After the 2008 opening of the
Dena'ina Civic Convention Center, with rooms named after local Dena'ina landmarks -- Idlughet, Kahtnu, Tubughnenq, K'enakatnu, Tikahtnu -- I've lost track of what might be called the Dena'ina-fication of Anchorage. But the trend nevertheless continues. One event that I missed last year was the opening of Tikahtnu Commons, a new East Anchorage shopping mall developed by CIRI. (See
April 2009 ADN story.) If the trend continues Anchorage may end up feeling a bit like Honolulu, with local Native names interwoven into the fabric of mainstream life.
As a resident of Honolulu, I think it would be nice to see the “correct” pronunciation of native names become a shibboleth discriminating long-time residents from newcomers.
ReplyDeleteLocals in Hawaiʻi vary in their accuracy for pronouncing Hawaiian names, and there are a few which even Hawaiian speakers will pronounce in the Anglicized form when speaking English. But there are many names in Honolulu which are obvious shibboleths, often due to stress placement. Thus Kapiʻolani is in Hawaiian /ka.ˌpi.ʔo.ˈla.ni/ and in Local English usually something like /kə.ˌpi.o.ˈla.ni/, but newcomers almost always get the stress wrong as /ˌka.pi.o.ˈla.ni/ or the like.
But I think it’s somewhat unlikely to occur in Anchorage because the saturation of Denaʼina names is not going to be very high. There are plenty of names around but they are “ruthlessly Anglicized” to borrow Ian Maddieson’s phrase and their meanings are largely unknown. A case in point is the park which I lived next to as a child (Google Street View, can’t read the sign); it is “Tikishla” on the sign with the helpful subtitle “Black Bear”, but in Denaʼina it’s probably supposed to be Ghedishla “black bear” (Ursus americanus Pallas 1780), as with the mountain named by the Mountaineering Club in 1965 (Kari, Fall, & Pete 2003:341). The sign doesn’t say that the name is supposed to be Denaʼina – it just offers the name and a subtitle in English with no explanation. It will take some time for names like this to be replaced and clearly indicated as Denaʼina before people really start to understand what is all around them.