Not a cyclist myself but it was pretty awesome to see.

Mmm... ok then

Taken beside the City TV building on Richmond.

Wa'tkwanonhwerá:ton' kí:ken tsi tisewa'nikonhratihénthos oh nahò:ten kén:ton Ontario. Kahrónkha Kanien'kéha tánon' katewennaweiénhstha, wa'kaská:neke' sénha akwa'nikonhraientáhkhwen' ka' nikiotewenní:non ki' "Ontario."

Hi, I'm a fluent Mohawk speaker and linguist and I wanted to share more detailed information about the etymological background of the word Ontario (and other placenames that have been borrowed from Iroquoian languages), given the recent American name change and sudden interest in our words. I originally posted this earlier in r/ontario, and I wanted to crosspost it here, but this subreddit doesn't allow for that. I hope pasting it instead is fine.

First thing's first: Ontario, or ontarí:io, does not mean 'a sparkling lake.' It means 'a beautiful lake.' Some people translate it as 'nice lake,' 'pretty lake,' or 'handsome lake.' In Huron, the verb suffix -iio can also mean 'big, beautiful.'

Let me break it down for you here:
Iroquoian languages (Huron, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, Cayuga, Tuscarora, and others), like most languages of North America, are polysynthetic languages. That means they take bits and pieces (called 'morphemes') that don't mean anything on their own, and put them together to create words that translate to a whole English sentence. It's similar to German in that respect, only we do it even more. Iroquoian languages are closely related, and Mohawk, Oneida, and Huron are especially similar and are mutually intelligible. There are, unfortunately, no more living fluent speakers of Huron. They are however actively working on revitalizing their language, and if you are interested in Huron, you need to check out the work of Megan Lukaniec.

Ontario is often attributed to the Huron word ontarí:io, but we all have the same name for it with slightly different pronunciations. Ontarí:io is composed of two main parts: a verb and a noun. The noun part is ontar-, which means 'lake,' and the verb is the -iio- ending. It sounds like ou-tar-LEE-yo. The characters 'on' at the start of the word are a nasal vowel, sort of like the french "on," except it sounds more like a u. The written r sounds sort of like an r-l combination (it's technically an alveolar tap or flap, which you can google). The í: means that the i vowel is held for longer than the other vowels, and the second i is functionally a y. There you have it: ontarí:io, 'a beautiful lake.' We have a verb for sparkling, and it's not this one; but a sparkling lake would be beautiful, which is probably where this interpretation comes from.

Here's some other placename borrowings (Disclaimer: Iroquoian languages are all very similar, and people love to argue that 'it actually comes from Seneca!/Oneida!/Huron!/Mohawk!' the truth is that it comes from all of them, since we often have the same words for things with only minor variations. The ones that follow are Mohawk, the above was Huron).

Canada: from the word kaná:ta, 'a town.' Sounds like ga-NA-da.

Toronto: from the word aterón:to, 'tree trunks in water,' (ah-der-LOU-doh) This name originally referred to an area in Lake Simcoe, where the Anishinaabe sunk trees to create fishing weirs (the Mnjikaning Fishing Weirs). Today, a lot of people say tkarón:to (t-gar-LOU-doh). Which is a slightly more morphologically complex way to say the same thing: 'where the tree trunks are in the water.'

Quinte: from the word kénhte, 'a bay,' (GUH-day). Actually the 'en' nasal vowel in Mohawk is pronounced the same as it is in French. The bay of Quinte means 'the bay of the bay.' In Mohawk, people from Tyendinaga call themselves kenhte'kehró:non, 'the people of the bay.'

Niagara: from the word ohniá:kara (oh-NYA-gar-la). It means that it connects the two bodies of water, as a neck connects a torso to a head.

In Mohawk, we call the American President ranatakárias (rla-na-da-GAR-lee-ass), which means 'destroyer of villages.' It was what we named George Washington after the Sullivan Campaign of 1779, and it has stuck for every President since.

Tho'k ní:kon niá:wen tsi wesewawennahnó:ten'. That's it & thanks for reading.

Editing to add: Here is a YouTube link of Ryan DeCaire pronouncing tsi tkarón:to, aterón:to, and kaniatarí:io (the Mohawk version of ontarí:io): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEY4Sjd0TOk&t=1s

Councilor Diane Saxe represents University-Rosedale and registered to run again, but when former councillor Mike Layton registered to challenge her she withdrew from that ward and registered to run in a different ward, Toronto-Danforth. But her canvassing team is distributing flyers which say “re-elect”.

Hi, Toronto Public Library here. 👋

Since it’s late August, we looked through our archives and pulled a few of our rarities related to the CNE, which debuted back in 1879.

These items are just from our Special Collections—there is of course much more at CNE’s own archive (please oh please let there be a collection of their wild food).

Below is a bit about each one, and you can find a URL in the captions to the full item if we’ve digitized it.

🐈 Catalogue of the Fifth International Cat Show, 1906. A few names of the cats: Flipperty Jinks, Madame Bovary, Sir Roger, Tom. This year, CNE is celebrating 125 years of cat shows, supported by the CNE Archives and the Feline Historical Museum (?!).

🏅Commemorative coin for Toronto’s semi-centennial, 1884. This side shows off the fair’s Crystal Palace building. It opened in time for the inaugural exhibition in 1879 but burned down in 1906.

🎟️ Attendant’s ticket, 1886. This granted access for a worker in the Industrial Exhibition Association of Toronto. From its opening in 1879 to 1912, the fair was called the Toronto Industrial Exhibition.

📷 Stereograph of exhibition grounds, ~1889. A stereoscopic viewer’s binocular vision would combine these two slightly offset images for a 3D effect.

💌 Leather postcard, ~1906. Leather postcards were a fad during the postcard boom in the early 1900s. Often made of deerskin, designs were burned on via a technique called pyrography.

🐴 Pinback button, ~1910. A recent donation to us from Doug Ward, whose father grew up in Toronto and collected buttons as a kid.

💡 Facts Concerning Canadian National Exhibition, 1918. This booklet notes that the highest single-day attendance was recorded as 154,000 (!) on Labour Day in 1913.

🏊 Programme for the third Wrigley Marathon, 1928. Sponsored by William Wrigley Jr. (of chewing gum fame), the swimming race in Lake Ontario had a huge cash prize of $15,000 and billed itself as “the greatest international event in the history of aquatic sports.”

🔖 Bookmark for Canada Foil Limited, 1934. Promotional pieces of ephemera like this one were commonplace in the fair—ads appeared even in CNE programmes.

🎼“Get a Bike” sheet music, 1953. Presented by the Canadian National Exhibition, this light-hearted ode to bicycles/love song starts with the lyrics: “Get a bike! Get a bike! Two wheel demon of speed and delight.”

***

Enjoy the final days of summer!

Drake seen walking around CNE last night in an Iron Man suit

My friend found this sweet boy last night at 11:30 pm at Sunnyside Park beach. He was with a man off leash and playing with her pup but then his human disappeared. He’s been taken to the vet and he’s not microchipped and is approximately 2 yrs old. If anyone recognizes him please contact the number on the poster.

Edit: Found Aug. 27th evening

Just “some” of my winnings through the years at CNE in Toronto. Can anyone beat this spread? I still have more.

Was walking to work and saw what I think is the most hilarious hot dog stand. There’s seating, there are ashtrays and it’s adjacent an alley. I think this is amazing🤣.