Why can't we call folks what they want to be called?

[coilycat]

I missed the memo announcing that it was uncouth to call folks from Afghanistan Afghani. Am I imagining that it used to be Afghani, whereas afghan was either a dog or a blanket?

possibly I am thinking of Pakistani? Meaning I should have looked for Afghanistani?

I’m just proud that I know the plurals of Tutsi & Hutu (Watutsi & Mahutu, which I find wonderful & fascinating).

Also, I always thought it was perfectly respectful to say “black,” but now I hear African-American. But I had a roommate from Ghana who might have bristled at hearing people called “african-american” when their families had been in the US for 150 years.

So I’ve asked black people what they call themselves, and mostly they say black but don’t seem to mind african american either. I think I might end up just saying African American so that NON african americans don’t think I’m rude!!

And has anyone figured out a way to specify “from the US” as opposed to “American” which would be possibly from Canada or South America? That’s one I would like to distinguish even if Canadians & Peruvians don’t mind being cut out of “American.”

[Balthisar]

@Jomo Mojo

In medieval Spanish, the letter x was used to represent the “sh” sound (as it still is in Portuguese). But around the time of the Renaissance there was a sound shift in Castilian pronunciation, and the former “sh” sound changed to a “kh” sound. The original Nahuatl name of México must have had a “sh” sound which the Spaniards wrote with “x” as the only letter in their alphabet that could represent that sound. Sure, nowadays they say mé-hi-ko or mé-khi-ko in modern Spanish pronunciation, but the original may have been me-shi-ko or something like that. The nearby location Xochimilco is another example. In modern Spanish it’s pronounced Sochimilco, but if the original Nahuatl had been pronounced that way, the 16th-century Spaniards could have just written it with S. If it had been pronounced Shochimilko, that would explain the spelling with X. Modern Spanish has lost the “sh” sound, that’s all. In the case of Xochimilco, they substituted the nearest approximation, the “s” sound.

Interestingly, the Spanish write Mexico as “Mejico.” And in reading early Spanish language literature, I read about “Tejas” and “Bejar” county, which maybe the Spanish still write, but seems obvious that if anything the Mexicans and Texans still write. Heck, the word “tejano” still refers to Mexican-derived Texans more than does “texano.” I’d really like to know the history behind this. Especially, what was first, “Mejico” or “Mexico”? On a futher note, a couple of times I was on an Aeromexico flight, I noticed a lot in instances where “j” was used in lieu of “x” on the physical mouldings and signage. This was a Mexican plane in the Mexican fleet (i.e., AFAIK, Aeromexico not owned by the Spanish).

[Excalibre]

@Balthisar

Interestingly, the Spanish write Mexico as “Mejico.” And in reading early Spanish language literature, I read about “Tejas” and “Bejar” county, which maybe the Spanish still write, but seems obvious that if anything the Mexicans and Texans still write. Heck, the word “tejano” still refers to Mexican-derived Texans more than does “texano.” I’d really like to know the history behind this. Especially, what was first, “Mejico” or “Mexico”? On a futher note, a couple of times I was on an Aeromexico flight, I noticed a lot in instances where “j” was used in lieu of “x” on the physical mouldings and signage. This was a Mexican plane in the Mexican fleet (i.e., AFAIK, Aeromexico not owned by the Spanish).

My understanding has always been that the Spanish spell the words with a “j”, which is more consistent with general pronunciation and spelling principles in Spanish. Certainly other Spanish-speaking countries have no equivalents to the Royal Spanish Academy, which “approves” linguistic usages. In Mexico, on the other hand, I’ve read that it’s something of a point of pride to spell those words with their original, “x”-containing spellings, even though it’s irregular with respect to Spanish orthography.

[Balthisar]

@Excalibre

My understanding has always been that the Spanish spell the words with a “j”, which is more consistent with general pronunciation and spelling principles in Spanish. Certainly other Spanish-speaking countries have no equivalents to the Royal Spanish Academy, which “approves” linguistic usages. In Mexico, on the other hand, I’ve read that it’s something of a point of pride to spell those words with their original, “x”-containing spellings, even though it’s irregular with respect to Spanish orthography.

My wife told me in the last couple of weeks the Academy had just “approved” “x” as being equivilent to “j” – I don’t know if in all cases this is true; just reporting on heresay.

[Kozmik]

Similarily, the I believe the word “Wales” or “Welsh” is derived from the word for “stranger”. The Welsh became strangers in their own land, and one might say the “Navajo” as well.

@pravnik

Merely because other languages, for lack of a better description, have different words for things, and it doesn’t stop at place names and proper names. Someone speaking Czech will prefer that you say “Praha” when speaking Czech, but doesn’t care that you call it Prague in your own language.

The names of other cultures is somewhat different, as oftentimes we learned the incorrect name of a culture from a neighbor and it came into popular usage, like:

“What do you call those people over there?”
"Them? Oh, we call them “navajo.” (“enemy”)
"Ah, so those are the “Navajo.”

Many Navajo will refer to themselves as such when speaking English, just accepting that that’s the English word for “Dineh.”

[roger_thornhill]

Sometimes the universal propensity for changing names to fit local languages can have beneficial side effects. I only learned that Yugoslavia means Land of the Southern Slavs from the Cantonese rendering of the country’s name. Pity the country promptly ceased to exist. (I learned the name for Yugoslavia, by the way, because when I was serious about learning the language and everyone replied to me in English, it was handy to say I came from there.)

Most countries are rendered predominantly according to the sound, with a Chinese character of a positive denotation being preferred - so that the USA (America) becomes mei-gwok (“beautiful country”) and the UK (based on “England” - yes, it’s not only Americans who confuse the two) becomes ying-gwok (“heroes’ country”).

Then you’ve got the renderings based on translation, as with Yugoslavia.

Sometimes, two alternative renderings are possible, so that New Zealand may be either san-sai-laan (san = new) or nau-sai-laan (nau sounds like new).

[jovan]

@coilycat

I’ve noticed that newscasters started saying, “Keeyoto” making it 3 syllables, instead of Kyoto with two. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure it’s Kyoto w/two.

If you count syllables the way Japanese do, it’s three: kyo-o-to. The first “o” sound is long, which means it’s held for the duration of two syllables.

@Jomo Mojo

In medieval Spanish, the letter x was used to represent the “sh” sound (as it still is in Portuguese). But around the time of the Renaissance there was a sound shift in Castilian pronunciation, and the former “sh” sound changed to a “kh” sound. The original Nahuatl name of México must have had a “sh” sound which the Spaniards wrote with “x” as the only letter in their alphabet that could represent that sound.

The X sound in romanized classical Nahuatl is an unvoiced palato-alveolar fricative. In other words, it’s indeed pronunced like the English /sh/ sound. Here’s some reading on Nahuatl phonetics.