Officially corrupt placenames in Americas if given much more illiterate populaces

Fenestella

Banned
Let's suppose the populaces in early colonial Americas were as illiterate as the populaces in Medieval Europe were (a few examples of vernacular corruption: Bononia > Bologna, Boulogne; monasterium > -minster, Münster ; Lutetia Parisiorum > Paris), could we please have a list of plausible officially corrupt placenames in the Americas on municipal level, provincial level, and national level (perhaps like Philadelphia > Philly, America > 'Murica)?
 

Deleted member 97083

In Medieval Europe it was also a case of many centuries passing, multiple conquerors and languages moving in and changing names that way. There was simply a longer period of time for placenames to diverge in Europe than in the Americas. That being said, quite a bit of place-name corruption in the Americas has occurred already since the colonial era.

Remember that European settlers of the Americas also mispronounced the native names which in many cases led to the current names.
e.g. The Wôpanâak (Wampanoag) word Masach8sut (Muhswatchuiset) became the English word Misswadchueeset, which became Massachusett, which became Massachusetts.

Names from other European languages were also modified. One example is English pronunciations of cities, states, and rivers from Spanish names. For Los Angeles, every vowel in the English pronunciation /las 'ændʒələs/ is different from the Spanish pronunciation /los 'anxeles/.

Also, if English was universally spelled phonetically, and the spellings of city names were changed to reflect the local pronunciation, a lot of cities and states in the U.S. especially eastern U.S. would be as distant from their original names as some of the cities in Western Europe. The conservative and irregular spelling of English conceals many of the pronunciation changes that have happened.
 
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A lot of places on the East Coast were spelled several different ways into the 1800s, like Charleston, SC, also spelled Charles Town, Charlestown, or Charles Towne, or Plymouth, MA, also spelled Plimouth or Plimoth. Although this is less "corruption" and more the fact that English spelling was very fluid back then.
 
I find the term "corrupt" rather amusing since it implies a language purity that doesn't really exist.
"Language change" is a more linguistically correct term.

Obtaining such change for placenames derived from native names is fairly easy as that happened anyway due to unfamiliarity and lack of writing.
Doing such for the European ones is hard because the familiarity is higher and written sources exist. If the literacy drops as the OP suggests then that also implies connections with Europe has decreased too else literacy would be reimported. We basically need a mild apocalypse, one strong enough to break connections with Europe for generations but not strong enough to wipe out all the colonies (I'm assuming colonial era here rather than a modern apocalypse). Then we need a couple of centuries for language changes and then we've got things like Nyok, Bawshta, and Nai Joiz.
 

Fenestella

Banned
I find the term "corrupt" rather amusing since it implies a language purity that doesn't really exist.
"Language change" is a more linguistically correct term.
Corruption is so-so. Linguists used to jargonize the phenomenon as juicy as bastardization. They now re-jargonize it as dull as language change? My word, linguists these days are corrupt.
 
You should see some places in upstate NY - this is OTL. Cairo is pronounced “KEH-ro”, Madrid is pronounced, as far as I can tell, “MAD rid” (as if they were two different words), and Delhi is pronounced “Dell-high”.

I’m sure some others have humorous pronunciations from their states
 
There are places in America that have different pronunciations than their counterparts in England- Norwich, Berkeley, etc. There's also alternate spellings like Wooster/Worcester.
 
You should see some places in upstate NY - this is OTL. Cairo is pronounced “KEH-ro”, Madrid is pronounced, as far as I can tell, “MAD rid” (as if they were two different words), and Delhi is pronounced “Dell-high”.

I’m sure some others have humorous pronunciations from their states
Cairo in upstate NY is pronounced KA-ro with a long A. Delhi is pronounced as it is in Indian city. I'm not aware of a Madrid, NY but you are correct for the spelling for New Madrid, MO famous for the earthquake fault.
 
Isn't that Cairo pronounced differently than the Cairo in Illinois, pronounced "Kay-RO" IIRC although that might not be how a local pronounces it.
 
Cairo in upstate NY is pronounced KA-ro with a long A. Delhi is pronounced as it is in Indian city. I'm not aware of a Madrid, NY but you are correct for the spelling for New Madrid, MO famous for the earthquake fault.

Delhi is pronounced "dell high" rather than "dell-e". Nice small SUNY there.
 
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Let's suppose the populaces in early colonial Americas were as illiterate as the populaces in Medieval Europe were (a few examples of vernacular corruption: Bononia > Bologna, Boulogne; monasterium > -minster, Münster ; Lutetia Parisiorum > Paris), could we please have a list of plausible officially corrupt placenames in the Americas on municipal level, provincial level, and national level (perhaps like Philadelphia > Philly, America > 'Murica)?

I don't think literacy had anything to do with it. The language simply changed, just as languages change now even though a lot more people can read and write. The only thing that's different now is that spelling now is fixed, whereas back then it changed along with the pronunciation.
 
Cairo in upstate NY is pronounced KA-ro with a long A. Delhi is pronounced as it is in Indian city. I'm not aware of a Madrid, NY but you are correct for the spelling for New Madrid, MO famous for the earthquake fault.

Upstate NY also has Lima, pronounced LYE-muh, instead of LEE-mah, by the locals.
 
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