Talk:Coquihalla River

More name history
BCGNIS has somewhat different information than what is on the page already: Spelled "Quequealla River" on Lieutenant Mayne's Sketch of Part [Fraser Canyon] of British Columbia, 1859. Spelled "Coquhalla River" on Trutch's 1871 map of British Columbia. Spelled "Kwee Kwe ah la" elsewhere (map/document title/date not cited) Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office

"Rev. William B. Crickmer kept a sort of diary...sketches and script... One sketch is of a man in European dress: coat, waistcoat, shirt, bowtie, moustache & his hair parted, and beneath it in pen printed: 'Quaqualla, an Ordained Chief of the Fort Hope Indians, BC.' .....must have been the first form, about 1860... of the spelling of Coquihalla." (December 1959 letter from Major Matthews, Vancouver City Archivist, file H.1.36) Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office

An Indian name, originally given to the river, means "greedy or hungry waters". See also Coquihalla Lakes. Source: Provincial Archives of BC "Place Names File" compiled 1945-1950 by A.G. Harvey from various sources, with subsequent additions I'm too tired from making a stream of canyon stubs right now to transfer/adapt any of this; if someone else would please oblige....Skookum1 (talk) 22:31, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Pronunciation/IPA
The lede uses which certainly is how some people pronounce it; I don't know how to write the IPA but the usual and historical pronunciation if KAW-kih-halla (see historical spellings in previous section). "COE-kih-halla" is a modern affectation, and of course the source of the nickname for the highway, "the Coke". As with Kawkawa Lake I think some people are uncomfortable with the "vulgar" sound of the first syllable "kawk". The IPA for the original pronunciation is nonetheless needed, and should be placed before the current one, which is of modern coinage.Skookum1 (talk) 13:01, 5 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Skookum, are your capitals there for contrast, or to show stress? Assuming the latter, the stress has shifted from the Co to the ha:


 * Orig: COK-i-hal-ə,
 * Euph: COE-kwi-HAL-ə.
 * kwami (talk) 17:38, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd meant it for contrast, though of the first couple of syllables it is the stressed one; accent is on "hal" and now that I think about it that has another parallel pronunciation - like "haul" or "haw", though the usual in both modern Coe/Caw variations is "Hal" like the name; if the "haul" pronunciation is used it would tend to be with the "coe" one....Kaw-ki-HAL-a is the "normal" local rhythm but since the building of the highway and the name becoming more widely used, that's when "coe" became common. The "kwi" I've never heard, though it may resemble the original Halkomelem or Nlaka'pamux (whichever it is) but usually "qui" would be French-influence ("silent" /u/) and the /q/ is usually a notation for a guttural 'k'.Skookum1 (talk) 19:36, 5 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, added the original, and deleted the /w/. I assume there is no difference between cock-i-hal-a and kaw-ki-hal-a in the local English?
 * We should also do Kawkawa Lake since you're here. kwami (talk) 22:36, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Expansion
This page could use a little expansion & sure enough, I'm willing to take up the job of expanding it. Don't get too excited though; I've got a lot of work east of the Coke in the Similkameen-Okanagan & Kettle River Valleys that I want to finish before I start a big project here.

Here is an idea of what I am going to be doing to this page: First off, I will make a Course section, which will... well...  describe the river's course! It will also mention the river's prime tributaries & where they join the river. Next I will add in a History or Naming section. After that will be a Tributaries section, which will list all the river's tributaries (major & minor) in order from the furthest up the river's course to the furthest down. Although I'm not sure about this one, I may also make a Trivia section for the part about parts of First Blood being filmed at the river in Hope.

I also have an image of the river I took just below the Coquihalla Lakes. I will upload it onto Wikipedia when I start my work here.

In all, I think this page just needs a little expansion but not a lot. The more important issue here is not that it's lacking information, but the information it has needs to be organized a bit better.

Updates are on their way! AndrewEnns (talk) 23:09, 26 July 2009 (UTC)