Hammurabi or Hammurapi? Neanderthal or Neandertal? Genghis Khan or Chinggis Khan? Inca or Inka? Chac or Chaak?

Spelling questions such as these come up frequently at National Geographic magazine. Because of our in-depth research and tradition of consulting experts for articles, we tend to adopt more scholarly terminology than do other general-interest publications.

That’s why in the mid-nineties, we dropped the “h” from Neandertal, based on the advice of scholars who said that spelling better reflected modern German orthography and would soon supplant the traditional spelling—Neanderthal. We added an entry to the National Geographic Style Manual and proceeded forward way ahead of the pack.

Unfortunately the pack never caught up with us. Neandertal did not take hold, and today, in the world of the Internet and search engines, using a variant spelling causes difficulties. So now, with an audible sigh of relief from our digital media folk, we’ve decided to reverse our style and go back to Neanderthal.

In our 1996 article on Genghis Khan we stuck with this familiar spelling but acknowledged that modern scholars consider “Chinggis” a better transliteration of the Mongolian. A colleague who has traveled in Mongolia says Chinggis is prevelant there. Maybe some day that will happen here in the U.S.

On a 2008 supplement map on ancient Persia, we mentioned Hammurabi, using the familiar spelling, breaking with our long-standing policy of spelling the Babylonian ruler’s name Hammurapi, the scholarly preference. To continue to make an exception to our main spelling guide—Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary—in favor of an unfamiliar form of the name seemed too academic.

Our style manual has an entry on Inca, explaining that although many scholars consider Inka a more accurate transliteration, National Geographic magazine will continue to use the traditional spelling, Inca. We have, though, changed spellings of other Quechua words (Cuzco to Cusco, Huari to Wari, Nazca to Nasca, and Tiahuanaco to Tiwanaku).

As for Chac, the Maya rain god, should we continue to use Chac or switch to Chaak, now preferred by Mayanists?

I know what the experts want us to do, but not what readers prefer. So let us know: Do you want National Geographic in the spelling mainstream or off to the side, floating along with the scholars?

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