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I'm just getting started on how we pronounce place names! A few years back I went skiing in Banff (Alberta, Canada). Near there is Norquay which I pronounced

I'm just getting started on how we pronounce place names! A few years back I went skiing in Banff (Alberta, Canada). Near there is Norquay which I pronounced as Norkey as in Torquay. Nope it's: Norrkway or perhaps Nork-kway. That's fair enough - the locals can call their place whatever they like and I can damn well like it or bugger off. The thing is that the place was clearly named by people from these parts but the language has changed and moved on. Here in the UK, Norquay means North Quay. I have no idea what Norquay means in Canada - is it just a legacy name. Here in the UK we have legacy names too. For example River Avon - Avon means river in several Brythonic languages (Afon). The land that contains the modern UK has been done over quite a few times by all sorts of well organised interlopers - Vikings (lads doing the vik), Romans (Senatus PopulusQue Romani), more viking types now called Normans and with a thin veneer of respectability thanks to duffing up Normandy and settling.

smcl 5y ago
Norquay/Norkway reminds me of quite a few places in North America where the original pronunciation gets mangled, like Versailles in Kentucky (pron. "Versaylz"). It's not just a US thing though, you mentioned River Avon ("ay-von", if I'm not mistaken) - there's a mountain in Scotland called Ben Avon which is pronounced "Ben Ahn".
- gerdesj 5y ago
  Afon/avon means river in Welsh. The Ben Avon thing is likely an accident of transliteration. I known "Ben" means mountain in Scottish (Gallic). The Brythonic languages - Welsh, Scottish, Irish, and I think there's one in Brittany (Franch). Those are the still living ones and as well as those there is a Cornish revival and languages such as Cumbric which only now live on in counting numbers. That lot is the, if you like, the old, original languages of Britain. Britain here means the lands of the Britons which also includes lesser Britain as well as Great Britain, which is northern France - Brittany. So, although we have the johnny come lately English language, which is only about 1500 years old, we also have the far older languages here in the UK. All of those languages have fed and fed off each other. The Brythonics have taken on the Roman alphabet in their own distinct way as has English. It is all too easy for us anglophones to forget that the alphabet we use was not invented here (Latin), nor was the term alphabet (aleph-beth - Hebrew I think). English is often described as the lingua franca - "language of the Franks" or French! Lingua Franca is a hangover from the days of the Holy Roman empire.
- ed_elliott_asc 5y ago
  I live near a village called “Horsted Keynes” pronounced “Horsted Cains” - thought it was odd but found an old map from 1750ish and that has it written as “Horsted Cains” - somewhere along the line the name must have changed but the locals kept calling it by the old name and it has stuck. Before we moved here my wife phoned up the local pub trying to reserve a table and said “are you in horsted keens “ the lady quickly, and quite sharply, corrected her “it is pronounced cains” - so I can see why it has stayed, the locals can be quite terse about it and generally always correct people.
  - gerdesj 5y ago
    There's loads of examples like that around the place. The "great vowel shift" is also responsible for many of them. Near here (Yeovil, Somerset) is Leigh - not "Lee" but "Lie". Elsewhere in the UK Leigh will be pronounced "Lay" - I'll put money on it. When I first saw your village name, I instinctively went for "husted kens". We generally shorten syllables and clip consonants, except when we don't! We insist on aspirating "h" (herb vs 'erb) but will turn beauchamp "bow'shamp" into "beeshum".
  - smcl 5y ago
    Wikipedia has a little bit of info on the etymology, it's quite interesting! > Guillaume de Cahaignes, a French knight who participated in the Norman conquest of England, and lord of what is now Cahagnes, was given Milton in Buckinghamshire and the Sussex village of Horstede (The Place of Horses in Old English). The latter became Horstede de Cahaignes and in time Horsted Keynes
- flyinghamster 5y ago
  Americans are especially good at mangling French place names, St. Louis being an especially good example. The local pronunciation of Des Plaines, the city or the river, is "Dess Planes," and on and on. Sometimes we get it right, as with Prairie du Chien in Wisconsin, but usually there are one or more Anglicizations in French place names in the US. It can sometimes happen with Spanish as well, for instance, San Jose, IL is pronounced "San Joes."

smcl 5y ago

Norquay/Norkway reminds me of quite a few places in North America where the original pronunciation gets mangled, like Versailles in Kentucky (pron. "Versaylz"). It's not just a US thing though, you mentioned River Avon ("ay-von", if I'm not mistaken) - there's a mountain in Scotland called Ben Avon which is pronounced "Ben Ahn".

gerdesj 5y ago
Afon/avon means river in Welsh. The Ben Avon thing is likely an accident of transliteration. I known "Ben" means mountain in Scottish (Gallic). The Brythonic languages - Welsh, Scottish, Irish, and I think there's one in Brittany (Franch). Those are the still living ones and as well as those there is a Cornish revival and languages such as Cumbric which only now live on in counting numbers. That lot is the, if you like, the old, original languages of Britain. Britain here means the lands of the Britons which also includes lesser Britain as well as Great Britain, which is northern France - Brittany. So, although we have the johnny come lately English language, which is only about 1500 years old, we also have the far older languages here in the UK. All of those languages have fed and fed off each other. The Brythonics have taken on the Roman alphabet in their own distinct way as has English. It is all too easy for us anglophones to forget that the alphabet we use was not invented here (Latin), nor was the term alphabet (aleph-beth - Hebrew I think). English is often described as the lingua franca - "language of the Franks" or French! Lingua Franca is a hangover from the days of the Holy Roman empire.
ed_elliott_asc 5y ago
I live near a village called “Horsted Keynes” pronounced “Horsted Cains” - thought it was odd but found an old map from 1750ish and that has it written as “Horsted Cains” - somewhere along the line the name must have changed but the locals kept calling it by the old name and it has stuck. Before we moved here my wife phoned up the local pub trying to reserve a table and said “are you in horsted keens “ the lady quickly, and quite sharply, corrected her “it is pronounced cains” - so I can see why it has stayed, the locals can be quite terse about it and generally always correct people.
- gerdesj 5y ago
  There's loads of examples like that around the place. The "great vowel shift" is also responsible for many of them. Near here (Yeovil, Somerset) is Leigh - not "Lee" but "Lie". Elsewhere in the UK Leigh will be pronounced "Lay" - I'll put money on it. When I first saw your village name, I instinctively went for "husted kens". We generally shorten syllables and clip consonants, except when we don't! We insist on aspirating "h" (herb vs 'erb) but will turn beauchamp "bow'shamp" into "beeshum".
- smcl 5y ago
  Wikipedia has a little bit of info on the etymology, it's quite interesting! > Guillaume de Cahaignes, a French knight who participated in the Norman conquest of England, and lord of what is now Cahagnes, was given Milton in Buckinghamshire and the Sussex village of Horstede (The Place of Horses in Old English). The latter became Horstede de Cahaignes and in time Horsted Keynes
flyinghamster 5y ago
Americans are especially good at mangling French place names, St. Louis being an especially good example. The local pronunciation of Des Plaines, the city or the river, is "Dess Planes," and on and on. Sometimes we get it right, as with Prairie du Chien in Wisconsin, but usually there are one or more Anglicizations in French place names in the US. It can sometimes happen with Spanish as well, for instance, San Jose, IL is pronounced "San Joes."