Talk:Kanawha River

Pronunciation

Regarding the pronunciation added by Wahkeenah (kah-NAH-Wah): It seems more often to be pronounced something like kuh-NAW-uh, with the third syllable hardly pronounced if at all, and the W silent. Any thoughts? Malepheasant 03:36, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I entered the pronunciation the way it sounded to my Northern ears when I asked locals how it was pronounced, while passing through the area years ago: kah-NAH-wah as opposed to KAH-nah-wah or kah-nah-WAH. I take it you're a local yourself, so you would be in position to know, and to fine-tune it a little better. Since I'm from Oregon originally, and am rather sensitive to people mispronouncing it (or-i-gun RIGHT; or-ee-gahn WRONG) feel free to fix it. Just try to do it in normal phonetic English, in keeping with your illustration, rather than those cryptic international phonetic symbols that linguistic fanatics on this site sometimes use (see Illinois, for example). :) Wahkeenah 10:26, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I've usually heard kuh-NAW-uh, but I do know some people in Kanawha County that say it Ka-NAW. Youngamerican 06:15, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I've heard this fairly often too, so added it to the article as a variant. Malepheasant 18:27, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Ka-noiee ("noi" as pronounced similar "oil", dropping the "L") another variant name is Ki-kah-ka-mi-ka-tui (Kanawha otherwise variant "Great "Kaugh-nuh-way") Valley. Many different nationals migrated through this area to the west, some stayed. This Ka-noiee variation is the way the lower Kanawha river settlers pronounced our portion of the river. Some of these pioneers married Native American wives. In recent decades, I've found myself pronouncing it "Ka-NAW" unlike in my youth. However, the really elder still pronounce it, "Ka-noiee". West Virginia has good cross-mix of people. Conaughy 17:33, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Salt

Needs more. Kanawha salt production dominated this area of the US in the 19th c. — LlywelynII 04:23, 10 October 2013 (UTC) Reference "Ruffner" the family name of some of the earliest white (Dutch) settlers. Kanawha salt mines, "Kanawha Salines"2606:A000:4B47:F700:3D68:19AF:3A8B:3C76 (talk) 15:19, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Origin of name

Currently the article says the name Kanawha "derives from the region's Iroquoian dialects meaning "water way" or "canoe way" implying the metaphor, "transport way", in the local language." There's a footnote with a lot of text, but it seems rather speculative and original researchy. There's no link to a source explicitly saying the river's name comes from Iroquoian words as far as I can see. But William Bright's book Native American Placenames in the United States, which is very authoritative on the topic, says the name referrs to the Algonquian Conoy people, [1]. I would just change the article but someone put effort into the current footnote so I am posting here instead, in case anyone wants to defend it or clarify things. Pfly (talk) 21:33, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Lists

The main content of the article is three successive lists of names: tributaries, alternate names and cities/towns. All of these could comfortably be omitted or moved into a footnote until the article has proper content, i.e. narrative text. In particular, for names of towns, what are the inclusion/exclusion criteria? For a river like the Ohio, there are hundreds to maybe a thousand towns along the river. The encyclopedia is not WP:indiscriminate. If we enforce a modest restriction that towns along the river be notable for something, at least population, 12,000 persons is still a small town, not likely to be known outside its local county. About 90% of the list of towns would be obviated by this criteria alone. Not every town larger than 12,000 persons is notable, in fact, few of them are unless there is some historic, cultural, economic or other notable character to it. I'm going to trim the list accordingly. That leaves two names, the capital Charleston and its subsidiary South Charleston. If other names are WP:notable, then describe in detail, what they're notable for, so we build the article text. Sbalfour (talk) 16:35, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

In citing WP:indiscriminate, I assume you are referencing not including "Simple listings without context information." Correct? Sandcherry (talk) 00:59, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

History

The text says: "The first white person to travel through Virginia all the way to the Ohio River (other than as a prisoner of the Indians) was Matthew Arbuckle, Sr., who traversed the length of the Kanawha River valley arriving at (what would later be called) Point Pleasant around 1764." Captain Abraham Woods expeditions between 1654 and 1664 preceded these by more a century. Certainly, the Kanawha River must have been well known by the late-18th century. I think this statement is misleading at best, and unsourced. The reference to prisoner of the indians can't just be dropped like that - an important name lurks there. And who was Captain Hanson? The first permanent settlement on the river was Kelly's Creek at the mouth of that creek on the river in 1774, and it wasn't by Captain Hanson. Sbalfour (talk) 17:16, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Lead

The lead actually reads rather decently. But it's supposed to be a summary - where in the text is anything about coal and gas described? Given the rather significant paragraph in the lead, I'd expect a substantial section devoted to the topic. I'm afraid that paragraph should move to paragraph under the History section, or into its own section in the text, and the lead should summarize it in one sentence. Sbalfour (talk) 17:23, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Suggested change seems appropriate as lead should be a summary as noted. Sandcherry (talk) 00:53, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Adena Culture

I see there is no mention of Adena culture in the article. Certainly was significant to history of the river. See for example Criel Mound and Kanawha Valley Mounds. --David Tornheim (talk) 17:47, 28 June 2019 (UTC)