We must say that this actually falls not under America misunderstood, but under America misunderstanding when we adopt words from other languages. For instance, nobody really knows how the word marijuana (spelled marihuana or mariguana in Spanish) got into English with a ‘j’ — supposed to be Spanish and thus pronounced.
Today, you may find marijuana in Spanish because it has been recycled through English and brought back in American magazines, books, etc. No matter what, its misspelling has been sanctioned by usage and will remain — forever.
When Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra wrote his famous novel Don Quixote de la Mancha, he spelled Quixote with an x for one good reason: the x was pronounced sh at that time. So, don Quixote was really pronounced don Keeshoteh.
English — and Americans not so long ago — used to pronounce the knight’s name Kwiksote (as in quixotic, etc.). Nowadays, the tendency is to pronounce it — despite the x in English — as the modern Spanish Quijote.
One Spanish king changed the Castilian pronunciation. The x was replaced by j with the kh sound it has today in most of Spanish-speaking countries. This was done, rumor has it, in order to detect who was speaking Castilian and who was speaking Catalan or Galician (bilingualism was forbidden) in order to punish those who did not use Castilian, the official language. Also, to make it easier for the millions of new subjects in the New World to learn Spanish.
(By the way, you can see how this idea of legislating languages does not work. Catalan and Galician are still kicking in Spain today and so is French in Canada. Doesn’t this say something to those who, instead of promoting English because it is the most important communication vehicle of our century, try to force it by law down the throat of people — Hispanics especially. Well — people don’t read history — it’s boring.)
And back to the X. There were many other changes in geographic spelling. And since we like trivia, here’s some for you.
Mexico was originally pronounced méh-shi-ko after the Mexicas (meh-shíkas) Aztecs who founded it. It was later changed to Méjico, as Texas (Téshas) was changed into Tejas, and so on.
Most Spanish speaking countries accepted the ‘j’ spelling. Mexicans didn’t like the change and until today they still refuse the new spelling, as a good American would have probably done, too. However, they compromised and changed the pronunciation into Méh-hee-ko; also as a good “American” would have done.
After all those changes, Quixote (kee-shó-te) became Quijote, but English clung to the original spelling. A change in spelling of a word accepted by usage? God forbid! However, as I have already pointed, modern speakers have recently changed the pronunciation into Ki-ho-te while leaving the x, as Mexicans did with Mexico. Why? Beats me.
We all know that La Jolla (California) is a spelling error, probably committed by an Andalusian (Andalusians cannot tell the ll and the y apart — ll is pronounced like ly, and the y like English y). It should have been spelled La Joya. But have you heard the names they called those who suggested the change in the past?
In the Hispanic World, in particular, people are always changing the spelling of geographic names, thus constantly confusing the rest of the world.
The Cuban capital was originally spelled Havana, with a v, as in English. This spelling persisted from the colonization of America to the beginning of this century. Then, one day close to the celebration of their independence, some Indian scholar (that is, a scholar versed in Indian affairs, since no Indians survived colonization in Cuba) suggested the change in spelling.
This otherwise unknown person reasoned that Cuban Indians had no v sound in their language (neither did the Spaniards, he forgot). Therefore, Havana — an Indian name — should be spelled Habana, instead. Cubans approved the change and Havana became officially Habana, in an emotional outburst of patriotism (the Republic was about to be created) or out of guilt, that is trying to compensate with a phony recognition of a supposed Indian heritage for having exterminated all the Indians. No other European language, English among them, acknowledged the change. Havana is spelled Habana only in Spanish — nice feeling not to be alone, as we stand on some other things.
However, not everybody overlooked the change, the new spelling was properly noted by cigar smokers, who could now distinguish a cigar made in Habana, Cuba, from a cigar manufactured in Havana, northern Florida.
In the late 70s, Peru respelled a lot of geographical names to make them sound closer to their original Incaic pronunciation. Thus Cuzco became Cusco (and finally Qosqo), Machu Picchu became Machu Pijchu, Nazca, Nasca, etc. Big deal the z and the s are pronounced alike in Latin America!
Now if you address a letter to the University in Cuzco, and want to do it properly, you must write: Universidad de Cuzco, Cusco, Perú.
“Americans” haven’t noticed this change and I don’t think that Americans have either. I talked to some fellow tourists in Cuzco, Peru and the only comment about the change was: “Look, they misspelled the name of the city.” This comment was made by Anglo and Latin Americans alike.
The only changes in geographic names promptly accepted by us are those imposed by politics, maybe for that demagogical attitude of the so called political correctness. Of course the printed media are involved here and everybody knows how much they love politics. Thus we changed Danzig to Gdansk, in GermanyPoland; Saint Petersburg to Leningrad to Saint Petersburg, Königsberg to Kaliningrad; Saigon to Ho Chi Minh City, in Viet Nam; Cambodia to Kampuchea; Peking to Beijing, etc.
Very few people — however — pay attention to changing a name just out of regional patriotism, as in the case of the Irish capital, from Dublin to Baile Átha Cliáth (pr. bláklia, in Gaelic).
We have done some changes of our own. We changed the longest geographical name in our premises to the shortest name given to an American city. It was founded centuries ago as El Pueblo de la Misión de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles de Porciúncula and today we just call it L.A.