of course it was the old belize river & particularly the old capital
city of belize situated near its mouth that the new country name
was coopted from
the pirates name was wallace
& if you wonder how they ever got belize from wallace
this involves a common west indian slippage from w to b
that makes worthless sound like buttless etc
tho the locals are practically impossible to understand anyway
but to add confusion
they used to call the country be aitch
for bh as in british honduras
which was also the unit of money as in bh dollah
even for some time after the name was changed to belize
& which also sounded very much like belize
unless my ears deceived me
& since belize city had always accounted for the great
preponderance of the national life & livelihood anyway
the rest of the country being til recently mostly wild jungle
& the transition from colony to nation having been so drawn out
the sounds & meanings of all these names & things may well
have belended & continue to blend even into the present day
as if the name had never been changed at all
but just sort of blurred
at least in some ears
--- In
BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com, Kevin Meynell
<kevin@m...> wrote:
>
> >I've request to you: my friend must write a composition when
and why
> >British Honduras changed name into Belize
>
> The name changed from British Honduras to Belize in June
1973, in
> anticipation of independence (which was delayed until
September 1981 due to
> a border dispute with Guatemala). I'm not sure that anyone
really knows
> where the name Belize comes from - it may be of Mayan origin,
but it's also
> been suggested that it's corrupted from the name of a pirate
who sheltered
> in the reef.
>
> More information can be found at:
> http://www.countryreports.org/history/belhist.htm
>
> Regards,
>
> Kevin Meynell