Editing Alapaha, Georgia (section)

==Etymology==
The name "Alapaha" was included, along with hundreds of Native American words, in mid-19th-century pronunciation guides as both a river and a village.  Even then, opinions differed as to the proper pronunciation of the word, whether it was "A-LAP-Uh-ha," or "A-LAP-uh-haw."<ref>{{cite book|author=Elias Longley|title=Pronouncing Vocabulary of Geographical and Personal Names|location=Cincinnati|publisher=Longley Bros.|year=1857}} See also {{cite book|title=Lippincott's Pronouncing Gazetteer|location=Philadelphia|publisher=J.B. Lippincott & Co.|year=1856}}</ref> These guides offer no speculation as to the word's meaning. There were many variant names, pronunciations, and spellings of the [[Alapaha River]] operant in the late 19th century.

Some ethnologists believe that "Alapaha" was the Creek word for "other side" (cf. [[Apalachee]], [[Apalachicola, Florida|Apalachicola]]); others believe it was the [[Timucua language]] word for "bear."<ref name="nge" /> At least one ethnolinguist believed that "Alapaha" is a Creek adaptation of the Timucuan word "arapaha" which meant "bear lodge."<ref>{{citation|author=William A. Read|title=Indian Stream Names|work=International Journal of American Linguistics|publisher=University of Chicago|year=1949|p=128}}</ref> A Timucua town named [[Arapaha]] apparently gave its name to the river it was located on. Speakers of one or another of the [[Muscogean languages]], which do not have the "r" sound, may have changed the pronunciation of the name from "Arapaha" to "Alapaha."<ref>{{cite book|author=John H. Hann|title=A History of the Timucua Indians and Missions|location=Gainesville|publisher=University Press of Florida|year=1996|p=3}}</ref>