Manhattan to Minisink : American Indian place names in greater New York and vicinity / Robert S. Grumet ; Munsee and Northern Unami Etymologies by Raymond Whritenour.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Grumet, Robert Steven.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Names, Geographical--New York (State).

Names, Geographical.

Cities and towns.

New York (State).

New York (State)--History, Local.

Local history.

Cities and towns--New York (State).

Physical Description:

xxxv, 259 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Norman : University of Oklahoma Press, [2013]

Summary:

Drivers exiting the New Jersey Turnpike for Perth Amboy, and map readers marveling at all the places in Pennsylvania named Lackawanna, need no longer wonder how these names originated. Manhattan to Minisink provides the histories of more than five hundred place names in the Greater New York area, including the five boroughs, western Long Island, the New York counties north of the city, and parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. Robert S. Grumet, a leading ethnohistorian specializing in the region's Indian peoples, draws on his meticulous research and deep knowledge to determine the origins of Native, and Native-sounding, place names. Grumet divides his encyclopedic entries into two parts. The first comprises an alphabetical listing of nearly 340 Indian place names preserved in colonial records, located by county and state. Each entry includes the name's language of origin, if known, and a brief discussion of its etymology, including its earliest known occurrence in written records, the history of its appearance on maps, and the name's current status. The book's second section presents nearly 200 place names that, though widely believed to be of Indian origin, are "imports, inventions, invocations, or impostors." Mistranslations are abundant in place names, and Grumet has ferreted out the mistakes and deceptions among home-grown colonial etymologies that New Yorkers have accepted for centuries. Complete with a concise history of Greater New York, a discussion of the region's naming practices, a useful timeline, and four maps, this is an invaluable resource both for scholars and for readers who want a more intimate knowledge of the place where they live or visit.

Contents:

Munsees, Lenapes, Delawares, and greater New York

Etymology and Native American place names

The influence of European colonists on place names

What are Indian place names doing on modern regional maps?

Problems of translation and identification

Structure and organization

Part 1. Colonial-era Indian place names

Part 2. Imports, inventions, invocations, and imposters.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 247-259).

ISBN:

9780806143361

0806143363

OCLC:

828190105