this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2024
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I’m sorry, what? Can you give some examples in Spanish where the letter x makes a sh sound?
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
It's mostly places that carry the sound from old Spanish, as most old Spanish words with X's changed to J's.
xoloitzcuintle, sometimes xcaret is pronounced as shcaret (not common tho)
Neither of those words are Spanish tho. Xoloizcuintle is a náhuatl word, and Xcaret is a mayan word.
that's true