Dear People
Is it a coincidence that today's word (14/5/03 in London, England) "potamic" sounds like the river Potomac? Would be interested in any thoughts on this!
regards
Nilla
AHD is silent on the matter, but the name Potomac is almost certainly from a Native American word. Such coincidences abound.
Hi, nilla and welcome to a fellow Brit!
All I can find on Potomac confirms that it is Native American in origin:
Potomac: River forming the boundary line between Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. Indian Patowmek or Potowmak, "they are coming by water"; another translation, "place of the burning pine," allusion to a council fire.
Can't explain why there are two wildly different translations. Maybe the name occurs in two tribal languages with different meanings. There will be others who can give us more information I'm sure.
Thank God the colonists did not copy the names of the British rivers they had known. The use of English cities
was overdone with many duplications. I have read that in the twenties, the mayor of Bridgewater, England, came to US, he planned to visit every town here named Bridgewater, but had to give up that plan because there is one in almost every State. With War of 1812 a reaction set in. The towns on the coast of Maine were unprotected and brutalized so savagely, that new towns were called "China, Norway, Lisbon Falls", etc.
Yes, welcome aBoard, nilla! I am baffled by your word potamic; I haven't been able to find it anywhere. I am also curious as to how the two pronunciations compare. Just from looking at it, I would probably tend to pronounce yours as POT-uh-mick. The river in D.C. is puh-TOE-mick.
Ya, know, I figured it for a coincidence and thought maybe the specific river was named after some indian word, but couldn't find a reference for it.
k
I haven't been able to find it anywhere.
You mean, besides in your WAD E-mail, Jackie? <eg>
Welcome to the madhouse, nilla! It's another of the wonderful coincidences, I guess.
It could be the beginning of a hint that ancient Greeks and native Americans somehow knew each other.
a puzzle a day keeps the hassle away
Potomac was Algonquin for cloaca maxima, wasn't it?
We used to give that name to the East River...I guess there may be more than one after all
Well, I suppose my Algonquin isn't good enough to pursue my theses ...
A puzzle a day keeps the hassle away
a time ago,(more than a year, less than 2) at a sad time, we had a poster, who posted a link to a virgina college.. where there was an oghram slab, about a buffulo hunt... (she became annoyed at goings on here, best left untalked about, and deleted all of her post.)-and it was apparently dated to the year 1100 or so...
in any case, there is some evidence that irish monks came to the americas, not to 'discover' and colonize them, but to convert them.. and finding an oghram carving in virginga, seems to hint it might have happened...more than once!
if one or two of these missionaries, had a scant (there used it!) knowledge of latin or greek, he might have named the potomac... many indean names were distorted to fit into english sounding words.. so my idea could be off the wall..
does anyone else remember the thread? or did any one save the url? (i think this was all below the fold..
Thank you for this hint. I googled the combination: ogham virginia. It yields interesting pages on the controversy between over enthusiastic amateurs and cold minded archeologists about pre-Columbian artifacts. Were they native counting tables or Irish petroglyphs? Archeologists insist on the former. However we should remember that pre-Columbian european presence on America, that was officially dismissed 20 years ago, is more and more accepted.
A puzzle a day keeps the hassle away
Okay--I finally got around to looking it up on the word list! Is this where the word potable also comes from?
What kinda rivers they got there in Loouhvll you'd drink from them, Jackie?
Potamus: IE root is
pet-http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE405.htmlPotable: IE root is
poi-http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE417.html
It could be the beginning of a hint that ancient Greeks and native Americans somehow knew each other.
I think you're on to something there, crealude! And then there's the Roman connection:
Seneca Nation: a tribe in the northeast US; part of the Iroquois League of Six Nations.
Seneca (Lucius the Younger): Roman playwright.
So, senecanation is the act of writing Roman plays in Iroquois? Boy, bet there's a huge demand for those!