Can someone pronounce"Juniata" for me

June-e-at-a

 

 

Thank you Willygee.  This has been a question of mine for about 50 years.

Anxiously awaiting the answer.

I would pronounce it June--eee--ahhh-ta.

 

Tom 

Thanks all...where does the name originate from?..almost sounds native american.

The Juniata River?

I wish I'd have seen this thread earlier - for obvious reasons.

Jack is correct; Juniata Shops were named after the Juniata River.

Curt

It's not ahhh-ta.  It is pronounced at-a.  I am from the central PA area and everyone I have come in contact with has pronounced it at-a.

 

Joo-nee-at-uh

Definitely June-ee-at-uh.  God knows I spent enough time fishing and swimming in the river while growing up.

Even though I grew up in Lewistown, I still had to cheat and check Google to refresh my memory.

The word supposedly is the anglicized spelling of the Iroquois word for standing stone; Onayutta.  True?  Who knows.  Makes for a good story though.

Curt

You have all done so well on that one, how about Tehachapi? (spelling corrections welcome too)

Ta-hatch-uh-pee.

There's a railfan video out there where the British voiceover guy pronounces Juniata "Juanita" - like Barney Fife's girlfriend down at the diner. Maybe the letters got mixed up on his script.

so how did the river get its name

I found this from the book, Juniata, River of Sorrows:

 

Although the word, Attaock, on Smith’s “Map of Virginia” may be the earliest recorded reference to the Juniata River, the first word that resembles our word, Juniata, is on a 1655 Dutch map that called the Juniata the Onojutta, from the name of the Indians who lived on it: the Onojutta-Haga. Onojutta (pronounced Ooh-nee-ooh-ah-tah) means a vertical or standing stone and Haga (Hah-gah) means people or inhabitants. Onojutta-Haga, therefore, could be said to mean The People of the Standing Stone. The word, Onojutta, is related to the Mohawk word, Oneija (Ooh-nee-eh-ah-ha), meaning stone, and is the root of our word, Oneida, the avenue in many Pennsylvania towns. The town of Huntingdon on the Frankstown Branch was originally called Standing Stone and today has a township named Oneida. A nearby stream is called Stone Creek. The word, Onoya (Ooh-nee-ooh-ah-yah),alsomeaning stone, was the symbol of the Oneida Indians, who marked the entrance to their villages by placing a stone in the fork of a tree (Africa, 1896, p. 3; Guss, 1886, pp. 30-31) .

 

Tom

You might like this too from Norfolk Southern:

 

https://youtu.be/c7f3qnBPujs

 

Tom

Pennsylvania Rivers/Creeks.  Susquehanna, Monongahala, Allegheny, Tionesta, relatively simple Clarion.

Excellent video Thank you

Thanks

With the emphasis on "hatch" as in tuh-HATCH-uh-pee.

Since we're on the subject of pronunciations... Is GP9 pronounced "Gee-Pee 9" or "Jeep 9"? 

 

Tom

 

Model railroaders and rail fans tend to refer to 4-axle EMD models as "jeeps". However the TRUE name in the motive industry is "Gee Pee" then whatever number series, i.e. GP9, or GP38, or GP60, etc.. 

This is a great kind of question.  When I went to the Portland NMRA one of my goals was to learn how to pronounce Dalles, a dam on the Columbia River.  Alas, it was not to be.  Everyone did agree it was French but, 1/3 pronounce it dells, like the computer company, 1/3 dolls and 1/3 dales, as in Chip and Dale.

 

Well, at least it's not Dallas.

I've always used the full Gee Pee nomenclature in my conversations. You could call the 4-axle units "Jeeps" I guess, but then what do you do with the 6-axle units...the SD series. Do we call them "Seeps?"

 

Nah...I'll stick with Ess Dee plus a number.

 

I heartily agree with Tom and Rich.  You won't go wrong with that!

Thank, Guys!

 

I have always refered to 4 axle EMD units as "Jeeps" as a class.  Specific model numbers have always been refered to as Gee Pee___.

 

I have always called the six axle EMDs "Ess Dees"

 

I didn't know if I was using the wrong terminology all of these years.  I often thought I could sense snickers when walked away from a conversation pertaining to this subject.  I am relieved that the snickers were not directed at what I was saying.  Probably at what I was wearing. LOL

 

Tom

 

Also, the GP stands for "General Purpose." EMD (Electro-Motive Diesel Inc., now owned by Caterpillar) engines with six-wheel trucks are designated SD, which stands for "Special Duty."

Ashtabula?

pneumonoultramicropicsilicovolcanconiosis?       

While I, with no connection to the area except to blow through it a few times a year,

have apparently been pronouncing Juniata correctly, have wondered if it was hispanic

in origine and originally pronounced "hoon-ee-ah-tah".  That is not correct as the

native American derivation makes more sense for the area.

Curt and Jack Wins hand down! I have been there a few times, the PRR shop guys called it June-ee-at-uh. Named after some indian tribe like many rivers and areas in Pennsylvania.

The word "juniata" itself is a Seneca word that means either "people of the standing stone" or "blue waters". 

 

If you like Wikipedia.

 

I guess all you Easterners know how to pronounce Ashtabula - I got that from googling it after asking above.

 

There is an intersection in the skies above Philadelphia that used to be called "Juniata" - computers shortened it to "JUNIA" because computers cannot handle big words.  I always wondered if there was a locomotive shop in Philly named Juniata.  I have actually been to Juniata College, and knew it was very far away from Philly.

ash - tah - BUE - la

 

my turn...  for the SP&S,

is it spo-CAN  or spo-CANE ?

 

thanks...gary

Well since we are on a thread of pro-nun-ci-a-tions, how does one pronounce this:

 

Duquesne ?

Du-cane or Do-cain

 Can someone pronounce "Juniata"...

 

Glad this southern boy didn't even try. I would have butchered it! The first thing that came to mind was

 

Waa - nee - taa.

 

Looks to me like someone messed up and put that first "a" in the wrong spot!

hollow pien yo

that's Señor Jalapeño!

 

frankly being from SoCal, the most annoying mispronunciation i hear is,

 

tia - juana vs "tea" - juana.

 

i could understand if it was spelled confusingly, but it's Tijuana!

where are people getting that other 'a' from?

 

cheers... gar - e

How about the "San Joaquin Valley" in California?  Isn't it pronounced "San Joke Quinn"?

Fun thread!

 

When I was a young snotty kid drooling over the Varney ads on the back of the hobby magazines showing vignettes from John Allen's infamous railroad, I simply took a naive stab at pronouncing his railroad's name.  It came out 'Gore and Daff-tid'.  Dad never corrected me...or caught on, perhaps.  I had few railroading buddies to talk with back then.  In fact, it wasn't until I went away to college....and joined their model railroading club...that I embarrassed myself to find out that...but of course!...Gorre & Daphetid was pronounced 'Gory and Defeated'!  Well, can we all say "DUH!"??

 

So, ever since, I've made society pay for my embarrassment over this by correcting folks on words or pairs of words that have successive p-h or t-h.  For instance, the genre of music, Hip Hop?.....my correct pronunciation: Hiffop!  The chapeau worn by the swells to the opera, the top hat?....Toffat!  A peephole is a Peefole! Lighthouse?....pronounced Lie-thowse.  Hothouse tomatoes?....pronounced 'Hah-thowse'  tomatoes!  Etc., etc., blah, blah. 

 

There's a bunch of everyday words/combinations that qualify for this 'correction'.  What's most fun is being able to make the challenge with a straight face and persist at length in the ruse.  The look on a youngster's face, for instance, when you challenge them with the logic that, 'Of course, p or t followed by h is pronounced f or th, right?', is priceless.  I've often wondered whether they've taken this back to their teacher for clarification. 

 

Oh well, Joo-nee-A-tuh, Joo-nee-AH-tah, Joon-YAH-tah, etc.....Poh-TAY-toe, Poh-TAH-toe, Toh-MAY-toe, Toh-MAH-toe....Let's call the whole thing off!

 

KD

 

The "J" is silent.

 

Larry

In what????

Spo- KANN.

 

but back to San Joaquin - my dad, many years ago, dated a woman who said she was from the San Joe-a-Quinn valley in California.  An obnoxious woman.

 

Wah- KEEN.

 

Redding RR.?

Many years ago, when Denver still had two daily papers, a woman wrote in to the editorial section of the Rocky and she was absolutely appalled by the common local pronunciation of Buena vista (beOOna) and went rattling on about how utterly advanced and sophisticated those in her recent home town were compared to the peons out here in Colorado. Her recently vacated home town? Worcester MA. Got a good chuckle out of that. 

 

My theory is that however the locals pronounce it, then it's right - no matter where local is. 

Nicely said & I agree.

 

Tom

Recall speaking to an engineer working helper assignments out of Minturn on the D&RGW pronouncing Buena Vista as "Bween uh Vista"   and Pueblo as "Pweeblo".   But, then there is "Kaa-row" for Cairo, in Illinois. "Mar-sales" (Marseilles), too.

Worcester (wooster)MA....good one tripleo..that one gets everybody.

Don't ever refer to the Arkansas River as the Arkan-saw river in Kansas.  I learned the hard way - in Kansas its the Ar-Kansas River.

 

Curt

How about the suburb of Chicago where the well know hobby shop with the same name is located.  Spelled DesPlaines.  I've heard Tatoo got it right, as in Daplane.

If you pronounced it that way you would be asking where is the men's room?

Junie-atta with the atta pronounced same way as if you were saying: atta boy, way to go!

 

Simon

Don't know why my earlier post was deleted but I've heard it pronounced "otter" by the locals.  June-Knee-Otter.

 

Farmer Bill,

 

Simon sez:

 

There may be otters in the river, but there are none in the pronunciation!

 

 

While we're in the keystone state, Duboise is pronounced DOO boys, and Versailles is pronounced VerSails.

 

While we're on a pronunciation jag how is Strasburg pronounced? I know how we've always said it and I did find a Strasburg website that gave the phonetic (apparently it was founded by a Frenchman not a German like I had thought) but one of our customers in Straburg pronounces it as STROSS-BERG while everyone and everything I can find says STRAZ-BERG like I've always said it. What say ye, oh learned men of the rails?

 

Jerry

LOL....

Don't ask the Brits!!!  How in the world did "schedule" become "saidjewel"?!?!?!

I was going to pronounce "Juniata" one nee ahta as 10 years in San Diego silenced a lot of 'J's' Glad the Pennsylvania guys set us straight.Barney video above is funny.

Thanks for starting this thread, willygee.  I agree with Ron Leese.  Great idea.

 

Here are a few more to add:

• To its employees, the D&RGW was the Ry-uh Grand.
• Some Santa Fe stations as pronounced by railroaders -- Buenos, Texas: Bway-nuss.
• Dalies, NM:  Dall-eez
• Rivera, California (now Pico-Rivera): Ry-veer-uh
• Cadiz, California:  Kay-deez
• Waynoka, Oklahoma:  Wy-no-kuh
• Miami, Texas:  Mah-am-uh
• La Junta, Colorado:  La Hunt-a
• Boise City, Oklahoma:  Boys City
• Raton, NM:  Ra-tone (short a, as in rat)
• Mojave, California:  Mo-ha-vee (broad a, as in ha-ha)

You're not alone, KD.  I was right there with you in the "slow group". 

Would somebody be kind enough to help me with these:

 

Connaut, Ohio, on the Nickel Plate

 

Kanawha as in river or C&O steam engine

Be glad you aren't headed into Western PA and have to pronounce "Youghiogheny" or into NEPA and have to pronounce "Mahanoy City"!

Were these 'locals' transplants from the  'BAH-stin' area?  Seems like every word ending in the letter 'a' gets an 'r' sound added to it, made all the more famous by El Presidente Jack Kennedy.   Remember his famous missle crisis....down in Cyou-ber? (Cuba)

 

In the "Kids say the darnedest things!" category....    Years ago one of our fellow employees kept us informed his son's pronunciation efforts as he was just learning to read.  Two I recall.....

 

Navajo: Nay-vah-joe (he saw the beginnings of the word 'naval' in the word.) was one....

 

Then, here 'up north' we have a common sign posted at most highway overpasses providing the ubiquitous seasonal warning..."Bridge May Be Icy"....which puzzled his son....'Dad, why is the bridge icky?'

 

So, how about Schuylkill? 

 

Here's a pronunciation guide for y'all....'known to the State of California'!!...

 

CA-PA Pronunciation Link

 

muggles.

 

KD

 

 

 

 

Last May I took a train from Strasbourg in France to Reims. I've decided that the only way I can properly pronounce that City is to say "rants" while at the same time trying to stifle a sneeze and getting whacked in the nether regions with a two-by-four. Even then, what I uttered was a poor imitation.

 

Reims: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Saul_XBJaLA

 

Go ahead, give it a try.

Pretty sure the Spanish pronunciation is close to wah-nee-tah..

Kanawha is pronounced " Kay-Four" or sometimes "Big-Mike" !  

Schuylkill=Sky-kill

Schuykill is closer to skookill, according to what I've heard.  I'm not from Philly but close by, and my wife lived in Merion Park, a western suburb on the old PRR main line.

san wah-KEEN

If you're ever in Georgia and pass through a town named Vienna, it's pronounced VY-enna, not vee-ENNA like the city in Austria.

 

Vienna sausage, however, is pronounced like the Austrian capital, even in Vienna, GA. Go figure.

 

People around here incorrectly pronounce Genoa Salami as gen-OH-wa, instead of GEN-oh-wa. Heard one lady recently asking for PAR-va-lon (Provolone) cheese to go with her gen-OH-wa Salami.

 

At night I get WGN radio clear as a bell here, south of Atlanta. Can't get a single Atlanta station as they are all low power after sunset.

 

Any time they mention Des Plaines, whether the city or the river, they pronounce it just the way it is written, Des Plaines.

Well, how about Iraq and Iran?  Most of the world pronounces them Starting with "ih", but if you are in the military, they must be started with "eye".

 

We had an overnight in Pueblo many years ago - the lady who drove the hotel van called it Pee-eblo.  At one time Pueblo had a lot of railroad activity.

All this gives me taste for a ˈyē-ˌrō sandwich.  But first I will have a glass of Grand Mer-ə-nər.

Provolone rhymes with Bologna, go figure.

Here's another, The Tuolumne River

Proper names are pronounced by the owners of those names. So in Illinois (no s) we have a town called San Joe's...

When I was in Boy Scouts we did a week canoe camping trip in Maine. On the way up from Baltimore we got lost so we stopped at a diner and one of the leaders called his AAA to find out where we were and how to get back on track. AAA wanted to know what town we were in and the waitress told us Pibbidy. Well the AAA guy couldn't find that town so he asked for a spelling, the waitress then told us P-E-A-B-O-D-Y.

 

Jerry

Oddly enough, people here in Atlanta say YEE-ro,  which is the proper Greek pronunciation, whereas in New York, which has the largest Greek population outside of Athens, Greece,  they say JY-ro.

 

Now if they could only learn to say Genoa correctly.

two-ol-u-me or 2-ol-oo-me

 

I love this thread.

 

 

Not that.

 

Variations of that. My Pennsylvania family .... SKOOL kul

Or the town in Nevada just east of the California border along the Truckee river and the SP/UP main line, spelled Verdi, like the composer, but pronounced verdye, And I've heard it pronounced ver-dye and ver-dye.

OK pronuciator experts how about this one! 
Schoenersville
And if you are from " the valley" please give others 48 hrs to guess!

I've always pronounced it To-illa

Oo - I got a couple.  We have a major street spelled Garnet, but pronounced Gar- NET, and a street named after the mathematician Dirac, but pronounced Dye-rack, even by folks who know.

I live in Sioux City, Iowa, not to be confused with Sioux Falls, SD or South Sioux City, NE, or North Sioux City, SD. The most frequent mis-spelling is Siuox or Soo, or Sue City although there was a song written called Sioux City Sue. It is often pronounced as SI-OX.

 

Dick

Denver's Union station sits just off Wynkoop Street. Should be pronounced like wine - coop. Several years ago our current governor started a new business just up the street a bit. It was the Wynkoop Brewing Company, but since he was selling craft beers and not wine, he didn't want the "wine" sound and so pronounced the name of his business as win-coop. It's surprising how well that pronunciation caught on. I guess it's a good clue as to who are relative newbies and who are the old timers.

Regarding Buena Vista...

 

You'll probably get a good laugh out of this, but in Winston-Salem, we call it Boo-nah This-ta, not Buena Vista. Lived in NC all my life, but never figured out why we call it that.

Well, how about Sault Ste Marie, MI?        (don't know why the French maintain 26 letters in their alphabet - they only use about 13 of them!)    From which, the Soo Line derives it's name??!!

I too will admit that a year or two ago I suddenly had an epiphany and realized that the Gorre and Daphetid is the Gory and Defeated.  Probably close to forty five years into reading and knowing all about it.  Glad I figured that out finally...
Who is/was that Brett Favre guy?