Name of Mexico

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(Redirected from
Toponymy of Mexico
)
Image of Mexico-Tenochtitlan from the Codex Mendoza

Several

century plant" (Mexitli) and "Place in the Navel of the Moon" (Mēxihco), although there is still no consensus among experts.[1]

As far back as 1590, the

The Philippines; since New Spain was not actually a state or a contiguous piece of land, in modern times, "Mexico" would have been a jurisdiction under the command of the authorities in modern Mexico City. Under the Spaniards, Mexico was both the name of the capital and its sphere of influence, most of which exists as Greater Mexico City and the State of Mexico. Some parts of Puebla, Morelos and Hidalgo
were also part of Spanish-era Mexico.

In 1821, the continental part of New Spain seceded from Spain during the

Latin: Imperium Romanum) and the Holy Roman Empire
, whereby the capital gives rise to the name of the Empire. This was the first recorded use of "Mexico" as a country title.

After the Empire fell and the Republic was established in 1824, a

United Mexican States
.

Complications arose with the capital's former colloquial and semi-official name "Ciudad de Mexico, Distrito Federal (Mexico, D.F.)", which appears on postal addresses and is frequently cited in the media, thus creating a duplication whereas the shortened name was "Mexico, D.F., Mexico". Legally, the name was Distrito Federal (Federal District or District of the Federation). This ended with the change in status of Mexico City in 2016. Today it is officially called "Ciudad de México, México" abbreviated CDMX, Mexico.

The official name of the country is the "United Mexican States" (

constitutions of 1857 and 1917. Informally, "Mexico" is used along with "Mexican Republic" (República Mexicana). On 22 November 2012, outgoing Mexican President Felipe Calderón proposed changing the official name of the country to México.[2]

Names of the country

Antique map of New Spain also called Mexico, 1708

besieged México-Tenochtitlan in 1521, it was almost completely destroyed. It was rebuilt during the following three years, after which it was designated as a municipality and capital of the vice-royalty of New Spain. In 1524 the municipality of Mexico City was established, known as México Tenustitlan, and as of 1585 became officially known simply as Ciudad de México.[3]
The name Mexico was used only to refer to the city, and later to a province within New Spain. It was not until the independence of the vice-royalty of New Spain that "Mexico" became the traditional short-form name of the country.

During the 1810s, different insurgent groups advocated and fought for the independence of the vice-royalty of New Spain. This vast territory was composed of different

the first constitution,[4]
in 1814 whereby the name América Mexicana ("Mexican America") was chosen for the country. The head of the insurgent forces, however, was defeated by the royalist forces, and the constitution was never enacted.

Mexico-Tenochtitlan, was at the centre and at the same time at the centre of the waters, being built on an island in a lake.[7]

Declaration of Independence of the Mexican Empire, 1821

In September 1821, the independence of Mexico was finally recognized by Spain, achieved through an alliance of royalist and revolutionary forces. The former tried to preserve the status quo of the vice-royalty, menaced by the liberal reforms taking place in Spain, through the establishment of an autonomous

the current constitution, promulgated in 1917, only uses the latter[11]
and United

Mexican States is the normative English translation.

Maximilian of Habsburg
.

On 22 November 2012, incumbent President

president elect Enrique Peña Nieto, many of the president's critics saw the proposal as nothing more than a symbolic gesture.[13]

Etymology

According to one legend,

Mexitl
 or Mexi as a secret name. Mexico would then mean "Place of Mexi" or "Land of the War God."

Another hypothesis

portmanteau of the Nahuatl words for "moon" (mētztli) and navel (xīctli). This meaning ("Place at the Center of the Moon") might then refer to Tenochtitlan's position in the middle of Lake Texcoco. The system of interconnected lakes, of which Texcoco formed the center, had the form of a rabbit, which the Mesoamericans pareidolically associated with the moon
.

Still another hypothesis[15] offers that it is derived from Mectli, the goddess of maguey.

These last two suggestions are deprecated by linguist Frances Karttunen,

pseudoetymologies
.

Mexico and Mexica

The name Mexico has been commonly described to be a derivative from Mexica, the autonym of the Aztec people,[17] but said affirmation is controversial as there are many competing etymologies for both terms[18] and given the fact that in many old sources, 'Mexica' simply appears as the way to call the inhabitants of the island of Mexico (where Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco were located) in their native Nahuatl;[19] implying that instead of Mexica being the source of the name 'Mexico', the opposite would be true.[20]

Phonetic evolution

The Nahuatl word Mēxihco (Nahuatl pronunciation: [meːˈʃiʔko] ⓘ) was transliterated as "México" using Medieval Spanish orthography, in which the x represented the voiceless postalveolar fricative ([ʃ], the equivalent of English sh in "shop"), making "México" pronounced as [ˈmeʃiko]. At the time, Spanish j represented the voiced postalveolar fricative ([ʒ], like the English s in "vision", or French j today). However, by the end of the fifteenth century j had evolved into a voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant as well, and thus both x and j represented the same sound ([ʃ]). During the sixteenth century this sound evolved into a voiceless velar fricative ([x], like the ch in Scottish "loch"), and México began to be pronounced [ˈmexiko].[21]

Real Academia Española
, the institution in charge of regulating the Spanish language, was established in 1713, and its members agreed to simplify spelling, and set j to represent /x/ regardless of the original spelling of the word, and x to represent /ks/. (The ph spelling underwent a similar removal, in that it was simplified as f in all words, e.g. philosophía became filosofía.)

Nevertheless, there was ambivalence in the application of this rule in Mexican toponyms: México was used alongside Méjico,

Real Academia Española
itself recommends the spelling "México".

In present-day Spanish, México is pronounced [ˈmexiko] or [ˈmehiko], the latter pronunciation used mostly in dialects of southern Mexico, the Caribbean, much of Central America, some places in South America, and the Canary Islands and western Andalusia in Spain where [x] has become a voiceless glottal fricative ([h]),[22][23] while [ˈmeçiko] in Chile and Peruvian coast where voiceless palatal fricative [ç] is an allophone of [x] before palatal vowels [i], [e].

Normative spelling in Spanish

México is the predominant

Spanish Royal Academy recommended that México be the normative spelling of the word and all its derivatives, even though this spelling does not match the pronunciation of the word, but that both forms with “x” or “j” are still orthographically correct.[24] Since then, the majority of publications adhere to the new norm in all Spanish-speaking countries even though the disused variant can still be found.[25] The same rule applies to all Spanish toponyms in the United States, and on some occasions in the Iberian Peninsula, even though in most official or regional languages of Spain (Asturian, Leonese and Catalan
) and Portuguese, the x is still pronounced [ʃ].

See also

  • Mexican state name etymologies

References

  1. ISBN 9681602951
    9789681602956
  2. ^ Rafael Romo (26 November 2012). "After nearly 200 years, Mexico may make the name official". CNN. Retrieved 4 January 2014.
  3. ^ Historia de la Ciudad de México Archived 2007-02-03 at the Wayback Machine Gobierno del Distrito Federal
  4. ^ Decreto Constitucional para la Libertad de la América Mexicana Archived 2013-05-20 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ ¿Puede ser libre la Nueva España?
  6. ^ "Universidad Anáhuac". Archived from the original on 2009-01-22. Retrieved 2007-04-15.
  7. ^ A Nahuatl Interpretation of the Conquest Archived 2012-03-16 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ^ Constitución federal de los Estados Unidos mexicanos (1824)
  9. ^ Federal Constitution of the United Mexican States (1824) Archived 2016-04-16 at the Wayback Machine (original scans with Spanish and English text): Texas Constitutions, University of Texas at Austin; also see Printing History Archived 2013-08-07 at the Wayback Machine
  10. ^ Constitución Federal de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos (1857)
  11. ^ Constitución Política de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos (1917)
  12. ^ 1917 Constitution of Mexico, Official Site of the Mexican Government (English)
  13. ^ Mexico's President Calderon seeks to change country's name
  14. ^ Aguilar-Moreno, M. Handbook to Life in the Aztec World, p. 19. Facts of Life, Inc. (New York), 2006.
  15. ^ a b Gobierno del Estado de México. Nombre del Estado de México Archived 2007-04-27 at the Wayback Machine. (in Spanish)
  16. ^ Karttunen, Frances. An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl, p. 145. University of Oklahoma Press (Norman), 1992.
  17. ^ An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl - Frances Karttunen p145
  18. ISBN 9681602951
    9789681602956
  19. ^ "Mexica - Gran Diccionario Náhuatl".
  20. ^ "Mexicatl - Gran Diccionario Náhuatl".
  21. ^ Evolution of the pronunciation of x Real Academia Española
  22. ^ PronounceNames.com· (23 September 2012). "How to Pronounce Mexico - PronounceNames.com" (Video upload). YouTube. Google Inc. Archived from the original on 2021-12-14. Retrieved 12 December 2013.
  23. ^ Canfield, D[elos] Lincoln (1981), Spanish Pronunciation in the Americas
  24. ^ Real Academia Española Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas
  25. ^ "Mexico" Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary
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