TORONTO -- Canadians on social media were quick to accuse a U.S. news anchor of putting the 鈥渨rong emphasis on the wrong syllable鈥� Friday night when he referenced Ottawa. But he was closer to the truth than some realized.
In a Friday segment on the Fox News program Tucker Carlson Tonight, the anchor and political commentator said Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris, who went to high school in Montreal, was 鈥溾�� when it comes to Abraham Lincoln-era Supreme Court history but could 鈥減robably鈥� identify the capital of Canada.
鈥淔or the record it鈥檚 a place called Ot-ta-wa,鈥� Carlson said, stressing the second syllable instead of the first, which would have been the typical Canadian pronunciation.
Twitter users lit up the site after American reporter Andrew Feinberg posted the clip, calling it 鈥�.鈥�
鈥淎 ta ?鈥� wrote one Twitter user. 鈥淗ow do we get him to try 鈥樷��?鈥� asked another.
But several Indigenous Canadians pointed out that Carlson was actually saying the word correctly, or at least closer to its Indigenous origins, which over time were anglicized in spelling and pronunciation. The word Ottawa comes from the Anishinaabemowin or Ojibwe word 鈥渙daawe,鈥� which means 鈥渢o sell or to trade,鈥� in reference to a trading hub or to traders themselves.
鈥淥ver time, it became anglicized and mispronounced because people weren鈥檛 always cognizant of the sounds that we make, so odaawe became Ottawa,鈥� said Jeff Monague, an Ojibwe language expert in the capital city, which sits in Algonquin territory.
Though some thought the host may have done so unknowingly, Monague told CTVNews.ca on Saturday that he didn鈥檛 think it was unintentional, though it鈥檚 unlikely Carlson knows the history of the word.
鈥淚鈥檓 sure he鈥檚 ,鈥� Monague said over the phone, noting showing Carlson, in 2014, using the anglicized pronunciation for the city.
The Ojibwe pronunciation isn鈥檛 well known across Canada. The institution of residential schools in Canada and the outlawing of Indigenous language and culture meant that many Indigenous people grew up without the knowledge that the capital city鈥檚 name has its roots in the Ojibwe language.
鈥淏ut many people are re-learning that language and that history,鈥� said Monague. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a mishmash of people who are just beginning to wake up to and realize that their history means a lot and goes back further than Canada鈥檚 history.鈥�
