Can Michigan be prounounced "Mitchigan" or always "Mishigan"?

[sellebraytion]

Help me settle a minor disagreement🙂

Yanbu - it can be pronounced either way.
Yabu - everyone pronounces it Mishigan unless they have their head in the sand.

Here we go:
Its name derives from a gallicized variant of the original Ojibwe word ᒥᓯᑲᒥ (mishigami),[c] meaning "large water" or "large lake".

@OntarioBagnet Likewise New Orleans. When I say Maryland and New Orleans to other Brits they look at me like I’m mad.

I think it’s derived from Native American language.

“Mitchigan” is definitively wrong. It is only every correctly pronounced “Mishigan”

Sorry, OP, YABU.

I’ve always understood it to be ‘Mishigan’, but I can see how there might be an assumption that there is a hard ‘tch’ sound for those used to Chichester, Rochester, Manchester where the ‘ch’ is the same as in ‘match’, for example.

How do you pronounce Maryland?

Arkansas is french isn't it?

That .Ames sense. I assume it means "towards Kansas" or something but it just sounds strange that it is pronounced the French way when Kansas isn't.

@toomuchlaundry I think it’s “Mary-lund” emphasis on the Mary - not “Mary Land”

Murylan

Kansas and Arkansas are named after the same tribe but Kansas is more the English pronunciation whereas Arkansas had more of a French influence

More like MARA lund. Emphasis is on the first.

In Welcome to Night Vale the fact that Cecil can’t pronounce Michigan as Mish Igan is just another thing that shows how weird he and Night Vale are

“Listeners, Kareem’s really focused on correcting every little fact, which makes him a good reporter.. but also kind of a snitch. So, to start. It seems I’ve been mispronouncing Kareem’s home state of Mitchigan. How do you say it, Kareem? Mitchigan? Right, that’s what I’m saying. Mitchigan. Mmmitcchigan. Mmisshtigan. Mishhigan. Mishhtigan. OK, I’m sorry Kareem, I just can’t hear the nuances of your regional accent.”

Well until today I'd have said mitchigan. In my defence I've only ever been to America once in my life and as someone pointed out upthread, ch is more commonly pronounced tch in UK place names.
Happy to hear Americans would think I'm stupid for pronouncing a place name incorrectly - I live in Wales where the English regularly mangle our place names. So I get to assume they're stupid right??
BTW How is oregan properly pronounced??

New Orleans is more like Norlan, right?

MARRY - lund , sort of. Not Mary.

ORRI gun. Sort of.

That's a burden i can live with

I don't think people are stupid for saying Mitchigan. It's irritating when they are told, and continue anyway. Glares at DH.

Even more irritating is Alexander Armstrong saying Alabama like Al Obama.

Oregan -> oregano? Oregano is o-REG-eno is ameri-speak so is it or-EGG-an??
Or orri-gone?
Or is it reg-ha? Following uk tradition of having place-names sounding nothing like the spelling?

It's mish igan but my head argues with me and says mitch igan. I think because as pp have said - the ch sound is hard in British cities (a lot)

Yes. I used to live not too far (by American standards!) from there and people always used to wait for me to say New Or-LEE-uns, but I’d learned quickly when I moved to the States! 😂

N’orlans/N’orluns.

The other one I heard Brits commonly mispronounce is Kissimmee in Florida. The emphasis is in the middle, it’s Kiss IM me. UK visitors tend to say KISS imme.

One of my favourite US place names is Texarkana. So named because it’s at the corner of Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana.

It's clearly Mishigan!

Nope. Just Orri - gun.

My favourite is Schenectady. No one knows how to say that one! NY state is full of interesting names. Poughkeepsie is another one.

Surely anyone who’s ever seen friends knows how to pronounce poughkeepsie!

Oh,I don't remember it being in Friends....

To be fair, I just said it was an interesting name!

Michigan

And tan-za-knee-A?