People sometimes ask how to pronounce “Kanawha”. Various pronouncers say it’s kuh-NAW or sometimes ka-NA-wah or even kuh-NOIE by some natives. Wikipedia says Kanawha "derives from the region's Iroquoian dialects meaning ‘water way’ or ‘canoe way’ implying the metaphor, ‘transport way’, in the local language.” There was an native American tribe in the area prior to the arrival of Europeans. They were the Canoy. The spelling of the tribe varied at the time, from Conoys to Conois to Kanawha.
An easier way to get the proper pronunciation is from a local. Here are little bits of two radio commercials so you can hear for yourself. These are from radio station WCAW in Charleston, West Virginia:
Kanawha (Lee Beard)
Kanawha (Mike Wingfield)
