Cities/countries meaning “I don’t know” or “I don’t understand “?
Hello! Cross posting this from r/historians, I remeber Reading of many places that mean “I don’t know” in the language of the people who originally lived there. Like for example Yucatán and how it means I don’t know what you’re saying. My question is, what are other place names that have the same origin ?
Those stories always reek of folk etymology to me. If someone is telling you that they don't understand you, it's pretty obvious from their body language.
Yucatan, for example, may have just meant "The Land of Yucas."
Kangaroo is a great example of this folk etymology being used for something other than a place. Today we know it probably derives from "gangurru" in the Guugu-Yimidhirr language of far north Queensland. But the very popular story says in 1770 either Captain Cook himself or someone else in his crew saw a kangaroo and asked the locals what it is, to which they responded "kangaroo", which according to the myth means something like "I don't know" or "I don't understand".
The myth has apparently existed since at least 1898, since an anthropologist is cited as trying to correct the myth back then.
There's a folk etymology about the area of Taipei called Tianmu. It's the idea that it came from a Mandarin-speaking official asking what the name of the place was, and the local response in Taiwanese was "thian-bo" (= don't understand). In reality it was named after a Matsu temple (tian mu = "heaven mother").
Not sure if this count but Pima County in Arizona is named after Pima, or the Akimel O'odham, that Wikipedia says about:
The short name, "Pima", is believed to have come from the phrase pi 'añi mac or pi mac, meaning "I don't know," which they used repeatedly in their initial meetings with Spanish colonists. The latter referred to them as the Pima. This term was adopted by later English speakers: traders, explorers and settlers.
It's not quite the same thing, but Canada was likely named due to a misunderstanding (parts of the story are likely apocryphal, so take them with some salt).
The story goes that Jacques Cartier was being directed to the village of Stadacona with the word "kanata" - Iroquoian for "village". He misinterpreted it as the land surrounding the village, and "Canada" was born.
Back in the nineties, there were "educational history" videos produced and run on Canadian TV. They were cheesy and likely inaccurate, but that's where I first heard the story. Here's the link: https://youtu.be/nfKr-D5VDBU
My favourite similar examples are Breedon on the Hill in Leicestershire and Breedon Hill in Worcestershire (both England). Both are formed from OBrit (Celtic) bre 'hill', OE dun 'hill' and ModE hill so they mean 'hill hill (on the) hill'!
English place-names are full of these kinds of tautologies where later settlers have misunderstood a topographical label for a place-name. What gets me is that each new settler couldn't find anything more interesting to call it than 'hill'!
