Why are you guys pronouncing Arkansas the way you do, instead of ar-kansas?

31 comments

1. I am confusion!

2. Like many things, blame the French

3. I actually pronounce it Ar-Kansas.

4. because that’s how it’s pronounced

5. Be the change you want to see in the world

6. Kansas = the English interpretation of the name for the “Kansa” people.

   Arkansas = the French interpretation of the name Native Americans gave to the Quapaw people (Akansa).

7. it’s the damn French’s fault! ask them

8. It’s the French making life everyone’s life difficult.

9. le Francais

10. R-Can-Saw is how I just pronounced it in my head. I’m sure it’s wrong but I’m also from Texas so I’m sure there is some twank in there.

11. Sometimes to spice it up, I like to call it Arkan-sauce.

12. It’s a proper name, so rules of English apply that it can be pronounced anyway the founder wants.

    It could have been

    A- kah- Says

13. It’s the Anglicization of the French word for a native tribe of the area, whereas Kansas is the English word for a different native tribe of the area.

14. The French.

15. Because as weird as it is, the two names don’t have the same origin. Or rather they do, but from different language pronunciations.

16. I say Ar-Kansas to make people mad

17. It’s like a game of telephone with French, English, and Native American languages.

18. That’s nothing. I used to live in St. Louis – pronounced “sey-nt loo-is” rather than “san loo-ee” – and there were lots of place names in the general area that originally came from French but were Americanized in their pronunciation.

    It always amused us when outsiders came in to cover news – generally a flood – and tried to pronounce everything as though it were still French.

19. It’s French. In reference to the Native American tribe that lived in the area.

    Kansas was a different Tribe to the north.

20. They have different root words. It’s like why dove (past tense of dive) is pronounced differently than shove.

21. Originally, it was pronounced both ways more or less interchangeably (or based on which part of the territory you lived in). They eventually had to settle on an official pronunciation, and after some backroom dealings and a sneaky fly-by-night “emergency session” that left out the “Ar Kan Sas” pronouncers from the vote, they were able to settle on “Ar Kan Saw.”

22. We do it to confuse Europeans.

23. For more fun, the demonyms Kansan and Arkansan rhyme

24. There’s a vine about this

25. Just because

26. Because we already have a Kansas.

27. Kansai people were native to this region. The British called region they explored Kansas and the French called area they explored Arkansas. Both have same root.

28. They’re both named after different people

29. To confuse foreigners.

30. Side question: Why is Arkansas pronounced differently than the Arkansas River?

31. As a Kansan, what’s funny is that we have a river called the Arkansas river and we actually normally pronounce it as Ar-Kansas, meanwhile we pronounce the state as Ar-kan-saw. We simply just don’t respect that state /j