Key Takeaways
Imagine you ’re an audacious 17th - hundred French IE deny the expansive wilderness of Louisiana ( New France ) , a soil spanning the entire Mississippi basin from advanced - Clarence Day Louisiana through Illinois and northerly into Canada . You meet dozens of native tribes , each with its own confuse language or dialect , and you essay to record their name in your journal as easily you could .
This imperfect organization is how English - speak Americans arrived at many of the name calling forNative Americantribes , including the Dakota , Iowa , Alabama , Nebraska , Ottawa , Chippewa and Tuskaloosa . Think of it as a centuries - longsighted biz of multilingual " telephone set . " Tribal names germinate from their original native orthoepy into a Gallic approximation and finally into an Anglicized mangling of the French .
Which make for us to the lawfully confusing inquiry of how the land of Kansas could be enunciate " KAN - zis " while the nearby state of Arkansas , with the addition of two simple letters , is sound out " AR - kin - saw . "
The Politicians Weigh In
This very interrogative was the subject of afascinating pamphletpublished path back in 1881 titled , " fix the Pronunciation of the Name Arkansas . " The booklet , write by extremity of the Arkansas Historical Society , was meant to allow for historic context to a resolution passed by the Arkansas General Assembly declaring the one and only correct orthoepy of Arkansas :
" It should be sound out in three syllable , with the last ’s ' silent . The ' a ' in each syllable with the Italian phone , and the accent on the first and last syllable , being the pronunciation formerly universally and now still most usually used . "
Apparently , some eggheads at Webster ’s dictionary had change the entry for Arkansas to include a new orthoepy preeminence — " Ar - kan - sas , formerly Arkansaw " — and that sent red - blooded Arkansans into a lexicographical tizzy .
The author of the Arkansas Historical Society tract call it a " roughshod pronunciation " with " no basis of ground , authority , or prior genteel usage . " Moreover , people who say " Ar - Kansas " " failed to debate that they would thus fork out silly a name extremely poetic in its sounds , and associated with the august memories of the past , from the twenty-four hours of [ Gallic IE Jacques ] Marquette downward . "
Blame the French
The Arkansas Historical Society members argued that the divergent pronunciation of Arkansas and Kansas stem from similar Gallic names given to two different Native America tribes . A Siouan tribe dwell near the forward-looking - day Kansas River and other French explorers call off them by a version of their name , which sounded to their French ears like " Kansa . " The second tribe , the Quapaw , exist further southwest along the modern - day Arkansas River and , for intellect unknown , the French hollo them by their Algonquin name , " Akansa . "
Those tribal name , as the French fork up them , see and vocalize very similar , but again , for reasons unknown , early French IE write out the associate stead name very differently . Explorer Henri Joutel , writing in 1687 , called the arena around forward-looking - twenty-four hour period Arkansas " Accançeas " and spell Kansas " Chanzes . " By 1723 , Arkansas was routinely spelled " Arkansas , " but as late as 1805 French map maker Perrin du Lac foretell Kansas " Kancès . "
Clearly , at some point an " r " was added to the original Algonquin name Akansa . One possibility , mentioned in a1945 articlein the Arkansas Historical Quarterly , is that the Akansa used a peculiarly coolheaded bow when hunting and the French word for curtain call is " arc . " It ’s possible that the French explorer ’s admiration for the weapon influenced their orthoepy . Other Gallic explorers shout the Arkansas river " la riviere des arcs " ( " river of the caisson disease " ) for its curvey course . Either example could explain why the French Colonel de Champigny , writing in 1776 , take to call the region " Arckantas . "
The Ahs Have It
Which brings us to the orthoepy question . The 1881 Arkansas Historical Society leaflet concluded that both Kansas and Arkansas have roots in similar Amerindic tribal names , but that Kansas chose to follow the received English pronunciation — marked by the strong " a " sound in " can " and vocalize the final " s " — while Arkansas stuck with the original French orthoepy .
It ’s the foresighted French ( and Italian ) " ah " sound , write the Arkansas Historical Society , which explains why Arkansas was sometimes import " Arkansaw , " admit in the1818 peace treatybetween the United States and the Quapaw . The cellular inclusion of the " s " at the remnant of Arkansas was likely a product of pluralisation . If the kin was called the Akansa , then multiple members of the tribe were the Akansas . But since the final " s " is silent in French , all that ’s leave alone is the " ah " phone .
The 1945 article in the Arkansas Historical Quarterly make an interesting point , though . The Arkansas legislature made a big deal in 1881 about bushel for good the true pronunciation of the DoS name , emphasizing that all three " a"s should be pronounced " with the Italian phone . " Yet the unanimous pronunciation of Arkansas by native Arkansans and interlopers likewise is " AR - kin - saw . " So much for bind to the missive of the law .
