Minnesota weekly times., 1856-11-29
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MINNEAPOLIS.

My DEAR TINEs.-In the No. for Oct. 10th your
Minneapolis, gives us the origin and meaning of
the name. Perhaps in regard to this l can render
him some service.
Having never seer it written Minneapolis,
had supposed that the a, according to its present
orthography, was introduced for the sake Of ell
phony, making word undoubtedly better sound
ing than Minneapolis. Or putting less benevolent
construction upon it, have wondered if it was
not to be regarded as the Greek privative,
pondent has enlightened US. and having access to
The giver of the name, he must be regarded as
furnishing us with its true history. As among
the Dakotas, the person who names a child, is
alone supposed to know the true meaning Of the
name, so with the present information from so
reliable source, when we see Minneapolis in
future, we shall think of it as having been Mime
hapolis, and of its meaning ''city Of the curling
,caters," or ''city Of the Falls"
Bu. now for the s'ha." Your correspondent
will find, by looking on the list page of the Die
tionary, following the words commencing with
common ''h,'' another character which is an h
with round dot over it. This represents a sound
which we have not in English. In the Grammar
it is called a surd cultural. The Arabic scholars
in New York city said it was like the Arabic
character ''kjla.' In our other Dakota books we
have used '!r' to represent this sound. Still it
is rot like our sound of r, nor even much like r
spoken by Frenchman. But whatever the sound
is, this is the letter, marked "h.'
Looking under this marked h we 6nd ha, curled,
and haha, reduplicated form, ,cater falls especi
ally the Falls of 81. Anthony. This latter is the
name by which the Falls are designated by the
Dakotas. Hence "Haha wakpa," River Of the
Falls, or the Mississippi river. The same redup-
Heated form of the word occurs in Minnehaha.
s:I-ha'' means curled mouth or laughing. Always
bear in mind that it is the marked ''h.' But as
in the Office Of the Times you have marked his,
and if you had we Americans could not make the
sound without going to school to theDakotas, the
marked his, in the words considered, have become
ordinary ones. You see the change came about
by the necessity of the case. And so far as
Minnchaha is concerned, the change has really
improved it. For every body says it means
':Laugbing water;' and haha sounds very much
lihc SVou Houoo9 oI Is
true having made this change, and reduced surd
cultural to common ''h,' we arc now liable TO
be told by grave historians, that 'h'' means moth
ing like curling or laughing, and that it can have
no reference to water falls. And this is not the
only instance of this kind Of treatment. Our good
friends up near the mouth of the Blue Earth
river, change Makato pronounced Mah-kahto),
blue-carth, into Mankato pronounced Man-kay'
TOY, and then tell that they are not at all in
debted to the Dakota language for the name, but
that it has an entirely different origin.
Friends, let US not be ashamed of our Dakota
names, and in all cases when it can be done at
all, let us keep them in such form that their
meaning will be easily ascertained ages hence.
Yours truly
S. r. RIGGS.
1TnzInwood Mimi Nor 10 lSSc