Mexico: Encyclopedia II - Mexico - The name

Mexico - The name

Mexico is named after its capital city, whose name comes from the Aztec city Mexico-Tenochtitlan that preceded it. The Mexi part of the name is from Mexitli, the war god, whose name was derived from metztli (the moon) and xictli (navel) and thus meant "navel (probably implying 'child') of the moon". So, Mexico is the home of the people of Mexitli (the Mexicas), co meaning "place" and ca meaning "people".

When the Spaniards encountered this people and transcribed their language, they naturally did so according to the spelling rules of the Castilian language of the time. The Nahuatl language had a /ʃ/ sound (like English "shop"), and this sound was written x in Spanish (e.g. Ximénez); consequently, the letter x was used to write down words like Mexitli. Meanwhile, the letter j (or, rather, the letter i when used as a consonant, since j had not been invented yet) was used for the /ʒ/ sound (as in "vision"), as was g before e or i. These old pronunciations of j and x are still found in Portuguese and Ladino.

Over the centuries, the pronunciation of Spanish changed. Words like Ximénez, exercicio, xabón and perplexo started to be pronounced with a /x/ (this phonetic symbol represents the sound in the word "loch"). The /ʒ/ sound also started to be pronounced this way. The coalescence of the two phonemes into a single new one encouraged scholars to use the same letter for the sound, regardless of its origin (Spanish scholars have always tried to keep the orthography of their language faithful to the spoken tongue). It was j/g that was chosen. So, modern Spanish has ejercicio, ejército, jabón, perplejo, etc. (Another example is the old spelling of Don Quixote which is now Don Quijote. The old pronunciation is maintained in French "Quichotte", and the English word "quixotic" maintains the spelling while pronouncing it with its English value.)

Proper nouns and their derivatives are optionally allowed to break this rule. Thus, although xabón is now incorrect and archaic, alongside many millions of people called "Jiménez", there also are plenty called "Giménez" or "Ximénez" — a matter of personal choice and tradition.

In Mexico, it has become almost a matter of national pride to maintain the otherwise archaic x spelling in the name of the country. It is regarded as more authentic and less jarring to the reader's eye. Mexicans have tended to demand that other Spanish-speakers use this spelling, rather than following the general rule, and the demand has largely been respected. The Real Academia Española states that both spellings are correct, and most dictionaries and guides recommend México first, and present Méjico as a variant. Today, even outside of the country, México is preferred over Méjico by ratios ranging from 10-to-1 (in Spain) to about 280-to-1 (in Costa Rica). Also, in the placenames "Oaxaca" and "Xalapa", the x is pronounced as /x/; in "Xochimilco", however, it sounds as a /ʃ/.

A cultural side-effect of the fact that Mexicans use México /'mexiko/ and Spaniards sometimes use Méjico is the occasional boiling-over of negative sentiment towards the old colonial oppressor. The mere act of using the j spelling is interpreted by some as a form of colonial aggression. On the other hand, some Peninsular scholars (such as Ramón Menéndez Pidal) prefer to apply the general spelling rule, arguing that the spelling with an x could encourage non-Mexicans to mispronounce México as /'meksiko/ (as is generally the case in the English-speaking world). Méjico on the other hand could easily be mispronounced as well, because the letter j stands for /ʒ/, /dʒ/ or /j/ in other languages.

In the Nahuatl language, from which the name originally derived, the name for Mexico is Mēxihco (International Phonetic Alphabet /meː.ɕiʔ.ko/).

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The name", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki