I've embarrassed myself a few times totally mispronouncing various river and lake names.

Can you refer me to a resource that would help me learn the Q language?

Joe

The G in "Maligne" is silent.

Don't worry, even experienced hands sometimes pronounce names differently. My favorite is always are we going to "Quetico" or to "the Quetico."
Or abbreviated nicknames for portages.
Or "Piwi" for Kahshahpiwi. Or the various abbreviations for the "S-Chain", "Poets Chain", "Falls Chain", "Scotch Chain" etc.
Our newest phrase or name for an area is the "THE Chain". Anyone else use this in conversation or to describe an area or trip?

Well, I learned and have been on the S chain, Falls chain, and Man chain, so there's some progress!

However, Kahshapiwi is a perfect example. It looks like it ends in "pee-wee"
I was corrected that is sounds like "pa-wah". Correct?

Joe

I've always heard it pronounced "pee wee"- Don't know if it's correct, but this after some 20 years of living in Ely and knowing two dogs and one woman named Kahshahpiwi all using "Pee Wee" ( well the dogs didn't use it, but responded to it..... sometimes).

Do not feel offended if you do not pronounce every name correctly, as often the original names were in French.
I have been down Darky River and into Darky Lake several times, and was never offended that despite family heritage I did not pronounce it Darkwater.
Especially interesting, as Darky Creek runs through my farm.

Don't ever feel embarrassed on this site....you'll get nothing but support

You say port aaage I sat port ege It's all good. Just bumble along like the rest of us.

Kahshahpiwi definitely ends in "pee wee." How do I know? Because one of the dogs named "Kahshahpiwi" that Banksiana refers to is mine, and she goes by "Piwi" rhymes with Kiwi.

But that's also how we said it in the 70s when I first went there. So that's proof!

I've discussed the lake with the Quetico rangers, and none of them ever remotely suggested anything other than that it ends in pee-wee. Even though they said por-taaaage.

Who said it ends in pa-wan?

Anyway, there's so few people in Quetico, no one is there to laugh at you when you say a lake name "wrong." Except maybe Saganaga or Sagnagons - then you are deep trouble.

Oh the Hoare of it all!

You can get in a Pickeral with all these names.

An old-timer I know pronounces Quetico like -Quatico.

I don't know how to properly pronounce Saganaga since some people call it Sag-in-a-ga and others call it Sag-inaga.

Just make sure that when you're in the Q that all of your sentences end with 'eh?'

"Oh, that's a nice pike you got there eh?"

Tom

If up there in the town of Atikokan, be a native and say Atti-KO-un. Accentuate the KO and drag it out. All's well then, eh? --Gooseapiwi

When I first moved to Minnesota, my sota friends used to laugh all the time at how I pronounced names of lakes/towns. Between the French/Scandinavian and several Indian dialects, it is hard. Took 10 years to figure it all out.

I still vividly remember one of my first Quetico trips some 45 years ago. We ran into a couple, obviously from Canada, that used the poooortaaaage pronunciation of portage as well as the "eh.". I was soooooooooo impressed. Even though I grew up 20 miles or so from the border we did not run into Canadians anywhere on the range. I felt that I had traveled to some unknown remote place far from home. All these years and it seems like yesterday.

Couple years ago a local came into the outfitter near Atikokan and asked if he had any beet for sale. Took me awhile to figure out what he wanted to buy. Even the outfitter needed clarification on that one.

quote Thwarted: "Took me awhile to figure out what he wanted to buy. Even the outfitter needed clarification on that one."

Must admit, I'm still working on it as well!

quote Thwarted: "Couple years ago a local came into the outfitter near Atikokan and asked if he had any beet for sale. Took me awhile to figure out what he wanted to buy. Even the outfitter needed clarification on that one."

Splain Lucy?

Bait.