Aug 22, 2005

i found myself stumped by this question recently: why is "filipino" spelled with an f, while "philippines" is spelled with ph?

no one in the newsroom could answer that one, surprisingly. i did manage to find the country's wikipedia page, which states that the spanish originally called it Las Islas Filipinas. (originally, only the spanish colonizers were called filipinos. natives were "indios.") so it seems to be a case of anglicizing the country's name, yet leaving the people's name with the original spanish F spelling. wacky.

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