User:Alarob/Opalocka

How Opa-locka, Florida got its name

This page includes results of research into the origins of the name Opa-locka. It is thorough to the point of absurdity. Please comment on the talk page.

The short version (executive summary)

Glenn Curtiss was told that the place was originally called "Opa-tisha-wocka-locka." He shortened this to "Opa-locka."

The original name comes from the Creek/Seminole language. Most likely, it was Vpelofv rakko ("up-pee-LO-fa THLA-ko"), meaning "big hummock."

A hummock (or hammock) is an area of raised land within a swamp.

Between the early to mid-1800s and 1926 the name was corrupted from (something like) "Opalofa-locko" to "Opa-tisha-wocka-locka."

Proposed translations

Here are suggested translations from the existing literature, grouped according to how they spell the "Indian" name.

Opa-locka

Big swamp: The simplest explanation derives the city name directly from a Seminole word, opel-rakko /opilˈɬaːko/, meaning "big swamp." The same origin is proposed for the name of Opelika, Alabama. (Martin & Mauldin 2000)

But this explanation ignores evidence that the city name was shortened from a longer form, in which "opa" is not adjacent to "locka."

Opa-tisha-wocka-locka

This is the form of the name found in earlier and more authoritative sources.

Published translations:

1. big island covered with many trees in the swamps: Parks, Bush & Pincus 1996, p. 56.
2. high, dry hummock: From the novel The Evening News (Hailey 1990, p. 278). The adjectives "high" and "dry" seem to have served novelist Arthur Hailey's artistic purposes for the setting and should not be taken too seriously.
3. hammock (as synonym for hummock): Lynn 1998, p. 163, quoted in Grunwald 2007, p. 410.
4. high ground amongst the swamp on which there is a camping place: K.U.Leuven Association: Associated Faculty of Arts and Architecture (FAK) 2011
5. a sturdy growth of trees: Kroiz 2006, p. 587.
6. wooded hummock: "Architectural fantasies," in Miller & Raterman 2008, p. 67.

There is a fair amount of consistency among these definitions. The "big island … in the swamps" in no. 1 seems to be a more grandiose way of describing a hummock. The crucial elements are raised, dry, forested ground surrounded by swamp (as opposed to marsh).

Opa-tisha-woka-locka

The "woka" element in this name seems to be a misspelling of earlier "wocka." It appeared on the city's website until 2012. I have not found an occurrence prior to Luxner 1989.

Published translations:

1. big island in the swamp covered with many trees: (Luxner 1989, p. 2-7).
2. The high land north of the little river on which there is a camping place: Quoted without attribution in two Miami Herald special-section stories: "A Community Takes Flight," Miami Herald, June 24, 2006, 3WW Special Section [whatever that means]; and "Town 'a Dream' Come to Life." Miami Herald, August 5, 2006, 6WW Special Section. (A "special section" is generally an advertiser-driven supplement with light, inoffensive feature articles, often neither written by newspaper staff nor reviewed according to the usual editorial standards.)
3. a dry place in the swamp with trees: Quoted by Rep. Kendrick Meek in a speech in the U.S. House of Representatives in May 2006. (Meek 2006, p. 8922)
4. a dry place in the swamp covered with many trees: Quoted, apparently from an earlier version of the city website, in Kitman (2008, p. 11).
5. a big island covered with many trees and swamps: City of Opa-locka website. Apparently the text has changed since about 2007.

Like the spelling, the translations seem to have strayed further from the original meaning:

• Nos. 1 and 5 have promoted the "hummock" to a "big island," and no. 5 has somehow covered the island with both trees and "swamps."
• In no. 2, there is no credible reason to think the concept of north of the little river — found in no other translation — is actually present in Opa-tisha-wo[c]ka-locka.
• Nos. 3 and 4 are closest to the translations in the previous section.

Humorous derivations

Obviously these aren’t meant to be taken seriously.

1. I'm snatching your land: Novelist Sabrina Lamb writes that

   the name of this middle-class, African-American enclave was derived from the Seminole Indian word opa-tisha-wocka-locka. Ms. Chickie [an octogenarian character] was notorious for amusing herself by telling white developers who relentlessly knocked on her door begging to purchase the house that it meant "I'm snatching your land." (Lamb 2010, p. 3)

2. word with too many letters that no one can pronounce: "Baghdad in South Florida," in (Carlson, Moran & Sceurman, p. 125).

Discussion

The likeliest language of origin is Seminole. A few sources link the name to the Tequesta Indians rather than the Seminole, but this is highly unlikely, as nothing has been preserved of the Tequesta language.

If the name is attested from before Glenn Curtiss's use of it, it is almost certainly Seminole. If Curtiss bestowed it personally, it could be from anywhere — including fiction.

Evidence that the name antedates Curtiss's development

• Seth Bramson asserts that the first plat of the area in 1926 bears the name Opa Locka, the shorter form bestowed by Curtiss. The area "began its life" as Opatishawockalocka (Bramson 2008, p. 12). Apparently he bases his knowledge on Fitzgerald-Bush 1976.
• Gene Burnett describes the town site as "a tract whose Indian name, Opatishawockalocka, was fractured to Opa-locka" (Burnett 1996, p. 60).
• Mark Derr writes that the area already had a name, Opatishawockalocka, "which he [Curtiss] couldn't pronounce" (Derr 1989, p. 191).
• Miller & Raterman describe the site northwest of Miami as already having a Seminole name, Opatishawockalocka. Curtiss and architect Bernhardt Muller removed "the tongue-twisting tishawocka part to create the 'Arabic-Persian' name Opa-locka." (Miller & Raterman 2008, p. 66)
• Jan Nijman writes that the area already had the name Opatishawockalocka, "a tongue twister that had to be shortened and simplified to suit potential buyers" (Nijman 2010, p. 27).

Evidence that the name was invented or bestowed by Curtiss

There isn’t any. While some sources state casually that Curtiss gave the name to the site, none has contradicted the claims above that the site was already named when Curtiss purchased it. His contribution was to shorten the name to "Opa-locka."

This supports the hypothesis that the original name is Seminole.

Creek/Seminole words

This is a list of Creek/Seminole words that may help explain the derivation of "Opa-locka." N.B. For Wikipedia's purposes this is inadmissable as original research.

There is no ʃ (sh) in Creek/Seminole, so tisha might have once been something like "titcha" or "tissa." Opa-tisha-wocka-locka could be spelled in Creek/Seminole orthography as Opv-tecv-wakv-lvkv. (Unfortunately this respelling doesn’t give a coherent meaning in Creek/Seminole. That would be too easy.)

More likely words

• opel \o 'pil\: swamp, wooded wetland
  • variants: opelofv \o pi 'lo fə\, opelwv \o 'pil wə\, 'pelof \pi 'lof\
• opv \o pə\: owl
• rakko \'ɬa ko\ (likely rendered as "locko"): big, great, large
• vpe \'ə pi\: tree
• vpelofv \ə pi 'lo fə\: island of trees in a swamp; hammock or hummock.

Less likely words

• ehvpo \i 'hə po\: (his/her/their) camp
• eto \i to\: tree, wood (from a tree)
• hvcce \'hə t͡ʃi\: stream, river; ("little river" is hvccuce \hə t͡ʃø 'd͡ʒī)
• hvlwē \'həl wī\: high, elevated
• kvrpē \kəɬ pī\: dry
• vnrvwv \ən ɬə wə\: wilderness

Hypothesis

The Seminole name that became Opa-locka was vpelofv rakko \ə pi 'lo fə 'ɬa ko\, meaning "big hummock." The long, corrupt version "Opa-tisha-wocka-locka" was the product of repetition among English speakers with no understanding of the Seminole language. Thus:

From Vpelofv to Opa-tisha

1. Vpelofv became the English nonsense syllables "Opa-lofa."
2. Eventually someone forgot the last two syllables ("lofa") and made up "tisha" instead. This was repeated often enough to become accepted.

From rakko to wocka-locka

1. The Seminole word rakko begins with a consonant unknown in English (viz., the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative; it is roughly like the thl in fourthly and fifthly.) English speakers approximated this with an L; hence "locko."
2. Someone heard "locko" as "wocko" and repeated the name that way.
3. The confusion between "locko" and "wocko" was resolved by using both: "wocko-locko."
4. The final o in "wocko" and "locko" became a shwa, spelled with an a.

Step by step

So the process of corruption may have gone like this:

1. Opa-lofa-locko (English approximation of Vpelofv rakko, ca. 1820-1840s)
2. Opa-lofa-wocko and Opa-lofa-locko (used simultaneously by different speakers?)
3. Opa-lofa-wocko-locko
4. Opa-lofa-wocka-locka
5. Opa-tisha-wocka-locka (by 1926), the name learned by Glenn Curtiss and shortened to "Opa-locka"

References

• Bramson, Seth (2008). The Curtiss-Bright cities: Hialeah, Miami Springs & Opa Locka. Charleston SC: The History Press. ISBN 9781596293861. Relies on Fitzgerald 1976. Consistently misspells the city name as "Opa Locka," apparently because that was the first form of the name on 1920s documents.
• Burnett, Gene (1996). Florida's past: people and events that shaped the state. Pineapple Press.
• Carlson, Charlie; Moran, Mark; Sceurman, Mark (2009). Weird Florida: your travel guide to Florida's local legends and best kept secrets. Sterling Publishing Co.
• Derr, Mark (1989). Some kind of paradise: a chronicle of man and the land in Florida. New York: William Morrow.
• Fitzgerald-Bush, Frank S. (1976). A dream of Araby: Glenn H. Curtiss and the founding of Opa-locka. Opa-locka FL: South Florida Archaeological Museum. May have been the first monograph about Opa-locka. The author was dissatisfied with errors in the book and worked on a revision, which was however unpublished at his death in January 1998.
• Grunwald, Michael (2007). The swamp: the Everglades, Florida, and the politics of paradise. Simon and Schuster.
• Hailey, Arthur (1990). The Evening News. Doubleday.
• K.U.Leuven Association: Associated Faculty of Arts and Architecture (FAK) (2011). "A tale to be retold - Chevy Ridin High - Defining Place, Naming Place". Nieuwsbrief van de FAK: 4–7. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help) This is a newsletter article about two artists working on an art project centered on Opa-locka. The newsletter link is no longer online, but a PDF is still available. There is an online description (in Dutch) of the art project (as of November 2012)
• Kitman, Marvin (2008). The man who would not shut up: the rise of Bill O'Reilly. Macmillan.
• Kroiz, Lauren (2006). "Stealing Baghdad: the city of Opa-locka, Florida and The Thief of Bagdad". The Journal of Architecture. 11 (5): 585–592. doi:10.1080/13602360601104873. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Lamb, Sabrina (2010). A kettle of vultures . . . left beak marks on my forehead. Simon and Schuster.
• Luxner, Larry (1989). "Opa-locka rising". Saudi Aramco World: 2–7. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Lynn, Catherine (1998). "Dream and substance: Araby and the planning of Opa-locka". Journal of Propaganda and Decorative Arts. 23: 163–189. doi:10.2307/1504168. JSTOR 1504168.
• Martin, Jack B.; Mauldin, Margaret McKane (2000). A dictionary of Creek/Muskogee. Studies in the Anthropology of North American Indians. Lincoln NE: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-3207-5.
• Meek, Kendrick B. (May 2006). "80th anniversary of the founding of the city of Opa-locka, Florida". Congressional Record. 152 (part 7): 8922. ISBN 9780160861543.
• Miller, Mark; Raterman, David (2008). National Geographic Traveler: Miami & the Keys. National Geographic Books.
• Nijman, Jan (2010). Miami: mistress of the Americas. University of Pennsylvania Press.
• Parks, Arva Moore; Bush, Gregory Wallace; Pincus, Laura (1996). Miami, the American crossroad: a centennial journey, 1896-1996. Simon & Schuster Custom Pub.