You know those little quirky things that bug you inexplicably more than they should? The word “moist” drives some people mad (whereas I use that adjective all the time!) and some people add an “r” in Washington when it just doesn’t belong. The spelling, “Majorca” makes me roll my eyes so aggressively that I’m pretty sure they momentarily vanish.
“They” say, “both are correct!” But I must beg to differ.
Before I arrived to this mediterranean paradise, the spelling seemed about 60/40 on the internet; the majority being “Mallorca”. I was baffled about why there would be two ways to spell the same place, and I didn’t like it. Being an island off of Spain, “Mallorca” made the most sense to me but I had to wait and see what the preferred spelling was once I was physically there.
The moment we walked out of the airport I never once saw the spelling “Majorca”. Not a single time, nope, none, nada. Oh, and I looked, constantly, because it drove me nuts. People may say, “Warshington”, but it’s always always always spelled “Washington.” It wasn’t a language thing, like how United States is Estados Unidos and Germany is Alemania in Spanish. The Spanish and the Catalans both spell it Mallorca.
I had to get to the bottom of it. Ready for the verdict? *enthusiastic drumroll*
Mallorca (pronounced “my•or•kah”) is the original and correct spelling. *victory dance*?
Mallorca and Majorca are pronounced the same way. So, what happened here? Why do we have two spellings? Turns out, we can blame the British tourists for this annoying new way of spelling Mallorca. Apparently, they were having too difficult a time wrapping their brains around the Spanish double “ll” being pronounced as a “y” so they decided to create a new way to spell it: Majorca. Honestly, it seems like it would be butchered just as much being spelled with a “j”, but that’s just me.
It seems ridiculous that the spelling was changed in order to cater to non-locals, in order to pronounce a name the same exact way. As much as I slowly stumble through my very shaky Spanish, even I’ve gotten the “ll” down pat. It just takes practice. Should all names be changed to accommodate tourists? No. English speakers that don’t know Spanish will most certainly say, “La play•a” instead of “La ply•a”, but we aren’t changing all the Spanish beach names to accommodate those tourists. We correct them and move on.
Mallorca has it’s own culture and history and should be respected just as it is, no matter how difficult it is to pronounce “y” when seeing a “ll”. I think that’s what gets my goat: it feels disrespectful to just…change a name. Don’t like the double “ll”? Oh well, it’s an Island off of Spain, so too bad! When visiting another culture, we should at least make an effort to show respect – and a big part of that is not changing the way they spell their Island.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed my rant, leave me a comment! 🙂
