Spelling Controversy
There is some debate over what the correct spelling of the city's name in English should be; due to the general tendency in English to ignore accent marks in foreign words, many dictionaries refer to the city by an adaptation (Mahon) of its Spanish (Mahón) and Catalan-language name (Maó, archaically: Mahó, Mahón and Mahon), while many other sources vouch for using the Spanish and Catalan spelling (i.e. with diacritics) in English-language publications.
Nevertheless, despite this, Maó (in Catalan) is the only official form according to Catalan orthography and approved by the local, regional and national government. Before spelling standardization, the forms Mahó, Mahón and Mahon were alternatively used in Catalan.
The Catalan language is itself subject to regional variation, with each of the Balearic islands having its own subdialect. In Minorca, the local variety called menorquí (Minorcan) was somewhat influenced by English as result of the British occupation of Minorca.
Read more about this topic: Port Mahon
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