Talk:Shawangunk Ridge

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Can we get a new map here? I would move it higher up, but what's there is unacceptable. The image quality is poor and the Catskill Park Blue Line is drawn woefully incorrectly.

Daniel Case 04:15, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There is a map here, not very good yet, but still:

http://home.hvc.rr.com/smhp/largemap.jpg

What's the copyright status? Can we use it? Daniel Case 03:07, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Name

Alright, I suppose the Lenape lesson is justifiable. Anyone want to try putting the pronunciation in IPA?

Thank you for the quick addition of the IPA. Now, how about adding the change on Answers.com? ctspatz@earthlink.net

That gets picked up by their servers automatically every few weeks (or months). As recent events should remind us, those scrape sites are beyond the editorial control of anyone here at Wikipedia. Daniel Case 04:00, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. ctspatz@earthlink.net

Posted into article text 2007-07-17

I have seen very old maps of this area, which identified "Shongum" ( SHAW-an-gunk ) as meaning "Southern" ; and it will be noted this is the southern edge of the Catskill mountains.

Reference will be made to the Muncie, Monsey, and Minnissee / Min'cey/ Minnisink tribes that made these mountains their "base camp" , but spent much of their time "on the trail" : fishing on the Jersey shore,raiding, etc. These were all the same "Mountain-Dwelling People": differences in names being due to minor variations in dialect. 8.16.07 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Whritenour's translation discredits all the previous "southern" references. The first and fifth footnotes are mis-cited. The first footnote credited to Fried is actually a direct quotation from Smoke Signals, the fifth footnote. The footnote for should Fried should follow the sentence ending with purchase in the second graph under Name. If I knew how to edit these, I would.

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Why would you ask realtors about the pronunciation? Why not reference the two published 2005 sources? According to the Lenape linguist, Raymond Whritenour (cited in both 2005 publications), editor of Zeisberger's A Delaware-English lexicon, Scha-wank-unk was the Munsee pronunciation. Shawangunk is the closest standardized spelling and pronunciation to emerge from the early deed record. Whritenour's translation, "in the smoky air,' is supported by the Lenape scholar, Dr. David Oestreicher.

The deed record clearly shows three-syllable Dutch and English transliterations/variants of Shawangunk originating in the basin east of the ridge beginning in the 1680s, where the area adjacent to the September, 1663 massacre and final engagement of the Second Esopus War was first settled by Europeans.

Shongum is not a transliteration. It is a colonial, vernacular truncation of Shawangunk that developed in the 18th century, where it mistakenly evolved into the Indian pronunciation in local lore. Shongum was then codified and mis-cited as the Munsee pronunciation by the Reverand Charles Scott in a paper for the Ulster County Historical Society in 1862. Like later ethnographers/historians Ruttenber and Pritchard, Scott derived his translation erroneously from variants of 'South' and/or 'Mountain' in association with the ridge, failing to trace Shawangunk's origin to the basin.

After Scott's paper, Shongum began appearing in ridge-related literature parenthetically behind or under Shawangunk for the next 140 + years. As the first academic source of record, educators like the Smileys at the Mohonk Mountain House very likely picked up on Scott's paper and/or local lore and began citing Shongum as the Munsee pronunciation, later passing this error along to the Mohonk Preserve - created out of former Smiley holdings surrounding the Mountain House in 1963 - and the NY/NJ Trail Conference, both of whom have reinforced the Shongum error as the native pronunciation on interpretive maps and in ethnographic citations. As late as January of 2007, the Mountain House was teaching Shongum as the Munsee pronunciation in employee orientations and on interpretive, guided hikes, where it also appears on an interpretive display about the ridge inside the hotel.

There has been a clear and mistaken effort by historians, librarians, and ridge administrators (and, apparently, realtors) to institutionalize Shongum as the both the native and the correct, "local" pronunciation. While there are certainly locals who were raised here that use Shongum, there are just as many who don't (just listen to them). I have no problem with folks using Shongum, just do not insist that it's universally local, or that it's a European transliteration of the Munsee Lenape. Grbnik(76.15.31.49 (talk) 11:41, 1 August 2009 (UTC))

The etymology of a name is a different question than its pronunciation. None of your citations really tell us much about how the name is pronounced. If /ˈʃɑːn.ɡʌm/ has been 'codified' since 1862, it's rather ingenious of you to claim that's not the pronunciation. If you can cite additional pronunciations, great, but meanwhile do not delete info from the article because you personally do not like it. kwami (talk) 18:56, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

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I cited the Lenape linguist Ray Whritenour's explanation of Shawangunk's pronunciation, part-of-speech, translation, and etymology in the article four years ago.

By citing Shongum as the native pronunciation, Scott "codified" an error of vernacular lore, one that continues to be mistakenly advanced both in this forum and in the region. Shongum begins to appear in written records in the 18th century, long after Shawangunk's many three-syllable variants first appeared in the basin in the deed record between the natives and the first European settlers beginning in the 1680s. Those settlers transcribed the name/pronunciation they heard from the natives: by definition, transliterations. Its many three-syllable variants in the deed record include Chauwangong, Chauwanghung, Sawanconck, Shawengonck, and Shawangunk. By some fortune, Shawangunk, the closest transliteration recorded in the deed record to the Munsee, Schawankunk, emerged as the standardized spelling/pronunciation.

Shongum appears nowhere in the deed record between the Munsee and early European settlers. It clearly evolved later. Shongum is not Lenape, so it cannot be advanced as a transliteration, as one of the most recent revisions of the article claimed (and how is calling realtors - another word-of-mouth reference cited by Shongum's proponents so far in this article - a legitimate citation for advancing a phonetic rendering, as the poster claimed?).

I never said I don't like Shongum. What I have been attempting to clarify, with plenty of cited research, is the embedded, received error that Shongum is Munsee, and therefore, the correct pronunciation. Ethnographers/historians like Scott, Ruttenber, and Pritchard all failed to trace Shawangunk to its origin in the basin east of the ridge (incorrectly advancing translations based on associations with the ridge), as the two 2005 sources referenced in the article's citations independently did.

There are three pronunciations used by locals and ridge visitors: the original, Munsee, Shawangunk; the colonial, vernacular truncation: Shongum; and a further truncation, an endearment begun by rock climbers: the Gunks.

It remains quite debatable which pronunciation is the most popular among locals in every day usage. To be fair and safe, one would suggest to advance that they are equally popular. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.15.31.49 (talk) 12:44, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

One more suggestion. Instead of advancing word-of-mouth sources, why not consider reading the updated research cited in the article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.15.31.49 (talk) 15:05, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

I know that Shawangunk Watch must have a circulation in the millions, but for some reason my local library doesn't seem to carry it.

It's good to know that natives use both pronunciations (though of course this info is also word of mouth); what I had been told was that only newbies use the 3-syllable pronunciation. That said, I find it dubious that what you added is the Lenape pronunciation, or the Dutch approximation of it. I suspect rather that it is the English approximation of the Dutch approximation of the Lenape. I'll edit accordingly; if I get it wrong, would you mind citing the passage in question?

Also, is the long form of the name really pronounced as if it were three separate words, Shah Wong Gunk? kwami (talk) 01:01, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

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Well, three separate syllables, "Shah Wang Gunk." See why the easier Shongum emerged?

To be accurate, Schawankunk is a transcription pieced together by Lenape scholars from the Lenape lexicon resembling phonetic variants in Dutch and English deeds. The orthography is German, not Dutch. There is no Lenape orthography, per se.

David Zeisberger was a German, Moravian missionary who lived for decades with the Lenape, among other natives, and wrote several Indian dictionaries. His A Delaware-English Lexicon is considered the authoritative text of Lenape/Delaware spelling and usage attempting to reconstruct the oral, native language:

http://books.google.com/books?id=6YgPAAAAYAAJ&printsec=titlepage&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Ray Whritenour edited the most recent, 1995, edition.

The Dutch and English documentation preceded spelling standardization of the European languages, while reflecting the vagueries of settlers attempting to render into their respective language the name they were hearing the Munsee Lenape pronounce. As well as the variants already cited, there are Dutch records containing transcriptions of “Sawankonck” and “Siawaenkonck” (“Si” being pronounced in Dutch like the English “sh”). Some of the English transcriptions recorded beginnings with “Ch.” There are more than a dozen three-syllable variants.

Scha-wank-unk does not appear in the deed record; that was Whritenour’s verbal explanation to me about the pronunciation. The text quoted in the article was from our correspondence published in the Shawangunk Watch piece. A very similar quote from correspondence between Whritenour and Marc Fried appears in Shawangunk Place-Names.

There is also this explanation of the “unk” suffix by Whritenour in a critique of Evan Pritchard’s Native New Yorkers. The first sentence is Pritchard’s. The bold brackets are Whritenour’s.

Page 232 / or 208 - The endings, unk and kong, mean "place near a mountain." The "k" (?in kong) means "this place." [Both unk and ong, in place-names, represent the underlying Lenape locative ending (connective vowel + -ng), meaning "in," "on," "at," etc. There is no suffix, -kong. There is nothing in this suffix denoting or connoting "near a mountain" or "this."]

It is possible to follow Whritenour’s explanations and piece together Schawank-unk from Zeisberger by referencing the English words “smoke” and “on.”

For the sake of clarity, I would suggest revising the first sentence to:

“Shawangunk is the closest transcription from the colonial deed record to the Munsee Lenape, Scha-wank-unk rendered in German orthography.”

In Zeisberger, the stress is on the first syllable.

There's a certain tendency by ridge educators and zealous transplants exercising their “in” status to brow-beat the uninitiated with Shongum. I'm not kidding. It's deeply persistent and culturally reinforced.

I'm quite certain Shongum's championing was well-intended, that late 19th century ridge educators like the Smileys at their Mountain House resorts believed they were teaching the Munsee pronunciation (as they continued to do until 2007), which they passed along to their stewardship heirs in the latter half of the 20th century at the Mohonk Preserve, Minnewaska State Park, and the Nature Conservancy at Sam's Point. There is also some evidence that Shongum was taught as the Munsee pronunciation a century ago in local schools, as Alf Evers, who wrote authoritative histories of Kingston and Woodstock, NY, and who attended New Paltz schools, verified right before his death in 2004.

Despite contemporary ridge agencies employing cultural historians and archivists, no one questioned Shongum's origin or Shawangunk's ethnographic research until they were re-examined in this decade, where Ray Whritenour's linguistic authority was independently sought, referenced and cited in both sources.

There are obviously locals who passed along Shongum's usage prior to and independently from historians and educators. But there remain many born and raised locals – like my father’s family – who do use Shawangunk; not just newcomers.

Okay, thanks. Just want to confirm the details of the English pronunciation. I had thought the rhythm of the word may have been like countersunk, but it seems that's wrong:

The stress is on the final syllable. That is, it rhymes with debunk or slam-dunk, not with an unstressed final as in chimpmunk or Podunk. (Is there secondary stress on the Sha?)

All vowels are full, not reduced as they are in Massachusetts or Montana. That is, the wan has the same full vowel as the Sha, not reduced as in the 2nd syllable of shaman, and the gunk rhymes with debunk or slam-dunk.

The IPA therefore is /ʃɑːwɑːŋˈɡʌŋk/. kwami (talk) 21:09, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

My apologies. Now that I think about it, there are two variants in every day English usage today. Full vowels, where the "ah" in the first two syllables sound the same and are evenly stressed, with more stress on the final syllable, shah wahn GUNK, or, as you kind of suggested above, a lengthened, stressed second syllable which does sound more like WONG: shah WONG gunk.

Ray Whritenour suggested the Munsee was SHAH wank unk. Again, looking at Zeisberger, the first syllable is stressed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.15.31.49 (talk) 11:34, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, if this is what you meant, there's /ʃɑːˈwɑːŋɡʌŋk/, which is more like "chipmunk" (or is it /ʃəˈwɑːŋɡəŋk/ with the sha reduced to a slurred shuh?), in which the wan is "wong", and /ʃɑːwɑːnˈɡʌŋk/, in which the wan has an /n/ instead of /ŋ/ ng at the end, rather like Vancouver has an /n/, not the /ŋ/ of bank. kwami (talk) 17:58, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

(I just want to confirm before fixing the article. kwami (talk) 07:53, 8 August 2009 (UTC))