How the $#%$# do you pronounce Dohlonega?

Can anyone shed some insight on this for me? I am curious as to how to phonetically pronounce the name of this one time US Mint city.

 

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Duh....lon...e(short e as in elephant)...ga (short a)

 

Dahlonega...

Ben

 

I was going to guess at the pronunciation, but I would have been labled a racist.
LOL

 

Well, I don't mean to be a pain or a jerk, but if I remember my grammar correctly, it is actually a long 'e', like you are saying the letter 'e'. You can go to a state park there and actually pan for gold. Interesting place. David.

 

I was there 3 weeks ago. My niece goes to college there. They have a gold rush museum around the main square.

Lou

 

doll a nigga.
i dunno.
lol.

 

Well, its from the Cherokee word for yellow. That would be pronounced duh low nuh gay -- IIRC. I don't actually speak it (by any stretch of the imagination) but I've heard yellow before. You may check cherokee.org (i wasn't able to get through tonight) click on WordList then type "yellow" in the English field, ALWAYS click on the search button - never hit return (weird website problem) then it will give the word AND and speaker icon. click the icon and hear it pronounced.

Edit -- forgot the question -- Is the town name pronounced differently that the Cherokee word for yellow?

 

Jim M. was pretty much on as it pronounced " Duh - lahn-ah - gah"! One of our NOAA Weather Radios serves Southeast Tennessee and Upper Northwest Georgia and we sometimes have to broadcast Weather Alerts and Alarms for counties in Northwest Georgia which sometimes includes Dahlonega.

There is still some really nice Gold in that area of Georgia and I have a little over 1 gram in a vial that I panned from there. The Gold is about the purest on Earth and averages around 22 karats in flake and picker form. A Quartz rock was found in or along a stream in that area (I won't name it and it is really hard to spell or pronounce it) that had 19.54 ounces of Gold in it and attached to it. It is the largest Gold specimen found West of the Rockies in the last 100 hundred years. Heck, I would be happy to find one about 1/10th or 1/20th of that!


Frank

 

OK, As a transplant yankee who who lives in Atlanta which is not too far from the old mint and understands the nuiances of foreign languages, I can say that you'all have it wrong with a captial W. In Southern speech it is important to draw the syllable out. It is hard to put into writing but it is Da-long-E-ga. Just pronounce it like I spelled it. Just trying to be some help after all the business I was put through.

 

An interesting question Mike if you get down to it.
IS there a correct pronunciaion? How do the locals pronounce it? I have no clue.

Example: You're from Chicago and I'm in NW Indiana. At times you'll hear a commercial for some business that has a store in Hobart, IN. They ALWAYS pronounce it like it's spelled.
Thing is in Hobart we pronounce it Hobert. Know one knows why but believe me, although we're only 30 miles from the big city we can tell in a hearbeat if someone's not local by the pronunciatiion.

Dialect would most likely come into play. Who in Chicago (or my neck of the woods for that matter) is "going to the store"?
We go tuhduh store.

 

I will bet a dime againt a donut that Do-long-E-ga is a American indian word for beautiful river.

 

How the $#%$# do you pronounce Dohlonega?


with an A after the D.

 

alwayslost,

Well, I am a Southerner born and bred and although I have been abroad, I am no Foreigner by any means! To write the word and then have someone say the word with a Southern accent or reflection when they are not from the South is a different animal all together. You can just write it how it sounds to you and hope that someone catches on! It's like asking a Southerner to pronounce Narragansett Bay in a Rhode Island accent or reflection. Well, I lived in Newport, Rhode Island for three months and I tell you that it is difficult to almost impossible. How about the Town of Onego, West Virginia which is pronounced Wang - go! I drove through the Town three times before I stopped and asked someone at a General Store there and was totally surprised when they said that I was in it.


Frank

 

That's certainly how to spell it !

Interesting thread. I got this from Wiki ...

The city's name since 1833 comes from a Cherokee language word "Talonige" or "Dalonige", meaning "yellow money" or "gold.""

"in 1849, Dr. M.F. Stephenson, assayor [sic] at the Mint, attempted to dissuade Georgia miners from leaving to join the California Gold Rush. His oration gave rise to the sayings: "There's millions in it," and "Thar's gold in them thar hills."["

None of which helps with pronunciation. I have heard Doll -oh - NAY- gah. Dunno if that's proper.

 

DAHLONEGA... LOL
http://www.jabpublish.com/dal.mpg

 

Ben:

Who is that saying it in the video? Where is that from? THAT IS EXACTLY what I was hoping for!!!

BUT in the interest of fairness... I also got these answers which to me were the essence of my question:


Duh....lon...e(short e as in elephant)...ga (short a) - Jim M

doll a nigga - DJ Coins

Dah - lon' - e - gah - DGJMSP

Duh - lahn-ah - gah - huntsman53

Do-long-E-ga - alwayslost

all different answers and maybe all dialectally correct. I got several and I think the way that I always pronounced it I probably close enough for me. I won't feel like I am making a HUGE potential gaf the next time I say it to someone at a coin show.

Thanks for all who took me seriously and a few who didn't. As usual, there was a little something for everyone. I think it was a fairly high-level discussion.

ah and BTW, clembo... we go tahduh store too, but did you know that there's also a way that native chicagoans pronounce our city too, and it's not how everyone else does. I have heard the whole Hobart-Hobert thing before since I ask these kind of inane questions from time to time. It was a PERFECT illustration of the point of dialect.

 

Me, at my/our little office in South Dakota, LOL...

 

now I know what you sound like!

seems to be missing a syllable tho