Clatskanie
Language Log 2024-10-27
Please do not check in a dictionary or online before you try to pronounce the name just by looking at it.
The manager of the inn where I'm staying told me that people from out of town pronounce the name in many different ways. Never mind how they struggle with the first five letters, the greatest variation comes with how to handle the last three letters.
She herself, when she first came to the town from Portland about ten years ago, pronounced the ending as "nine", and many other outsiders do too. I have a theory about where that final "n" comes from, but will wait to see if anyone else can explain it first.
People from surrounding towns sometimes make fun of the name by jeering "Clatskaninny".
The town was originally called Bryantville after the large family who were among the first filers of Donation Land Claims in the area in 1852-53. However, the first postmaster, Enoch Conyers, who was married to one of the Bryant daughters, changed the name to Clatskanie after the Tlatskanai Native American tribe.
"Bryant" and Conyers are among the street names in the town still today.
Kwalhioqua–Clatskanie (Kwalhioqua–Tlatskanai, Lower Columbia Athabaskan) is an extinct Athabaskan language of northwest Oregon and southwest Washington state, along the lower Columbia River.
Also, does anyone have a theory about why "Tla-" evolved into "Cla-"? Again, I have an idea, but will wait to see if anyone else has one of their own.
Selected readings
- "The Dalles, Dallesport, Dallas" (10/17/24)
- "Local toponymic pronunciations in northwestern Ohio and northern Indiana" (7/4/22)
- "Southern Ohioisms" (9/23/17)
- "The many sights and sounds of 'Buchanan'" (8/26/21)