Detroit's French Heritage Lost in Translation

Anybody who's driven here in Detroit even for a few months has come across many of our major streets with names such as Gratiot, Dequindre, Charlevoix, or Jos Campau.  This is no surprise given our French heritage.  After all it was a man by the name of Cadillac that founded the city.  He named the original settlement after Riviere D'etroit which means "River of The Strait" in French, (referring to the Detroit river which is the strait from Lake St. Claire to the Detroit River).  What have we done to honor our founder's culture?  Massacre the many French names.  If I remember my 3 years of high school French correctly, Detroit should be pronounced "day-twoi", Gratiot shouldn't be "gra-shit" but "grah-she-oh", Dequindre should be pronounced "de-can-druh", and Charlevoix should be spoken as "Char-le-vwoi".  I know that my bringing this up isn't going to change our habits, but we should remember the origins of our great city, and just considering the original way to say the street names will keep it in our minds.

HistoryDetroit.com has some great historical info about Detroit (including street names).

- Atul

Comments

[Paul LaVanway]

I suspect that the "massacre" of French names is just something that more or less goes with the territory when the predominant language becomes English. My ancestors were among the very first settlers of Detroit----Francois Benoit dit Livernois and his wife Angelique----and it was from their property (and name) that street name Livernois is derived. That said, in an effort to preserve the way that the family name sounded (&/or should be pronounced?) the surname evolved into LaVanway (sometimes Levanway, if not Lavarnway), yet, despite that, it still doesn't sound the way it would if it were pronounced by a true Francophile.

[mjkaller]

Thanks Paul. There are still some Livernois, as well (my mother's maiden name is Livernois). Apparently we share a common ancestry.

[Brian]

great post. i love reading about the little known History of French Detroit.

Another common name to add to your list of pronunciations is Bob-Lo Island. The name is actually Bois Blanc, meaning White Wood. Great article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bois_Blanc_Island_(Ontario).

Another interesting tidbit: when the French Navy first put Detroit on the map they were referring to the entire strait draining Lake Huron into Lake Erie. It was called le détroit du Lac Erie, the strait of Lake Erie.

The parsing of the name to only include the modern day Detroit River came much later.

So detroit with a little 'd' actually includes both the US/Canadian sides of the border from Port Huron/Sarnia down past Gibraltar/Amherstburg.

[Martin]

It very interresting the history of french/canadien culture in Michigan...
Détroit and Chicago are founder by french but where is the momument ????
Les rues sainte-anne, campeau,charlevoix,beaubienare still alive !!!!

[Dillon Donison]

It's just as bad across the border trust me, I'm from the Windsor area, and French is my first language (yes there is still a small French speaking population here) and the names are just as bad: Ouellette becomes Oh-Let, Giardot becomes Je-rawr-doh, Pellisier becomes pull-ih-sher, the list could go on for ages. To make maters worse we have French language schools everywhere here (three highschools, and a ton of gradeschools for about 350,000 people) and people still screw it up... even if you go to an anglophonic schools, which most people tend to, you still take French for NINE years... At least you guys have the excuse that English is your only official language, we (Canadian, not including the Franco-Ontarien) just seem to be too lazy to care.