LogFAQs > #912127977

Gheb posted...

Both are names after the Kansa (Kaw) tribe. However, Arkansas was initially settled by the French and their pronunciation ended uo morphing into Arkansas. Kansas was settled by the English who had a different pronunciation.

Just about everything in the mid-west is named after a settler or the mispronunciation of tribal words.

Not just the mid-west. Like 90% of Canada too. It gets confusing because there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of independent and unique Aboriginal languages, then you have those filtered through Spanish, French, English, Portuguese, Dutch, and German, and half of those are already weird mixes of the other half. Even worse, half the time settlers used names of places from antiquity, so you get places with names like Alexandria and Memphis next to places like Punxsutawney and Toronto.