Thinking again about the Dena'ina-fication of Anchorage, I am reminded that Native language is actually present all around us in covert form. Consider the case of Chester Creek in Anchorage. Where did this name come from? No, there was no guy named Chester who gave his name to this creek. The name represents an attempt to pronounce the Native Dena'ina word Chanshtnu, which means literally 'grass creek'.
More examples can be found in Alaska's second city. The name for the Chena River in Fairbanks is derived from the Tanana Athabascan name Ch'eno'. In this case the literal meaning is quite interesting. The word is composed of the "indefinite" possessor plus the stem meaning 'river' and thus literally means 'river of something', where the 'something' is a veiled reference to game animals, especially caribou. The inference to be made is that this was a good place for hunting caribou -- so good, in fact, that it was worth avoiding explicit mention of that game.
Even some English names are actually direct translations (what linguists call "calques") of Native names. This is the case with Birch Hill (K'iyh Ddhel) in Fairbanks.
Though it may sometimes be hidden, the Native landscape surrounds us.
Southeast Alaska has many Tlingit placenames that have persisted in anglicized form to the modern era. The village Angoon is from Tlingit aan-góon literally “town-isthmus” or “town on the isthmus”. Hoonah is xunaa but older xoon-niyaa literally “northwind-toward” or “toward the north wind”. Klukwan is tlakw.aan from earllier tlagoowu aan meaning roughly “forever village” because of its age. There are calques too, such as Basket Bay which is Khákʼw in Tlingit, meaning simply “basket”.
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