Explanation of the names of Burma/Myanmar: Encyclopedia II - Explanation of the names of Burma/Myanmar - English names

Explanation of the names of Burma/Myanmar - English names

In English, the name officially chosen for the country at the time of independence was Burma. This was already the name that the British called their colony before 1948. This name most likely comes from Portuguese and was borrowed into English in the 18th century. The Portuguese name itself came from the Indian name Barma which was borrowed by the Portuguese from any of the Indian languages in the 16th or 17th century. This Indian name Barma may derive from colloquial Burmese Bama, but it may also derive from the Indian name Brahma-desh; it is not possible to say with certainty.

In 1989, the military regime of Burma/Myanmar set up a commission in charge of reviewing the place names of Burma in the English language. The aim of the commission was to correct the spelling of the place names of Burma in English, in order to discard spellings chosen by British colonial authorities in the 19th century, and adopt spellings closer to the actual Burmese pronunciation (compare with what happened in India with Calcutta/Kolkata). Thus, for instance, Rangoon was changed to Yangôn to reflect the fact that the "r" sound was abandoned long ago in Burmese and replaced with a "y" glide.

As for the country's name, the commission decided to replace the English name Burma by Myanmar. There were three reasons for that. First, Myanma is the official name of the country in the Burmese language, and the aim of the commission was to have English place names aligned with Burmese place names and pronunciation. Second, the military thought that the name Myanma was more inclusive of minorities than the name Bama, and so they wanted the English name of the country to reflect this. Finally, the military regime has long been suspicious of the colloquial Burmese language, which it perceives as subversive. The regime is promoting the literary language, and so it wanted to get rid of the English name "Burma" which mirrors the colloquial Burmese name Bama.

The final "r" in English "Myanmar" is absent in Burmese Myanma (much as the middle "r" in "Burma" is absent in Burmese Bama). The reason why the commission added a final "r" in English was to represent the low tone of Burmese, in which the word Myanma is pronounced. In the low tone, the final vowel "a" is lengthened. The commission was influenced by Received Pronunciation and other non-rhotic English English dialects, in which "ar" (without a following vowel) is also pronounced as long "a" (often given as "ah" in American English). However, in variants of English in which final "r" is pronounced, such as standard American English, adding this final "r" leads to a pronunciation very different from the Burmese pronunciation.

In the Burmese language, there have been controversies about the name of the country since the 1930s, but the decision of the military regime in 1989 carried the controversy into the English language. Although the military regime thinks that Myanma is more inclusive of minorities than Bama, it was shown above that historically this is not true, Myanma being only a more literary version of Bama. Quite the opposite of being more inclusive, opposition parties and human rights groups contend that the new English name "Myanmar" is actually disrespectful of the minorities of Burma/Myanmar. Minority people, many of whom do not speak Burmese, had become accustomed to the English name "Burma" over the years, and they perceive the new name "Myanmar" as a purely Burmese name reflecting the policy of domination of the ethnic Burman majority over the minorities.

Criticism also concentrates on the fact that the military regime, not democratically elected, has no legitimacy to change the name of the country. However, it should be remembered that the military regime did not change the official name of the country in Burmese, but merely changed the name of the country in English. Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi at first opposed the new name "Myanmar", pointing out at the hypocritical justification of inclusiveness put forward by the military regime, but more recently she has been reported to have used the name "Myanmar" in some of her speeches in English. Opposition parties, although they oppose the English name "Myanmar", do not oppose the official Burmese name Myanma, and no opposition party is proposing to use the colloquial name Bama as the official name of the country.

Finally, a lot of criticism also focused on the lack of scientific soundness of the reform. Only four language scholars sat in the 1989 commission, while the majority of the commission was made up of military officials and civil servants with no particular knowledge of linguistics. The new names adopted often lacked serious scientific credibility, and some appear quite bizarre. The final "r" at the end of the name Myanmar is an example of these oddities adopted by the commission. Another example is the state of Arakan, renamed Rakhine in English, which only makes sense if one knows that the commission meant the name Rakhine to rhyme with "alpine". Thus, the work of the commission cannot be compared with the serious scientific work of, say, the scientific panel that created the pinyin alphabet in the People's Republic of China. In many cases, the new names adopted by the commission are not helping foreigners to pronounce Burmese place names closer to actual Burmese pronunciation, and they only make things more complicated by creating a new set of names alongside the older names.

The new name "Myanmar" has been recognized by the United Nations, but several countries, including the United Kingdom and Canada, sometimes refer to it as Burma.

The official U.S. State Department stance on the Myanmar/Burma name dispute, as stated on their website [1], is: "Due to consistent, unyielding support for the democratically elected leaders, the U.S. government likewise uses 'Burma.'" During the 2005 ASEAN summit in Thailand, junta Foreign Minister Nyan Win complained about the U.S. insistence of calling his country "Burma" instead of "Myanmar" as the ruling junta renamed it more than a decade ago [2].

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "English names", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki