Evening star., 1941-07-15
Of Stars, Men
And Atoms
Notebook of Science Progress
In Laboratory. Field
And Study
BIZ Thomas r. Henry.

An effort to reconstruct the meanings
of the names of rivers, mountains and
towns along the Atlantic seaboard south
| of the Hudson, which were derived from
American Indian languages is being
made by DR.. John P. Harrington, Smith
sonian Institution ethnologist and expert
on aboriginal languages.
Dr. Harrington has returned from
| Oklahoma, where he submitted many of
| these place names to the last surviving
| speakers of the Delaware language. This,
! at the time of the white settlements,
was predominantly the tongue of the
| Pennsylvania Indians and differed sig
nificanty from those of neighbOring
peoples. 1t is, however, one of the few
of these Eastern languages which sur
| wives as a mother tongue.
The Indians along the Seaboard were
all Algonquins. All spoke, presumably,
derivatives from an Algonquin mother
tongue although their languages differed
from each other as much as do the
languages of modern Europe.
Indian place names were, as rule,
quite IHdIleI-Ol-ldCI. lIlc leu HAL was
little given to flights of poetic fancy in
naming his rivers and mountains. The
aboriginal names sounded we'll to the
white men and were often adopted
bodily. but with extremely bad pronun-
citation.
During the past century many efforts
. have been made to interpret such words
alyov witt ha oil of
prepared by missionaries. This has in
volved making many asSumptions-a
dangerous practice in linguistics, DR..
Harrington says. The living DelaWareS
recognized some names easily and with
out any reservations. In other cases
they were doubtful, but reconstructed
the words out of the basic elements of
their language as we'll as possible.
Some of the meanings obtained by Dr.
Harrington differ radically from those
which usually have been associated with
the place names.
Following are few of DR.. Harringtons
place interpretations:
Chesapeake-salt bay, Chesa, salt;
peekW, body of water.
SuSquehanna-mud river. SSkW
mud: hanna. river.
Monongahela-cavin banks. Monong,
bank; gilhela, caving in.
Allegheny meeting of waters.
Hany-probably a miSpronunciation of
hanna" or river; alle-probably com
ing together" although other interpreta-
tions are possible.
Potomac-resting place. in the sense
Of place where man lays down load.
Potoma-to be rid of a burden; C
at or place" This is almost the op-
posite Interpretation to that given the
word by previous students who have held
that the word meant carrying place"
or center for trading Most Indian
languages, DR.. Harrington says, were
rich in words for resting places. There
would be one term for camping site"
another for sleeping site, etc. Presum-
ably it was the practice for Indian war or
trading parties TO take a short rest When
they came in sight of some village ap-
proXimately in the present position Of
the City Of Washington.
Rappahannock-some sort of place on
river" Rappa-no living Delaware
could do more than guess at the word
hanna-river; "ck"-place.
The language of the Virginia and
Maryland Indians, Dr. Harrington points
out, has been completely lost, except for
place names. Internal evidence shows
that these contain many words quite
wall m h,y @Lo
Delaware. BY analyzing them carefully
and then checking them against words
with the same meaning in the living
language it will be possible to some
extent to reproduce language not very
different from that which was spoken
by Pocahontas. Certain linguistic shifts
found in the place names may be as
sumed to have been present in all other
words
The Delaware language was close
enough to that of Maryland and Vir-
ginia, DR.. Harrington said. so that the
speaker Of one probably could have
understood the speaker of another with
some difficulty Delaware holds a re-
lationship to the Southern Algonquin
languages roughly similar to that which
Sanscript holds to the Indo-E European
languages. The Indians of New England
and Eastern New York belonged to the
same general racial stock but their
language was quite different and
Delaware offers few clues to the place
names derived from it. A good deal of
light may be shed on these, Dr. Harring-
ton believes. by study of the present
Penobscot and Passamaquoddy langu-
ages of Maine. They are about as close
to the language spoken by the Indians
who first came in contact with the
Pilgrims as Delaware to that of the
tribes encountered by the jamestown
settlers.
The surviving Delaware are around
the towns of Dewey, Wann and Copan
in Eastern Oklahoma The elders of the
tribe still speak the mother tongue
but the younger generation has little
familiarity with it and the ordinary
conversation is in English. In another
generation, DR.. Harrington fears, the
language will have become extinct.
He found the tribal elders, worried
over the disappearance of their tongue,
eager to cooperate with him to the best
of their ability. There are no good
Delaware dictionaries. The earliest, and
still in manv WayS the best, was one