At first we were not sure what he was talking about. There were many place names that the spelling-checker did not recognize, but that was hardly surprising. How many people in the world ever have to spell “Zelienople”? Roughly none outside of southwestern Pennsylvania.
But then we noticed the amusing thing.
LibreOffice has deployed some algorithm to identify words in foreign languages and offer the opportunity to mark them as being in the identified language. For example, if you use the word “ombres,” then in the context menu LibreOffice will offer the options “Word is French” and “Paragraph is French.” At least it did the first time we tried; the second time we tried the word in a French phrase, LibreOffice suggested Catalan instead of French.
At any rate, we can use this clever algorithm to probe the wonderful ethnic diversity of the founders of Pittsburgh neighborhoods and the surrounding boroughs. According to LibreOffice, here is a list of the original languages from which certain local place names are derived:
Aliquippa—Latin
Ambridge—Danish
Bedford—Danish
Beechview—Luxembourgish
Beltzhoover—German (Germany)
Blairsville—French (France)
Brookline—German (Germany)
Carrick—Manx (United Kingdom)
Charleroi—Manx (United Kingdom)
Coraopolis—Catalan
Dormont—French (France)
Dutchtown—Low German
Ebensburg—Luxembourgish
Edgewood—Afrikaans (South Africa)
Edgeworth—Mapuche (Chile)
Ellwood City—Welsh
Emsworth—Upper Sorbian
Freeport—Ladin
Greensburg—Luxembourgish
Homewood—Afrikaans (South Africa)
Ingomar—Frisian
Larimer—Catalan
Lawrenceville—French (France)
Leetsdale—Estonian
Lyndora—Spanish (Spain)
Masontown—Esperanto
McKeesport—Ladin
Millvale—Estonian
Monaca—Catalan
Munhall—Nyanja
Natrona—Irish
Schenley—Manx (United Kingdom)
Sewickley—Mapuche (Chile)
Sheraden—Swedish (Sweden)
Tarentum—Latin
Vandergrift—German (Germany)
Wilkinsburg—Uzbek Latin
Zelienople—English (USA)