Talk:Allegany County, Maryland

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Dubious etymology

"The name Allegany comes from a local Native American word, oolikhanna, which means 'beautiful stream'." This is unsourced and fails to name the language of origin. (It's Lenape.) The main problem with it is that scholars of Algonquian languages have not succeeded in finding a satisfactory etymology. If there is any consensus on the subject, it's that they don't know the answer. The actual Lenape words for the above phrase are welhik 'good' and hane 'river (in hilly country)'. Whether spelled "oolik" or "welhik," it's phonetically a poor fit for Allegany. According to Zeisberger, the name of the Allegheny region in Lenape is Allegewinenk, said to mean 'a land to which they came from distant parts'. Zeisberger's etymology may or may not be factually supportable from what is known of the Lenape language, but he was directly in contact with native speakers. Others derive the name from a tribe called Allegewi mentioned in Lenape legend. Either of these is a much better fit phonetically. But the fact is that no one really knows.

In any case, the Allegheny River is at least 75 miles away from Allegany County. But the mountains of the same name (the Allegheny Front) run right through the county. Is there any question that the county's name comes directly from the mountains instead of indirectly from the river? Johanna-Hypatia (talk) 05:29, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Now I'm reconsidering the above and I'm not sure that welhik hane is so dubious after all. The various sources of information on this question conflict with each other, and it's hard to evaluate them. J. Hammond Trumbull says: "Alleghany, or as some prefer to write it, Allegheny,—the Algonkin name of the Ohio River, but now restricted to one of its branches,—is probably (Delaware) welhik-hanné or [oo]lik-hanné, 'the best (or, the fairest) river.' Welhik (as Zeisberger wrote it) is the inanimate form of the adjectival, meaning 'best,' 'most beautiful.' In his Vocabulary, Zeisberger gave this synthesis, with slight change of orthography, as "Wulach'neü" [or [oo]lakhanne[oo], as Eliot would have written it,] with the free translation, "a fine River, without Falls." The name was indeed more likely to belong to rivers 'without falls' or other obstruction to the passage of canoes, but its literal meaning is, as its composition shows, "best rapid-stream," or "finest rapid-stream;" "La Belle Riviere" of the French, and the Oue-yo´ or O hee´ yo Gä-hun´-dä, "good river" or "the beautiful river," of the Senecas. For this translation of the name we have very respectable authority,—that of Christian Frederick Post, a Moravian of Pennsylvania, who lived seventeen years with the Muhhekan Indians and was twice married among them, and whose knowledge of the Indian languages enabled him to render important services to the colony, as a negotiator with the Delawares and Shawanese of the Ohio, in the French war. In his "Journal from Philadelphia to the Ohio" in 1758, after mention of the 'Alleghenny' river, he says: "The Ohio, as it is called by the Sennecas. Alleghenny is the name of the same river in the Delaware language. Both words signify the fine or fair river." La Metairie, the notary of La Salle's expedition, "calls the Ohio, the Olighinsipou, or Aleghin; evidently an Algonkin name,"—as Dr. Shea remarks. Heckewelder says that the Delawares "still call the Allegany (Ohio) river, Alligéwi Sipu,"—"the river of the Alligewi" as he chooses to translate it. In one form, we have wulik-hannésipu, 'best rapid-stream long-river;' in the other, wuliké-sipu, 'best long-river.' Heckewelder's derivation of the name, on the authority of a Delaware legend, from the mythic 'Alligewi' or 'Talligewi,'—"a race of Indians said to have once inhabited that country," who, after great battles fought in pre-historic times, were driven from it by the all-conquering Delawares,—is of no value, unless supported by other testimony." From The Composition of Indian Geographical Names. On reconsidering this argument, I can't dismiss it out of hand. It sounds like it could be plausible (if we account for the disappearance of the initial /w/). Johanna-Hypatia (talk) 21:11, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

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