Woodland Indians Forum

Punxsutawney  =  sand-fly town / gnat town / mosquito town  (Take your pick.)

Suckachsinheet wrote:

Since most modern spellings are an aberration of the original language, could you include the original spellings as well? For example (and, of course, you already know this sschkaak) Punxsutawney is derived from "ponksad uteney". (Did I get that right?)

Paul:  I have several reasons for not using any standard phonetic alphabet for these placenames, right now.  I may add them, at a later date.

This particular name is a combination of pongus (sand-fly; mosquito; gnat) and uteney (town; city).  I don't know where that non-word, "ponksad," first appeared.  (I first saw it in Evan Pritchard's work.)

Kittatinny  =  big mountain

Tulpehocken  =  in the land of water turtles

Manhattan  =  place for gathering the wood to make bows   (Ives Goddard's interpretation - following Albert Anthony)

Last edited by sschkaak (Feb-10-2012 09:54:am)

Tuxedo  =  there are round-feet / round-feet  (i.e., members of the wolf phratry)

All comments welcome:  positive, negative or "other."

Last edited by sschkaak (Feb-10-2012 08:32:am)

Absecon  =  medicinal herb / medicinal root

     another possibility = place of white salt

Port-au-Peck  =  deep, still water / a bay

sschkaak wrote:

Monongahela  =  a collapsing high bank (of a river)

Makes you wonder how we came to name a whole culture of people after that... But the river with that name has a few collapsing high banks along it.

Tobyhanna  =  stream of alder trees

Kokosing  =  place of owls