this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2024
544 points (96.7% liked)
Technology
59696 readers
2368 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I don’t speak Spanish (helpful eh?) but I remember when I was in Mexico I went to a cool place called Xel-Há, which was pronounced shell-ha. So there’s one.
I don't think that's Spanish. Nahuatl, which is an indigenous language spoken in Mexico, does use x- to transcribe the sound commonly written as sh- in English, so that's probably a Nahuatl place-name.
In the case of Xitter, though, the reference is generally to Mandarin Chinese, which uses x- to transcribe one of the two or three distinct sounds in that language that all sound like sh- to Anglophones.
That makes sense, thanks for teaching me something today :)
Those are Mayan words
Why didn't they use a Spanish word when they started that settlement in pre-first century (according to Wikipedia) history?
The same reason half the state names in the US have indigenous origins, I suppose. Guess you'll have to ask the colonizers.
I was asking why the Mayan people didn't choose a Spanish name when they founded Xelha thousands of years ago.
Lol, I guess it was obvious now that you mention it