Unakas
English edit
Etymology edit
Plural of Unaka, from Cherokee ᎤᏁᎬ (unegv, “white”). Doublet of Unicoi.[1]
Pronunciation edit
- (General American) IPA(key): /juˈneɪkəz/
Proper noun edit
Unakas
- A mountain range in the southern Appalachians, on the border between Tennessee and North Carolina; since 1932 defined as the northern segment (north of the Little Tennessee River) of a range the southern segment of which is known as the Unicois (historically the two names sometimes interchangeably designated the whole range).
Related terms edit
Noun edit
Unakas
- plural of Unaka
- 1989 July 1, Thurman Wilkins, Cherokee Tragedy: The Ridge Family and the Decimation of a People, University of Oklahoma Press, →ISBN, page 22:
- When the band ran out of tobacco, Tah-cung-tees-kee proposed they replenish their supply by killing a few Unakas.
References edit
- Summerlin, Vernon & Cathy. Upper Unaka Mountains: Longstreet Highroad Guide to the Tennessee Mountains. Sherpa Guides. Retrieved from http://www.sherpaguides.com/tennessee/upper_unakas/index.html
- On early maps the preset Unicoi Mountains were labelled either "White Mountains" [...] or "Unaka Mountains" [...] James Mooney (1900), [...] states that the word, "Unicoi," is "Probably a corruption of une'gă, white, whence comes also Unaka." [...] T. J. Holland, the tribe historian of the Eastern Band of the Cherokees, told me that the Cherokee language adds "hi," pronounced "hee," at the end of a word to designate a place; hence, "une gă '-hi," meaning "white place," was probably the origin of the name, "Unicoi." Presumably [...] in reference to their color in winter [...] Since “Unaka” and “Unicoi” had been in common use as alternative names for the northern and southern segments of the Unaka ridge for many years, Horace Kephart (the writer who chronicled the language and ways of people living in the Great Smoky Mountains) proposed in the late 1920s that "Unaka" be retained as an official name for the northern segment and that "Unicoi" be used for the southern one.