What do you say Portorican or Puertorican?

This morning I heard a young black guy on my bus say "...Elia, she's Portorican or somethin'. Her boyfriend is a big black dude..."

"Portorican" seems to be the way most Americans say it and perhaps rightfully so. However, having been exposed to much Spanish language and Spanish-American history, I'm one who now says "Puertorican." How do you say it?

(Factoid: Puerto Rico, "Rich Port" in Spanish, was originally the name of San Juan Harbor. Later, the name became applied to the whole island. The native Taino (Carib) Indian name for Puerto Rico ,"Boriquen" means "Land of The Valliant Ones" and is still sometimes used buy Puerto Rican writers as a poetic name for the island in both Spanish and English.) Germanic and Slavic pronunciations of the name include 'Portorikaner', and 'portorikan'.

In Spanish is it not "puertoriqeuño"? Anyway, I saw "porto rican".

That's because it was commonly spelled "Porto Rico" in English so this pronunciation has hung around.

In English I say [p_hO4o_c"r\ik_hIn] or [p_hO4@"r\ik_hIn].

One thing to note is that Spanish permits both "portorriqueño" and "puertorriqueño." This makes sense considering the fact that historically, Spanish <ue> (phonetically [we]) only occurs in stressed syllables in Spanish (from historical /O/ which is 95% of such cases...words like "frecuentar" are peripheral exceptions since they're not from historical /O/ like "puerto" is). Since the vowel in "puerto" is stressed but the one in the adjectival form of "Puerto Rico" is not, it's not surprising that it can receive /o/. It's probably been the power of analogy and reanalysis that has led to the other form, "puertorriqueño."

In English I say [pOr\4@"r\iko] for "Puerto Rico" and [pOr\4@"r\ikn=] for "Puerto Rican".

<<That's because it was commonly spelled "Porto Rico" in English so this pronunciation has hung around.>>

Yeah, I've seen that spelling in old maps.

<<Since the vowel in "puerto" is stressed but the one in the adjectival form of "Puerto Rico" is not, it's not surprising that it can receive /o/.>>

That's sorta like how the synthetic superlative of "bueno" can be either "buenísimo" or "bonísimo".

Speaking English, my pronunciation of "Puerto Rico" sounds like "Porto Rico"

Speaking Spanish, it is true to "Puerto Rico".

I would say something like "porterican".