Pronouncing Quebec place names

You call a clinic and have to give your address. You ask for directions. You tell a colleague where you spent the weekend. And the name will not come out — Kamouraska, Chibougamau, Témiscamingue, Manicouagan.

It is not your fault, and this guide will explain why. Many Quebec place names come from Indigenous languages, transcribed centuries ago by European mapmakers who did not speak those languages. The Commission de toponymie du Québec, the official body that manages place names, acknowledges this very plainly itself.

This guide gives you three things: what these names mean, how to say them, and above all where to go and hear the authentic pronunciation recorded by members of the communities concerned.

One warning up front, because it changes how to read this guide: the official body publishes no phonetic transcription at all. The pronunciation guidance we give follows from ordinary French rules, not from an official standard. The only official recordings that exist cover names of Indigenous origin, and we will tell you exactly where to find them.

Let us start with the most useful sentence in this whole guide, because it comes from the official body and it takes a weight off you.

On its page about the historical evolution of Quebec toponymy, the Commission de toponymie writes that mapmakers, mostly ignorant of Indigenous languages, recorded a great many of these names on maps but spelled them « bien souvent de façon approximative, parfois fautive » — often approximately, sometimes wrongly.

It continues: for several of them, the current spelling was fixed by long usage, even though it is often « phonologiquement erronée » — phonologically wrong.

And it goes as far as naming cases: « Ainsi Québec, Saguenay, Chicoutimi ne s'écrivent assurément pas dans une forme qui rend justice à la prononciation originelle de ces noms. »

Read what that means. The body that officially manages Quebec place names acknowledges that the spelling of several of them does not match their original sound. If you find these names hard, that is not a flaw in your learning: it is a documented historical fact.

Let us be precise about the scope of that sentence: it compares today's French spelling to the original Indigenous sound. It does not say that Quebecers mispronounce their own place names.

Let us start with the good news. For these three names, the Commission de toponymie gives a clear etymology, with no competing hypotheses.

Témiscamingue comes from Algonquin *timiskaming*, which the Commission breaks down morpheme by morpheme: *timi* = hollow, deep; *kami* = lake, body of water; *ing* = at. The name therefore means « au lac profond » — at the deep lake. It is the only one on our list for which the official body gives a complete morpheme breakdown.

Natashquan is a name of Innu origin meaning, according to the Commission, « pays où on chasse l'ours » or « pays du grand ours » — land where one hunts the bear. A 1979 survey of Innu place names recorded the form *Nutahquaniu Hipu*, the river where the black bear was taken.

The evolution of its spelling on old maps is an excellent summary of this whole guide: Jolliet writes *R. noutascoüan* in 1684, Bellin writes *Grand R Natachquoin* in 1744, Carver writes *Great Natashkwen* in 1776. Three different transcriptions of the same word by three Europeans in one century.

Yamaska comes from Abenaki: *yam* means offshore or in the distance, and *askaw* means there are rushes. The name therefore means « il y a des joncs au large », referring to the rushes that grew abundantly at the river's mouth — rushes that were dried and used to roof barns and houses.

For these names, the Commission de toponymie presents several hypotheses side by side without settling the matter. We give you the main hypothesis and flag that others exist — because presenting a single version as certain would mislead you.

Québec comes from a word of the Algonquian family, *kebec*, which the Commission says means « là où c'est bouché » — where it is blocked — the root *kebh* meaning blocked. This refers to the narrowing of the St. Lawrence in front of Cap Diamant. But the Commission also mentions a Mi'kmaq lead, *kepek*, same sense, and an Innu form.

Kamouraska comes, on the main hypothesis, from the Algonquin words *akân* (at the water's edge) and *ayashaw* (rush), giving « il y a du jonc au bord de l'eau ». The Commission notes that some see a Mi'kmaq word instead, and that Father Charlevoix attributed it to rocks rising above the water.

Matane: the most commonly accepted version, in the Commission's own words, is Mi'kmaq *mtctan*, « vivier de castor » — beaver pond. But it records « interprétations divergentes », including *meeting of the waters* and even *shipwrecks*.

Rimouski is the most interesting case, because the attribution changed recently. According to 2016 and 2017 work cited by the Commission, the name would come from the wolastoqey language — Maliseet — and would mean « terre au chien », from *arimous* (dog) and the suffix *-ki* (land). Older attributions to other languages are now set aside.

Manicouagan comes from Innu *Manikuakanishtiku*, « rivière à la tasse » or « rivière où l'on donne à boire ». Two schools of missionaries disagreed on this point in the 19th century.

Two names deserve their own section, because the Commission de toponymie explicitly declares their meaning uncertain.

For Chibougamau, the Commission writes that the meaning « est incertaine et fait l'objet de plusieurs hypothèses ». It lists four.

The first, « lieu de rassemblement » (gathering place), is the one you will find everywhere online — and the Commission writes of it that it is « probablement issue du folklore local ». In other words, the most widespread explanation is the one the official body identifies as folklore.

The three others are: « lac bloqué » (blocked lake), from Cree *cipukamiw*; « lac aux vomissements », from an 1832 translation; and « rivière traversant le bord du lac », proposed by a surveyor in 1894. The Cree today use the form *Uchepukumuu*, matching the second hypothesis.

For Chicoutimi, the Commission consistently uses the French conditional tense, which explicitly signals uncertainty. The element *timi* « serait » linked to the notion of depth, and *chicou* « pourrait » mean big, still is, how far, or which ends.

The possible combinations give contradictory meanings: *great depth*, but also *which ceases to be deep*. So remember that the most frequently cited sense is « grande profondeur », without presenting it as settled.

Here is the most useful resource in this guide, and it is very little known.

Since January 2020, the Commission de toponymie has been adding sound files to its place-name database. The first recordings covered 125 Inuktitut place names, made with the collaboration of the Institut culturel Avataq. Coverage then extended to other languages: Innu, Naskapi, Algonquin, Abenaki, Atikamekw. On a place's record page, a speaker icon lets you listen.

In June 2022, the Commission also put online an interactive map devoted to Indigenous toponymic heritage, gathering more than 200 names whose pronunciation was recorded by members of the communities themselves — seven Abenaki, Innu, Naskapi and Wendat communities.

To our knowledge, this is the only source of official pronunciation that exists for Quebec place names.

Two important limits, which we prefer to state plainly. First, these recordings cover only names of Indigenous origin. Second, there is no official phonetic transcription at all — neither for these names nor for the others. We checked the official record for boulevard Pie-IX: it contains the name's origin, a biography, the officialization date, but no pronunciation field.

This is not an Indigenous name, and yet it is probably the place name that traps the most newcomers in Montreal.

Boulevard Pie-IX, and the metro station of the same name, honour Pope Pius IX — Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti, elected pope in 1846. The artery was named around 1874, during his pontificate.

« Pie » is the French form of the Latin Pius. And « IX » is not a sequence of two letters: it is the Roman numeral nine. That is the whole explanation of the trap. Someone reading without knowing will try to pronounce the letters I and X.

In French, a Roman numeral in a proper name is read as a number: so one says « Pie-neuf ».

We must be precise about the status of this information. The pronunciation *Pie-neuf* follows from the ordinary French rule for reading Roman numerals — it is not published by an official body. We checked: neither the Commission de toponymie record nor the Ville de Montréal record carries any pronunciation guidance. So what we are giving you here is a French reading rule, not an official standard.

The same reasoning applies elsewhere: in Quebec place and street names, Roman numerals are read as numbers.

The Commission de toponymie publishes writing rules, and two of them concern you directly when filling in a form or writing an email in English.

First rule: official Quebec place names must not be translated. In an English text you write Québec, not *Quebec City*. In a French text you write *Black Lake*, not *Lac Noir*, if Black Lake is the official form.

Second rule, the one almost everyone breaks: accents are kept, including in an English text, and including on capital letters. The Government of Quebec writes Québec with its acute accent in its English documents.

A third rule is useful to know: you cannot manufacture a mixed form combining a French and an English generic. « Baie James Bay » is incorrect. For geographic features crossing a border, you may put the official Quebec form followed by the Canadian form in brackets: *Baie d'Hudson (Hudson Bay)*.

Note finally that the generic — *lac*, *mont*, *rue*, *boulevard* — is an integral part of the place name. It is not an optional word you can drop to save time.

The most common questions about Quebec place names: where to check a name, where to hear the pronunciation, why these names are difficult, and how to write them in English.

These related guides may be useful:

• Understanding the Quebec accent — the general pronunciation features; this guide covers proper nouns, that one covers everything else
• Sacres: understanding Quebec swear words — the other vocabulary you hear daily and cannot look up in an ordinary dictionary
• Practising your French — where to get the listening exposure that fixes pronunciation faster than any written guide
• Bill 101 and the Charter of the French Language — the Charter is also what created the Commission de toponymie, in 1977

All the information in this guide comes from the official pages below. The Commission de toponymie website exists in French only.

• Banque de noms de lieux du Québec — Commission de toponymie *(French only)*
• Évolution historique de la toponymie québécoise — Commission de toponymie *(French only)*
• Prononciation des noms autochtones — Commission de toponymie *(French only)*
• Carte interactive du patrimoine toponymique autochtone *(French only)*
• Règles d'écriture des noms de lieux — Commission de toponymie *(French only)*
• Traduire les toponymes — Commission de toponymie *(French only)*
• Mission et mandat — Commission de toponymie *(French only)*
• Origin of the names of Canada and its provinces — Natural Resources Canada