The following list includes settlements, geographic features, and political subdivisions of Minnesota whose names are derived from Native American languages or are popularly known by a Native-language name.
The primary Native languages in Minnesota are Dakota and Ojibwe. Some Dakota and Ojibwe placenames are based on Iowa language, a people that had significant presence in the Southern portion of the state until the 16th century. [1] [2]
Many [1] Minnesota placenames are translations or mistranslations, mispronunciations, or Romanized transcriptions of Native placenames and descriptions. Dakota, Ojibwe, and Iowa people had no written language at the time these names were popularly adopted.
One of the most common mispronunciations is that of the Dakota-language consonant "b", which is a combination of "m" and "b" consonants in English. In English there is no equivalent. Placenames were often recorded verbally and textually by European colonizers with the English consonant "m" in place of the Dakota consonant "b". In modern Dakota language, "b" is typically the correct consonant for words such as Bdóte , whose deprecated form in the historical record is mdóte. Cities such as Mendota, Minnesota take their name from Bdóte with the European colonizer mispronunciation of the Dakota "b" consonant. [3]