Lil-Pidge
Chickamauga wars
editHi, Lil-Pidge. Thanks for providing the info on the Muscogee/Muskogee etymology of "Chattanooga." Do you have a source for the information, such as a dictionary? I'm asking because there is a different derivation given at the article Chattanooga. It says the name is from the Cherokee language.
We need to resolve this. For now I'm going to remove what you added and give the benefit of the doubt to the Chattanooga article. — ℜob C. alias ᴀʟᴀʀoʙ 23:43, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
Common knowledge is OK when a fact is not in dispute. But in this case we have two competing accounts of where the name "Chattanooga" comes from. So we need to go with a reliable source. I have a Muscogee-English Dictionary in the house, and it has a list of some place names with their derivations. I also have James Mooney's two reports on the eastern Cherokees, which are very old, but good for place names. (It's too late to look it up tonight.)
Even if a Muscogee derivation is possible, we still have to establish that the name actually came from the Muscogee language. I've run into some cases in which people try to claim that Muscogean names are actually derived from Chinese or Arabic! But just because you can show how "Tallahassee" looks like an Arabic sentence about Allah, that doesn't mean you've proved that that is where the name actually came from. Same goes for "Chattanooga." — ℜob C. alias ᴀʟᴀʀoʙ 05:15, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
Lil-Pidge, I've reverted your edits that assume a Chitimacha/Chickamauga ethnic identity and that strike out the word "Cherokee" repeatedly. Sorry, you can't write things like that just because you think they're true. Please see the Wikipedia guidelines: WP:5 is a great place to start.
It may seem strange, but Wikipedia does not contain "The Truth." The standard for inclusion is verifiability, backed up by reliable sources. (Most websites don't count.) If most of the historians are wrong about something, then Wikipedia will be also. That's the way it is. — ℜob C. alias ᴀʟᴀʀoʙ 06:31, 10 December 2008 (UTC)