Phuck if I know.
Why is 'Philippines' spelled with a PH, but 'Filipino' is spelled with an F?
Submitted 4 weeks ago by 58008@lemmy.world to [deleted]
Comments
6stringringer@lemmy.zip 4 weeks ago
funesto@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
And is pronounced “Pilipino” by most Filipinos. But my Filipino wife, who grew up in South Carolina, had a friend who said “Flippin-o”. So that’s what we say now, lol.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
“Flippin-o” sounds like if a kids show tried to create a fake curse word, so they could curse on air, without being fined by the FCC.
It’s all a bunch of smoo!
starlinguk@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
That’s not because of the spelling but because of the language. Just like Indonesian, the language doesn’t distinguish between f and p, because they’re basically the same letter (one is a plosive and one is a fricative but that’s it). In Indonesian you’ll hear fancake and coppee, for example.
NutinButNet@hilariouschaos.com 4 weeks ago
I knew a Pilipino family that seemed to pronounce it both ways.
I tend to think it’s due to those around them. Like this kid I knew from school who came from the UK; with us as his friends, he had an American accent like the rest of us. But as soon as he talked to his parents or his sister, he had this heavy English accent. He seemed to be aware of it but had no control over it.
WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 4 weeks ago
English, misspelling and never admitting mistakes go hand in hand.
DebatableRaccoon@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
Don’t forget ‘far too inconvenient to correct now’
mechoman444@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Because the English language is rife with tradition that makes the language intentionally more complicated.
I have postulated for years that you can just get rid of ph from the language entirely and it will make absolutely no difference in how we say the words.
T00l_shed@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Hey phuck that!
mechoman444@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Exactly!
schwim@piefed.zip 4 weeks ago
I had no idea either but I did find this while Googling(Kagi-ing?)
https://grammarphobia.com/blog/2010/04/why-is-filipino-spelled-with-an-f.html
valek879@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Back in my day we used to call it “searching”
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Here’s a Nintendo game. It’s Halo for the Xbox360.
Archer@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
People that use Kagi are the Harvard grads of search engine users
one_old_coder@piefed.social 4 weeks ago
Kaging is bad for French people, and especially Occitan in the south, as caguer (loosely translated to caging in English) means “to take a dump.” https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/caguer
macaw_dean_settle@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Use a better search like Bing or duckduckgo. googol sucks and was never any good.
heyfrancis@lemmy.ml 4 weeks ago
Hey Filipino here - i honestly don’t know the answer (or maybe I’m too old to remember my history class) but as per Wikipedia
The name Filipino, as a demonym, was derived from the term las Islas Filipinas ‘the Philippine Islands’, the name given to the archipelago in 1543 by the Spanish explorer and Dominican priest Ruy López de Villalobos, in honor of Philip II of Spain.
nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
that doesn’t answer the question of why F vs PH
ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
When it become a US colony they changed it.
That was printed on maps. The people still referred to themselves with the original spelling.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
Why is Kansas, “cansus”, while Arkansas is “R-cansaw”?
Glytch@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
America explain!
Evade5415@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Kansas is named for the Kaw People Native American Nation (or Kanza) and Arkansas is named for the Quapaw Nation. Algonquian-speaking people originally referred to the Quapaw as “Akansa”. French fur traders called them Arcansas.
I grew up in Kansas and we called it Ar-kansas.
dogzilla@masto.deluma.biz 4 weeks ago
@Evade5415 @nostupidquestions We should rename Kansas to Ur-Kansas. You know, to avoid confusion.
modus@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I have a relative in NJ who says Arkansas like Kansas with the hard S. He says it’s a local thing but I think he’s just trying to be different.
Evade5415@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
That’s what I learned to call it growing up in Kansas.
prime_number_314159@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I think most of those “this is how the locals say it” things are clinging to a fading past. My favorite was a Kitchen Nightmares episode where the owner tells Gordon Ramsay that New Orleans is pronounced “Naw-Lins” (with some drawl, not sure how to write that exactly), but every other time before and after, he says “New Orleans”.
I grew up near Baltimore, which people variously insisted should be “Bee-mer”, “Balmer” or… A couple others. The only one I’ve seen actually play out is residents of NYC primarily referring to it as “The City”, but that one is also pretty normal, so it makes sense that it would survive.
OCATMBBL@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I grew up in NJ and I have never heard anyone say it that way unironically.
Witchfire@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Why is Houston “hew-stown” while Houston is “house-ton”
Triasha@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I assume Houston Street is named after a man that pronounced his name House-ton. Houston the city was named for Sam Houston, the first President of the Republic of Texas. He pronounced it Hews-ton, so that’s what we call it.
expatriado@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
was an Spanish colony for 300 years, Filipino sounds Spanish, otherwise it would be “Philippine”
saltesc@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I always remember the ‘pp’ by imagining it as some suburban estate. “Phillip Pines”
bright@piefed.social 4 weeks ago
How did this question never occur to me before? Now i need to know the answer too
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Lol
Guangzhou is spelled with the Pinyin
But the local language is not called “Guangzhouese”, its Cantonese, but the city is not called “Canton”
lmao
Also: Petition to rename my city to “Filadelfia” 🤭
scutiger@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Canton was originally the transliterated name for the province of Guangdong, which is why the language is called Cantonese in English, from guǎngdōnghuà.
The name Canton being applied to Guangzhou came later.
SpiceDealer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
Two things: Competing colonial interests and the orthographic differences between Spanish and English
The Spanish Empire took control of the Philippines and named the named the islands Las Islas Filipinas or just Las Filipinas which is still today used in Spanish to this day. It was named for the Spanish king at the time of the conquest: Rey Felipe II. Why the change from FE-lipe to FI-lipinas? I don’t know.
Towards the end of the 1800s, The Spanish Empire is crumbling and their last remaining territory (Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and Las Filipinas) is taken by the USA. The US changes the name to the English-inflected The Philippines because English for, some reason, uses to two “F” sounds: “F” and “PH.” Spanish only has one: “F.”
MrSelfDestruct25@fedinsfw.app 4 weeks ago
My issue with gif and graphical
TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip 4 weeks ago
Gotta say, pronouncing it as /dʒɪf/ is just top tier trolling. Everyone knows that /ɡɪf/ is the only one that actually makes sense, but some people intentionally choose to pronouns it wrong anyway. Steve Wilhite saw an opportunity to leave his mark on the world by trolling the hell out of everything, so he took it. Who could resist an opportunity like that.
ripcord@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
But the f is for format
brownsugga@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Probably something to do with Tagalog vs English, and the English named the Philippines
Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 4 weeks ago
The only relevant spelling is the original language.
What foreigners are doing in their languages has no meaning. You can spell it however you like, change it every year etc.
Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz 4 weeks ago
Do you mean Spanish or Tagalog?
jdr@lemmy.ml 4 weeks ago
Proto-Austronesian
ThomasWilliams@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
That would be latin ? I’m pretty sure that’s where “Phillipines” originates.
freeman@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Greek name meaning he who likes horses, the name of Alexander the great’s father, then a Spanish King’s who colonized the islands.
Therefore actually spelled with a Φ and the issue being different transliterations of it.
sbeak@sopuli.xyz 4 weeks ago
The Philippines were named after a Spanish king, King Phillip, or Felippe in Spanish. Given that the country was first controlled by the Spanish for ages, then the Americans, I’m guessing that at first the Spanish name for both the people and the territory was used, but when the Americans took over, the English-ified name of the territory was used, while the Spanish name for the people stuck as colonial powers use the name for the territory more often? Perhaps the Filipino diaspora also plays a role in this. I don’t know, just my guess.