A Curious Little Blog

Since I've been writing about languages in U.S. geographical names, I wanted to say a word about state mottoes.  The vast majority of these are in English or Latin -- 20 Latin, 24 English.  I looked for geographical patterns in the language used, but found none.  Of the original 13 colonies (which one might expect to have used more Latin), six are in Latin and six in English.  (More on the exception in a moment.)  From a few mottoes that I knew, I thought Southern states might prefer Latin, but I counted six Latin and six English there, as well.  The one area that my hunch seemed a little more on target was that Midwestern states preferred English mottoes two to one. Six of the eight mottoes that predate 1800 are in Latin, but the oldest of all is the single English word "Hope," adopted by Rhode Island in 1644.  It is interesting that two states with English mottoes have adopted new, Latin mottoes since the turn of the millennium, Kentucky and North ...

I have mentioned the surprising influence of French on American names.  Spanish has had even more influence, but this is less surprising.  You could probably name a dozen cities with Spanish name for saints, as well as a few with common Spanish words -- Amarillo (yellow), El Paso (the pass), Las Vegas (the meadows).  Five states bear names that are plain Spanish words -- Florida (flowery), Colorado (coloured red), Montana (mountainous), California (hot), and Nevada (snow-covered) -- and others have Spanish-influenced names.  The city of Toldeo, Ohio, however, appears to have little to do with any direct Spanish influence. France and Spain were present in North America during the early stages of settlement, which is why so much of the land's names are influenced by them rather than by German, which was the native language of more Americans than any other country (at least according to Wikipedia).  Apart from a few small communities, such as Germantown (Pennsylv...

When we think of America's origins, we normally think of England, for good reason.  In the Southwest, obviously, there is a lot of Spanish influence.  But we rarely think of the amount of French influence in the settlement of America, even though there is a lot of evidence in geographic names. Three states -- Vermont, Maine, and Louisiana -- have French names.  Several others get their names from Indian tribes that were first contacted by French settlers, and two of them, Illinois and Arkansas, retain a portion of the French pronunciation as a reminder. There is a surprising number of cities over a wide geographic area with French names.  We typically think of Louisiana first, especially New Orleans and Baton Rouge ("red stick"), but they are just the tip of the iceberg.  Mobile, Alabama was founded by the French and owned by them for over half a century.  Detroit ("strait") and St. Louis were also founded by the French.  A large number of other ci...