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Mexican X Part I: Why Is México Pronounced Méjico?
Over the years, I’ve come across the same question again and again, always some variation on the following:
“Why is Mexico spelled ‘México’ in Spanish, especially if in Nahuatl Mēxihco was pronounced [meshiko]? What’s up with that ‘x’?”
The answers given are usually partially right or totally wrong.
Guess what? I’m going to explain it to you.
Quick note on representing sounds. If I put something in brackets [like this], it’s because I’m representing a sound with a modified Roman letter. If there’s a letter or funny symbol between two forward slashes /like this/, that means I’m using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Got it? Okay, let’s go.
For starters, Spanish (and other Romance languages) evolved not from Classical Latin (the erudite, literary language) but from the more streamlined and working-class Vulgar Latin (“vulgar” as in “of the vulgus” or common folk … not “nasty”). In Iberia, various languages arose this way, including Medieval Spanish.
Differently from modern Spanish, Medieval Spanish had sounds like [ž] or /ʒ/ (English “vision” or “azure”) and [š] or /ʃ/ (English “ship”), among many others. The name “Jimena,” for example, was pronounced [žimena], and “xabón” (soap, modern “jabón”) was [šabon].
The evolution from various Vulgar Latin sounds to [š] is fascinating. Here are examples showing Vulgar Latin -> Medieval Spanish -> Modern Spanish.
The “x” in the middle column represents [š] or /ʃ/ (“sh”). The “j” in the last column (for those who don’t know Spanish) represents /x/, a strongly aspirated sound kind of like “h” (but more like the German “ch”).
sucu -> xugo -> jugo
syringa -> xeringa -> jeringa
bassu -> baxo -> bajo
russeu -> roxo -> rojo
laxius -> lexos -> lejos
You’ll notice the pattern, I hope.
Now, by the 15th century, the way Spanish speakers made these sounds started shifting backward in the throat. Gradually [ž] became [š], so that Vulgar Latin “jurat” (“s/he swears,” pronounced [yurat]) became first Medieval Latin [žurat] and then 15th-century [šura]…
