You say it how in Michigan...Really?

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slimcake

Well-known member
I would like to know what that cost the taxpayers... Chit I just noticed that if you click on it there is audio of each as well. I bet this was a 10 million dollar project.... Sheesh....
 
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Cirrus_Driver

Guest
This is a joke, right?
Thank God I didn't follow thru and buy the place on Chaney Lake with wasted tax $$'s like this.
 
G

G

Guest
XXX007 said:
This is a joke, right?
Thank God I didn't follow thru and buy the place on Chaney Lake with wasted tax $$'s like this.
Click to expand...

Not to worry. I am confident tax dollars are being wasted wherever you live.
 
S

Stack

New member
slimcake said:
I would like to know what that cost the taxpayers... Chit I just noticed that if you click on it there is audio of each as well. I bet this was a 10 million dollar project.... Sheesh....
Click to expand...

Haha, yes I keep telling myself it was one of those unpaid summer interns that put this together. The level of detail with the audio is top notch!
 
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frnash

Active member
Not a total waste.

From the perspective of an amateur linguist/philologist, it's not a total waste.

["English is a dying language." -FRN]
Anything that can help preserve it (or any other language) and etymology, and the history of language, is certainly of value.

I was pleased to see a few local (UP/Keweenaw) names, places and terms that they actually got right (both spelling and pronunciation!) like:
1.(click →) Bete Grise"Bay Degree" - (not "Beet Grease", see[SUP] 1[/SUP])
2.(click →) L'Anse(Not "Lance" or "Lanse")
3.(click →) Pasty(Not "Paste-y")
4.(click →) Yooper, (see [SUP]2[/SUP])(Not "Upper" or "Yupper")

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There are at least a few other suspects that they may or may not have got right:
From the LARA Pronunciation Guide - 'You Say it How in Michigan?'Other PronounciationMeaning
Kaleva
("Kuh-lev-va"? :hopelessness:)		Finnish:
Kulle-va		Kaleva, a historic Finnish American Community in the heart of Manistee County founded in 1900, became a refuge for Finnish settlers. The name of the village comes from the national epic of Finland, Kalevala. (Also a historic Finnish restaurant in Hancock.)
Omena ("O-mee-na"?)Ojibwe:
'o-me-nah'		Omena, a small unincorporated community in Leelanau Township of Leelanau County. The word omena comes from 'o-me-nah', an Ojibwe Indian expression meaning "Is that so ?" or "Is that really true?"

Omena (Ome-na) also happens to mean "apple" in Finnish, but that is merely a coincidence.
Palo ("Pay low")Pronounced Pay-Low, locally!Palo is an unincorporated community in the northern part of Ronald Township is a civil township of Ionia County.

Palo (Pa-lo) also happens to mean "fire" in Finnish, but that is merely a coincidence.

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And some that they seem to have missed:
Place nameOriginMore information
Lake Fanny Hooe ("Fanny Who?")see →Legend has it that Fanny Hooe (for whom the lake was named) was the sister-in-law of a young officer assigned to nearby Ft. Wilkins. She arrived at the Fort with the Captain William Alburtis family in 1846. Stories of her disappearance vary, either insisting she was picking berries outside the Fort and was either lost in the nearby forest, killed and eaten by a bear who resented her intrusion on his berry patch, or she was abducted by an Indian in retaliation for white man's intrusion on former tribal lands. She was never found, so no one knows.
LimingaFinnishLim-in-ka
NisulaFinnishNis-sula
PaavolaFinnishPaw-vola
PoriFinnishPo-ri
SaunaFinnishNot a geographic location, but how could they not include a Yooper (see [SUP]2[/SUP]) term like "sauna"? (pronounced "Sow-na", not "Saw-na"!
ToivolaFinnishToi-vo-la
TraunikSlovene (Slovenian)After the native Slovene village of Travnik (pronounced [ˈtɾaːu̯nik]), a settlement in the Municipality of Loški Potok in southern Slovenia.

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[SUP]1[/SUP] "Beet Grease", as Bete Grise was called by the mate on the White Gull, in Ethel C. Brill's book (click →) "Copper Country Adventure"!

[SUP]2[/SUP] Speaking of "Yooper" or "Yooperese", do you want to speak "Yooper"? Check this out at Amazon (and be sure to Look inside!):
(click →) "Yooper Talk: Dialect as Identity in Michigan's Upper Peninsula (Languages and Folklore of Upper Midwest)"
by Kathryn A. Remlinger, University of Wisconsin Press, June 27, 2017. :encouragement:

See more about "Yooper Talk" here: (click →) "Oh yah, that’s Yooper talk" (quoted here in part):

"Today (June 27, 2017) the University of Wisconsin Press publishes Yooper Talk: Dialect as Identity in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Author Kathryn Remlinger explores features of this unique North American dialect while examining why dialects persist even in a globalized age.
―
"The remote and isolated location of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, combined with contact among English and other languages, have shaped Yooper talk over the past 150 years and have helped it remain distinct from other varieties of American English. It is shaped by tourism, economics, the sociolinguistic history of the Upper Peninsula, research on regional varieties, awareness about language variation, and how speakers claim identity with language."
Click to expand...
 
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frnash

Active member
Here's one for the Keweenaw/Copper Country locals:

How do you pronounce Oneco, as in Oneco Rd (Calumet, MI), 1.5 miles north of the Houghton County Airport, from US-41 east on the Boston Road alignment:
Oneco Road.jpg
Is it "One-co" (like maybe the older brother of "Tuco Salamanca" (Character) from "Breaking Bad" (2008-2013),
or is ot "Onnaco", "On-eco", "On-echo" (or "On-ecco" — rhymes with Necco wafers)?

It seems now there's just "Oneco Rd", where there once was an "Oneco Location" somewhere very close by, apparently lost in time — tho' surely not in the minds of many of the locals!.

P.S.:
An oddity, the Keweenaw/Copper Country's historical use of "Location" in many place names; not "towns", not "villages", just "Locations".
Many of those places, some long gone, are still referred to in that way today; the locals just know 'em, and if you're a "tourist", I defy you to find 'em on any map, or any other way!
 

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