William A. Read

William A. Read (1869-1962) was an internationally educated and renowned linguist whose career included 38 years as a professor of English at Louisiana State University. His writings spanned five decades and have been instrumental across a wide range of academic disciplines. Most importantly, Read devoted a good portion of his research to the meaning of place names in the southeastern United States - especially as they related to Indian word adoption by Europeans. This volume includes his three Louisiana articles combined: ""Louisiana Place-Names of Indian Origin"" (1927), ""More Indian Place-Names in Louisiana"" (1928), and ""Indian Words"" (1931). Joining Alabama's reprint of ""Indian Place Names in Alabama"" and ""Florida Place Names of Indian Origin"" and ""Seminole Personal Names"", this volume completes the republication of the southern place name writings of William A. Read.

The first Native peoples of what is now the United States who met and interacted with Europeans were the people of the lower Southeast. They were individuals of the larger Maskoki linguistic family who inhabited much of present-day Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, and eastern portions of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Louisiana. Today, the sixteen federally recognized tribes called Seminoles trace their heritage from these early Maskoki peoples, and many of them in both Florida and Oklahoma still speak and understand this root language. The continuing vitality of this core language, and of Seminole culture and influence, makes this linguistic examination by William Read ever more valuable. A companion to his study of Indian Place Names in Alabama, this long out-of-print guide offers a new introduction from Patricia Wickman in which she provides current understandings of Seminole language and derivations and a brief analysis of Read's contribution to the preservation of the Native linguistic record.

What is the 'meaning' of names like Coosa and Tallapoosa? Who named the Alabama and Tombigbee and Tennessee rivers? How are Cheaha and Conecuh and Talladega pronounced? How did Opelika and Tuscaloosa get their names? Questions like these, which are asked by laymen as well as by historians, geographers, and students of the English language, can be answered only by study of the origins and history of the Indian names that dot the map of Alabama.--from the Foreword Originally published by Professor Read in 1937, this volume was revised, updated, and annotated in 1984 by James B. McMillan and remains the single best compedium on the topic.