”
2
The best pronouncing dictionary of American place-names, that of Alfred H. Holt, first published in 1938,
3
avoids all vain speculations as to how names
ought
to be pronounced, and is content to record accurately how they
are
pronounced. Holt’s authority is always local, and he is careful to find out if there are variations on different cultural levels. His method of indicating pronunciations is so simple and effective that it puts to shame the phonetic alphabets invented by learned men, and he relieves the tedium of what might otherwise be a depressing subject by cracklings of pawky humor.
The study of place-names is comparatively recent in the United
States. Washington Irving printed some observations upon them in the
Knickerbocker Magazine
in 1839 and Henry R. Schoolcraft discussed the Indian names of New York before the New York Historical Society in 1844,
1
but it was not until 1861 that a separate work upon the subject appeared. This was a pamphlet of thirty-two pages by a surgeon named Usher Parsons, entitled “Indian Names of Place in Rhode-Island.”
2
Parsons’ interest was mainly in the Indian names in use in the State “when civilization commenced” and his stated purpose was to provide a supply “for the convenience of those who may hereafter wish to apply them to their country villas, factories or institutions,” but within those limits he made a good job of it, and it was more than thirty years before a better study of Rhode Island place-names appeared. In 1870 James Hammond Trumbull followed with a work which remains one of the classics of the subject,
3
and by the 80s Henry Gannett had begun an investigation which was to result in gazetteers and “geographical dictionaries” of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Kansas, Utah, Texas, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Colorado and the Indian Territory, and an omnibus volume entitled “The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States.”
4
It was this book which set the study of American place-names on its feet.
Unhappily, that study is yet to be organized on a national scale, and in consequence the work done so far is spotty and incoördinate.
1
In some States,
e.g.
, Oregon, Arizona, South Dakota, California and Missouri, the record is substantially complete, and in others,
e.g.
, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wyoming and West Virginia, admirable progress has been made, but in yet others,
e.g.
, Maryland and New Jersey, there is hardly a beginning. The excellent discussion of place-names in George Philip Krapp’s “The English Language in America,” published in 1925,
2
awakened new interest in the subject, and in 1927 Dr. Robert L. Ramsay, professor of English at the University of Missouri, undertook a systematic effort to investigate the nomenclature of that State. He had the invaluable assistance of Allen Walker Read, then an instructor on his staff, and Read presently launched the enterprise with a paper in the
Missouri Historical Review
.
3
Thereafter, Ramsay’s graduate students began a study of Missouri place-names that went on until 1945, by which time eighteen reports, covering all the 114 counties of the State, had been completed. The material thus accumulated, running to 32,324 names, was entered upon three sets of cards, one of which was deposited with the Board of Geographical Names in Washington. At the beginning of this huge enterprise Ramsay published an “Introduction to a Survey of Missouri Place-Names” which amounted to a treatise upon the whole technic of place-name research, and remains the best American handbook on the subject.
4
Meanwhile, Lewis A. McArthur, a Portland business man, had been carrying on an inquiry into the place-names of Oregon, and in 1928 there appeared the first edition of his “Oregon Geographic Names,” a truly admirable work.
5
It is not based upon local tradition
alone, but represents a diligent and thorough examination of all the available records, and shows an extraordinary resourcefulness. How much time and labor went into it is beyond estimate, but certainly very few works of American scholarship have ever enlisted more.
1
The only compilations that rival it and Ramsay’s in scientific value are “West Virginia Place Names,” by Hamill Kenny;
2
“Arizona Place Names,” by Will C. Barnes;
3
“South Dakota Place Names,” sponsored by the department of English of the State university,
4
and “California Place Names,” by Erwin G. Gudde.
5
The literature of the subject is extensive, but a large part of it is concealed in pamphlets and papers published locally, and hence difficult of access. A bibliography listing 195 titles was presented to the Modern Language Association in December, 1938, by Harold W. Bentley and M. Robert Snyder, and since then Richard B. Sealock, librarian of the Gary, Ind., Public Library, and Pauline A. Seely, of the Los Angeles County Public Library, have completed a much more extensive one covering the United States, Alaska, Canada and Newfoundland. It is in press as I write.
6
There is room here for no more than brief notices of the more important contributions to the subject. To take them alphabetically by States, the place-names of Alabama have been reported on by Peter A. Brannon, Frank H. Elmore and others in various issues of
Arrow Points
, the monthly bulletin of the Alabama Anthropological Society, and the Indian names among them have been studied at length by William A. Read
7
and H. S. Halbert.
8
The place-names
of Alaska were first investigated by Marcus Baker, whose report was published by the Geological Survey in 1900.
1
In 1940 John Drury Clark and L. Sprague de Camp printed a brief but illuminating note upon them, listing about seventy,
2
and three years later the WPA brought out a report on the geographical nomenclature of the coastal areas.
3
The map of Alaska is sprinkled with names borrowed from the Eskimos, the Russians and various Indian tribes, and includes such strange forms as
Aniahwagamut, Metlakatla, Ouzinkie, Egegik, Chickaloon, Iditarod
and
Bogoslof
. Clark and de Camp show that there is a tendency among the American settlers to give English values to vowels encountered in print and to place accents according to English patterns. “A feature of Alaskan idiom,” they say, “is the use of the names of rivers, without the word
river
, to indicate general regions, or, more accurately, watersheds. Sometimes the word
country
is added; sometimes not.… A man will say ‘I’ve been up in the Chandalar,’ meaning the Chandalar river watershed.”
