KANAL DAL
"Canada" may have derived from the Norse words "KANAL DAL" Modern Norse dictionaries define "kanal" as, "channel" and "dal" as, "valley. A common linguistic alteration is to drop the trailing "l". So the first French in America may have heard the local people say "Kana da."
The Iroquois people, especially the Mohawks, say a similar word "Canata" to mean town. Which came first, the region name or the word for a town, is difficult to determine. However, Cartier wrote about the region of "Kana da" which meant, "the river valley" before he encountered Iroquois speakers.
