Editor’s note: Teachable Moments is an occasional Friday series focusing on the history of traditions associated with the University of Illinois. The first installment of Teachable Moments focused on the origin of the term “Illini.” We now look at the word “Illinois.”

In 1809, the name “Illinois” was assigned to a territory falling just east of the Mississippi River. That territory became a state nine years later, and the word “Illinois” is now associated with many things throughout the state, including the University. “Illinois” has long been thought to have its origins in the languages of the local American Indian tribes which once inhabited this area. Recent study, however, has found that “Illinois” was not so much a name these people applied to themselves, but as a misinterpretation of a word from their language.

The word may have originated around the time French explorers Louis Jolliet and Jaques Marquette explored the region. The Illinois State Museum said it may have been based on the local people’s word “irenweewa,” meaning: “he speaks in the ordinary way.”

The Museum’s Web site hypothesizes that this term was applied to the tribes of this region by the neighboring Objibwa, who shortened or translated it to “ilinwe.”

“That happens all the time,” said Brenda Farnell, an associate professor in anthropology who teaches courses in the American Indian Studies program at the University. “You see that happening all the way across the country. The guides from the east telling explorers what they called other people, and then that being picked up or anglicized or Frenchified. But it’s not really what they called themselves.”

Writings by early French explorers, including Jolliet and Marquette include the word spelled “Ilinois” or “Illinois.” Marquette understood the word to mean “the men,” and interpreted this to imply a sense of superiority over other groups.

“When one speaks the word ‘Illinois,’ it is as if one said in their language, ‘the men,'” Marquette wrote in 1674. “As if the others…were looked upon by them merely as animals.”

Farnell said this is a misleading and inaccurate interpretation. She said references to “real men” were not a matter of looking down on other people, but rather striving for personal excellence.

“To be Peoria, Tuscarora, etc. involves aspiring to an ideal, to be the very best one can be, and that is sometimes expressed as the goal of being or becoming the ‘real people,'” Farnell said. “A tribal name can thus signify this ideal.”

Farnell said her research indicated that “irenweewa” was a compound word: iren meant “ordinary,” wee meant “by speech,” and wa is a third-person pronoun. She said a ki suffix was added to make the word plural. All together, Farnell said, the term means “He speaks in the ordinary way.”

The American Indian groups now commonly known as “Illinois” or “Illini” referred to themselves as “inoca,” according to the museum’s Web site.

Farnell encourages anyone interested in learning about the American Indians of Illinois to look into the course offerings in the American Indian Studies department.

More information is available at the Illinois State Museum’s Web site: http://www.museum.state.il.us/

Information on the Illini American Indians is also available at: http://www.myaamiaproject.com/