Transactions of The Royal Society of Canada

SECTION II
Series III                       DECEMBER 1914                       Vol. VIII
 

An Organization of the Scientific  Investigation of the Indian Place-
nomenclature of the Maritime Provinces of Canada,

(Fourth Paper).
By W. F. Ganong, M.A., Ph.D.

(Read by Title May 27, 1914.)

This paper is identical in aim and method with its three pre¬
decessors, which were published in the immediately foregoing volumes
of these Transactions. In a word, I am trying to apply the principles
of scientific analysis to a very interesting subject especially prone
to doubt and error. The comparative method which I use, explained
in the introduction to the first paper, is proving wonderfully successful
in solving the problems, as this paper will further illustrate.

For convenience of reference I may add that the former papers
made analysis of the names Oromocto, Magaguadavic, Upsalquitch,
Manan, Nepisiguit, Kouchibouguac, Anagance, Wagan, Pokiok,
Penniac, Bocabec, Pentagoet-Penobscot, Pohenegamook, and Cobs-
cook, and used the roots thus made available in the analysis of a good
many other words, both existent and extinct, of lesser importance.
Of these extinct Indian names,—indigenous to the country, ap¬
propriate to the places, and often reducible to a highly pleasing form,
—the greater number may be revived to obvious advantage when
additional place-names become needed in future; and I have tried to
suggest simplified and softened forms for such purpose.

As to pronunciation, I have myself used, as a rule, only the
ordinary English sounds of the letters, in order that the reader may
be able to understand the words without constant resort to special
keys. All of Rand's words, from his Reader and two Dictionaries,
use pronunciation signs which are identical with those of our English
Dictionaries, excepting that in his Micmac-English Dictionary his
editor uses the letters to to express the soft sound of ch in church.