The American Language
The names of the second class we have already briefly observed. They
are betrayed in many cases by the prefix /New/; more than 600 such
postoffices are recorded, ranging from /New Albany/ to /New Windsor/.
Others bear such prefixes as /West/, /North/ and /South/, or various
distinguishing affixes, /e. g./, /Bostonia/, /Pittsburgh Landing/,
/Yorktown/ and /Hartford City/. One often finds eastern county names
applied to western towns and eastern town names applied to western
rivers and mountains. Thus, /Cambria/, which is the name of a county
but not of a postoffice in Pennsylvania, is a town name in seven
western states; /Baltimore/ is the name of a glacier in Alaska, and
/Princeton/ is the name of a peak in Colorado. In the same way the
names of the more easterly states often reappear in the west, /e. g./,
in /Mount Ohio/, Colo., /Delaware/, Okla., and /Virginia City/, Nev.
The tendency to name small American towns after the great capitals of
antiquity has excited the derision of the English since the earliest
days; there is scarcely an English book upon the states without some
fling at it. Of late it has fallen into abeyance, though sixteen
/Athenses/ still remain, and there are yet many /Carthages/, /Uticas/,
/Syracuses/, /Romes/, /Alexandrias/, /Ninevahs/ and /Troys/. The third
city of the nation, /Philadelphia/, got its name from the ancient
stronghold of Philadelphus of Pergamun. To make up for the falling off
of this old and flamboyant custom, the more recent immigrants have
brought with them the names of the capitals and other great cities of
their fatherlands. Thus the American map bristles with /Berlins/,
/Bremens/, /Hamburgs/, /Warsaws/ and /Leipzigs/, and is beginning to
show /Stockholms/, /Venices/, /Belgrades/ and /Christianias/.
The influence of Indian names upon American nomenclature is quickly
shown by a glance at the map. No less than 26 of the states have names
borrowed from the aborigines, and the same thing is true of most of
our rivers and mountains. There was an effort, at one time, to get rid
of these Indian names. Thus [Pg290] the early Virginians changed the
name of the /Powhatan/ to the /James/, and the first settlers in New
York changed the name of /Horicon/ to /Lake George/. In the same way
the present name of the /White Mountains/ displaced /Agiochook/, and
/New Amsterdam/, and later /New York/, displaced /Manhattan/, which
has been recently revived. The law of Hobson-Jobson made changes in
other Indian names, sometimes complete and sometimes only partial.
Thus, /Mauwauwaming/ became /Wyoming/, /Maucwachoong/ became /Mauch
Chunk/, /Ouabache/ became /Wabash/, /Asingsing/ became /Sing-Sing/,
and /Machihiganing/ became /Michigan/. But this vandalism did not go
far enough to take away the brilliant color of the aboriginal
nomenclature. The second city of the United States bears an Indian
name, and so do the largest American river, and the greatest American
water-fall, and four of the five great Lakes, and the scene of the
most important military decision ever reached on American soil.
The Dutch place-names of the United States are chiefly confined
to the vicinity of New York, and a good many of them have become
greatly corrupted. /Brooklyn/, /Wallabout/ and /Gramercy/ offer
examples. The first-named was originally /Breuckelen/, the second
was /Waale Bobht/, and the third was /De Kromme Zee/. /Hell-Gate/
is a crude translation of the Dutch /Helle-Gat/. During the early
part of the last century the more delicate New Yorkers transformed
the term into /Hurlgate/, but the change was vigorously opposed
by Washington Irving, and so /Hell-Gate/ was revived. The law of
Hobson-Jobson early converted the Dutch /hoek/ into /hook/, and it
survives in various place-names, /e. g./, /Kinderhook/ and /Sandy
Hook/. The Dutch /kill/ is a /Grundwort/ in many other names,
/e. g./, /Catskill/, /Schuylkill/, /Peekskill/, /Fishkill/ and
/Kill van Kull/; it is the equivalent of the American /creek/. Many
other Dutch place-names will come familiarly to mind: /Harlem/,
/Staten/, /Flushing/, /Cortlandt/, /Calver Plaat/, /Nassau/,
/Coenties/, /Spuyten Duyvel/, /Yonkers/, /Hoboken/ and /Bowery/
(from /Bouvery/).[40] /Block/ Island was originally /Blok/, and Cape
/May/, according to Schele de Vere, was /Mey/, both Dutch. [Pg291]
A large number of New York street and neighborhood names come down
from Knickerbocker days, often greatly changed in pronunciation.
/Desbrosses/ offers an example. The Dutch called it /de Broose/, but
in New York today it is commonly spoken of as /Dez-bros-sez/.
French place-names have suffered almost as severely. Few persons would
recognize /Smackover/, the name of a small town in Arkansas, as
French, and yet in its original form it was /Chemin Couvert/. Schele
de Vere, in 1871, recorded the degeneration of the name to /Smack
Cover/; the Postoffice, always eager to shorten and simplify names,
has since made one word of it and got rid of the redundant /c/. In the
same way /Bob Ruly/, a Missouri name, descends from /Bois Brulé/. "The
American tongue," says W. W. Crane, "seems to lend itself reluctantly
to the words of alien languages."[41] This is shown plainly by the
history of French place-names among us. A large number of them,
/e. g./, /Lac Superieur/, were translated into English at an early day,
and most of those that remain are now pronounced as if they were
English. Thus /Des Moines/ is /dee-moyns/, /Terre Haute/ is
/terry-hut/, /Beaufort/ is /byu-fort/, /New Orleans/ is /or-leens/,
/Lafayette/ has a flat /a/, /Havre de Grace/ has another, and
/Versailles/ is /ver-sales/. The pronunciation of /sault/, as in
/Sault Ste. Marie/, is commonly more or less correct; the Minneapolis,
St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie Railroad is popularly called the /Soo/.
This may be due to Canadian example, or to some confusion between
/Sault/ and /Sioux/. The French /Louis/, in /St. Louis/ and
/Louisville/, is usually pronounced correctly. So is the /rouge/ in
/Baton Rouge/, though the /baton/ is commonly boggled. It is possible
that familiarity with /St. Louis/ influenced the local pronunciation
of /Illinois/, which is /Illinoy/, but this may be a mere attempt to
improve upon the vulgar /Illin-i/.[42]
For a number of years the Geographic Board has been seeking [Pg292]
vainly to reestablish the correct pronunciation of the name of the
/Purgatoire/ river in Colorado. Originally named the /Rio de las
Animas/ by the Spaniards, it was renamed the /Rivière du Purgatoire/
by their French successors. The American pioneers changed this to
/Picketwire/, and that remains the local name of the stream to this
day, despite the effort of the Geographic Board to compromise on
/Purgatoire/ river. Many other French names are being anglicized with
its aid and consent. Already half a dozen /Bellevues/ have been
changed to /Belleviews/ and /Bellviews/, and the spelling of nearly
all the /Belvédères/ has been changed to /Belvidere/. /Belair/, La.,
represents the end-product of a process of decay which began with
/Belle Aire/, and then proceeded to /Bellaire/ and /Bellair/. All
these forms are still to be found, together with /Bel Air/. The
Geographic Board's antipathy to accented letters and to names of more
than one word[43] has converted /Isle Ste. Thérèse/, in the St.
Lawrence river, to /Isle Ste. Therese/, a truly abominable barbarism,
and /La Cygne/, in Kansas, to /Lacygne/, which is even worse.
/Lamoine/, /Labelle/, /Lagrange/ and /Lamonte/ are among its other
improvements; /Lafayette/, for /La Fayette/, long antedates the
beginning of its labors.
The Spanish names of the Southwest are undergoing a like process of
corruption, though without official aid. /San Antonio/ has been
changed to /San Antone/ in popular pronunciation and seems likely to
go to /San Tone/; /El Paso/ has acquired a flat American /a/ and a
/z/-sound in place of the Spanish /s/; /Los Angeles/ presents such
difficulties that no two of its inhabitants agree upon the proper
pronunciation, and many compromise on simple /Los/, as the folks of
/Jacksonville/ commonly call their town /Jax/. Some of the most
mellifluous of American place-names are in the areas once held by the
Spaniards. It would be hard to match the beauty of /Santa Margarita/,
/San Anselmo/, /Alamogordo/, /Terra Amarilla/, /Sabinoso/, /Las
Palomas/, /Ensenada/, /Nogales/, /San Patricio/ and /Bernalillo/. But
they are under a severe and double assault. Not only do the present
lords of the soil debase them in speaking them; in many cases they are
formally displaced by native names of the utmost harshness and
banality. Thus, [Pg293] one finds in New Mexico such absurdly-named
towns as /Sugarite/, /Shoemaker/, /Newhope/, /Lordsburg/, /Eastview/
and /Central/; in Arizona such places as /Old Glory/, /Springerville/,
/Wickenburg/ and /Congress Junction/, and even in California such
abominations as /Oakhurst/, /Ben Hur/, /Drytown/, /Skidoo/,
/Susanville/, /Uno/ and /Ono/.
The early Spaniards were prodigal with place-names testifying to their
piety, but these names, in the overwhelming main, were those of
saints. Add /Salvador/, /Trinidad/ and /Concepcion/, and their
repertoire is almost exhausted. If they ever named a town /Jesus/ the
name has been obliterated by Anglo-Saxon prudery; even their use of
the name as a personal appellation violates American notions of the
fitting. The names of the Jewish patriarchs and those of the holy
places in Palestine do not appear among their place-names; their
Christianity seems to have been exclusively of the New Testament. But
the Americans who displaced them were intimately familiar with both
books of the Bible, and one finds copious proofs of it on the map of
the United States. There are no less than seven /Bethlehems/ in the
Postal Guide, and the name is also applied to various mountains, and
to one of the reaches of the Ohio river. I find thirteen /Bethanys/,
seventeen /Bethels/, eleven /Beulahs/, nine /Canaans/, eleven
/Jordans/ and twenty-one /Sharons/. /Adam/ is sponsor for a town in
West Virginia and an island in the Chesapeake, and /Eve/ for a village
in Kentucky. There are five postoffices named /Aaron/, two named
/Abraham/, two named /Job/, and a town and a lake named /Moses/. Most
of the /St. Pauls/ and /St. Josephs/ of the country were inherited
from the French, but the two /St. Patricks/ show a later influence.
Eight /Wesleys/ and /Wesleyvilles/, eight /Asburys/ and twelve names
embodying /Luther/ indicate the general theological trend of the plain
people. There is a village in Maryland, too small to have a
postoffice, named /Gott/, and I find /Gotts Island/ in Maine and
/Gottville/ in California, but no doubt these were named after German
settlers of that awful name, and not after the Lord God directly.
There are four /Trinities/, to say nothing of the inherited Spanish
/Trinidads/. [Pg294]
Names wholly or partly descriptive of localities are very numerous
throughout the country, and among the /Grundwörter/ embodied in them
are terms highly characteristic of America and almost unknown to the
English vocabulary. /Bald Knob/ would puzzle an Englishman, but the
name is so common in the United States that the Geographic Board has
had to take measures against it. Others of that sort are /Council
Bluffs/, /Patapsco Neck/, /Delaware Water Gap/, /Curtis Creek/,
/Walden Pond/, /Sandy Hook/, /Key West/, /Bull Run/, /Portage/,
/French Lick/, /Jones Gulch/, /Watkins Gully/, /Cedar Bayou/, /Keams
Canyon/, /Parker Notch/, /Sucker Branch/, /Fraziers Bottom/ and /Eagle
Pass/. /Butte Creek/, in /Montana/, is a name made up of two
Americanisms. There are thirty-five postoffices whose names embody the
word /prairie/, several of them, /e. g./, /Prairie du Chien/, Wis.,
inherited from the French. There are seven /Divides/, eight /Buttes/,