Tha mi duilich airson a' Bheurla a-mhàin:Seonaidh wrote:A rèir an òrdugh, "Meagsago" amsaa, ach cha toil leam sin, air sgàth 's nach bi na M...aich a' cleachdadh "cs" no "gs" airson "x" ann an "Mexico" - tha i coltach ri "j" san Spàinnis. Dè mu dheidhinn "Mechiogo", "Mechigeanach" amsaa?
According to the Holy Writ of Goc, "Meagsago" etc, but that doesn't please me, on the grounds that the M..icans don't use "cs" or "gs" for the "x" in "Mexico" - it's like "j" in Spanish. What about "Mechiogo", "Mechigeanach" etc?
This is an issue for me, and not just because I live on the US-Mexico border. "Meagsago" seems to be the standard, accepted Gaelicization. I have resisted using it--I decided to simply use the Mexican spelling, México, when I write in Gaelic nowadays. My objection is this Gaelic word is based on the Anglicization of the Spanish word--on how it is pronounced by English speakers and not how it is pronounced in Mexico. Your observation is correct, IMO--and if we wanted a Gaelicization of the actual name of the country, it would have to be something like "Mèchiogo". When I hear Mexicans here say it, the "x" is exactly like the initial "ch" in Gaelic, and not like the "gs" they have been trying to use for the English "x." Likewise, that middle "i" is like the Gaelic "i" and not the schwa sound that English speakers turn it into. And a third point, you often hear a pre-aspiration before the "x" from native Mexican-Spanish speakers--not unlike what you would before a "c" in Gaelic, which is not something you'll hear in the English mangling, I mean, rendering. Ultimately, "Meagsago" is the English word, just with a more complicated, Gaelic spelling that does not relate very well all to the source language of the word because it's imitating English and not the source language!
I don't wish to take on the GOC--I'm certainly not qualified to do so. But this approach is wrong, or in the very least, problematic. Why this is problematic in Gaelic is that it is Anglocentric, not Gaelicentric. If we defer to English whenever we speak Gaelic, what's the point? As my Gaelic teacher says, if you're thinking in English and using Gaelic words and spelling, it's not Gaelic--it's just a more complicated form of English. One critic of the Gaelic used by BBC announcers has already commented that if this kind of Anglocentric thinking in Gaelic keeps up, in 50 years, Gaelic will just be another dialect of English. That's not the way I want this language to go.