--- Begin Forwarded Message ---
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 21:09:20 -0500
From: Dennis McClendon <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: "Ca nada" <fwd>
Sender: Dennis McClendon <[log in to unmask]>
 
 
>I just received some trivia on another list, regarding
>the name 'Canada'.
>Supposedly, it comes from a notation on old Portuguese
>maps "ca nada" (nothing there).
>
>Is this true?
 
 
Highly doubtful.
 
The usual explanation is that Jacques Cartier misinterpreted the
Huron-Iroquoian word for huts or village, "kanata," as the name of the
larger place.
 
This explanation appears in Isaac Asimov's book _Words on the Map_, in _The
Book of Place Names_, by Eloise Lambert and Mario Pei, and in the
_Illustrated Dictionary of Place Names_, edited by Kelsie B. Harder.
 
The latter says that Cartier's 1534 journal uses the name in reference to
the village of Stadacona, and that it was applied to the St. Lawrence River
in 1638, and eventually to the entire country.  It became official with the
Canada Act of 1791.
 
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Dennis McClendon, Chicago CartoGraphics
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