A Simple Question

Post/Author/DateTimePost
#1

WolfLordBran

Feb 01, 2011 20:37:18		Truly, this is a simple question but it is one I have never been able to find an answer. So here I am, turning to you my OTTers in an attempt to reach some higher understanding:

Why is Arkansas pronounced "Are-Kan-Saw" and not "Ar-Kan-Sas"? I mean really, how in the Nine Hells do you get a "W" sound from a word that doesn't have a zoggin W in it at all?

If someone could explain to me this, I'd appreciate it.
#2

lokiare

Feb 02, 2011 1:33:13
Truly, this is a simple question but it is one I have never been able to find an answer. So here I am, turning to you my OTTers in an attempt to reach some higher understanding:

Why is Arkansas pronounced "Are-Kan-Saw" and not "Ar-Kan-Sas"? I mean really, how in the Nine Hells do you get a "W" sound from a word that doesn't have a zoggin W in it at all?

If someone could explain to me this, I'd appreciate it.



I live in Arkansas (I wasn't born here) and they have a kind of accent. Its a slurring of the word. When it started out it was originally "Our Kansas" as there was a group of people that moved from Kansas and dubbed it that. Its just slur over time. I can see in a few hundred years the United States being called "ooh knighted stats" or something...
#3

dazwin

Apr 25, 2011 11:57:40 		Sorry to bump an old thread, but I saw this and couldn't restrain myself.  The pronunciation is of Arkansas is actually due to it's Native American and French roots, not from "Our Kansas".  The accent here doesn't drop the S sound on the end of words. 

From the resolution cementing the pronuciation in the 19th century:

Be it therefore resolved by both houses of the General Assembly, that the only true pronunciation of the name of the state, in the opinion of this body, is that received by the French from the native Indians and committed to writing in the French word representing the sound. It should be pronounced in three (3) syllables, with the final “s” silent, the “a” in each syllable with the Italian sound, and the accent on the first and last syllables. The pronunciation with the accent on the second syllable with the sound of “a” in “man” and the sounding of the terminal “s” is an innovation to be discouraged.       



Even rednecks can be pedants! :P