In Canada, as elsewhere, place names can carry a fascinating history. Surprisingly, many names come from native American languages: the country’s own name originates in the Iroquoian kanata<\/em>, meaning \u2019village\u2019 or \u2019settlement.\u2019 Originally, Canada referred to what is now Quebec City, but over time came to refer to a larger area.<\/p>\n Indigenous languages appear in the background of many cities. Quebec comes from kep\u00e9k<\/em> \u2019narrow passage,\u2019 Ottawa from adawe<\/em> \u2019to trade,\u2019 and Winnipeg from win-nip<\/em> \u2019muddy water.\u2019 As for Toronto, the name likely comes from tkaranto<\/em>, which refers to trees in the water.<\/p>\n Settlements often take their names from nearby rivers or bodies of water. Into the 17th century, the French name for the St. Lawrence River was Rivi\u00e8re du Canada. Ottawa and Winnipeg are the names of rivers as well, and Lake Ontario gave its name to an entire province. The name Ontario may come from from a Huron word onitariio<\/em>, ‘beautiful lake,’ or the Iroquoian kanadario<\/em>, \u2019sparkling water’ or ‘beautiful water.’ The name of Niagara<\/a>, the most famous place in Ontario, is also Iroquois-based; onguiaahra<\/em> stands for \u2019strait\u2019 or \u2019neck.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In Canada, as elsewhere, place names can carry a fascinating history. Surprisingly, many names come from native American languages: the country’s own name originates in the Iroquoian kanata, meaning \u2019village\u2019 or \u2019settlement.\u2019 Originally, Canada referred to what is now Quebec City, but over time came to refer to a larger area. Indigenous languages appear in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14,15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2542","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-english-en","7":"category-wordoftheweek-en","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2542"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2548,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2542\/revisions\/2548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}