Explanation of the names of Burma/Myanmar

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The renaming of Burma to Myanmar in the English language, decided by the Burmese military regime in 1989, has been controversial. The following is a detailed explanation of the names of Burma/Myanmar as used in the Burmese and English languages.

1 Burmese names
2 English names
3 Adjective oddities
4 Notes

[edit] Burmese names

In the Burmese language, the country Burma/Myanmar is known as either Myanma () or Bama (). Myanma is the written, literary name of the country, while Bama is the oral, colloquial name of the country. Burmese, like Javanese and other languages of Southeast Asia, has different levels of register, with sharp differences between literary and colloquial language.

The colloquial name Bama is supposed to have originated from the name Myanma by shortening of the first syllable (loss of nasal "an", reduced to non-nasal "a", and loss of "y" glide), and then by transformation of "m" into "b". This sound change from "m" to "b" is frequent in colloquial Burmese, and occurs in many other words. Although Bama may be a later transformation of the name Myanma, both names have been in use alongside each other for centuries.

The first time the name of the country appeared was in a Mon inscription dated 1102, inside which the name was spelled Mirma. The first record of the name in a Burmese inscription is dated 1190, in which inscription the name was spelled Mranma. Today in Burmese the name is still spelled Mranma, but over time the "r" sound disappeared in most dialects of the Burmese language and was replaced by a "y" glide, so although the name is spelled "Mranma", it is actually pronounced Myanma. In Chinese, the name appeared for the first time in 1273 and was recorded as 緬 (pronounced "Miǎn" in Mandarin). This is still the name used by Han Chinese and other East Asians, such as the Vietnamese today.

The etymology of Mranma remains unclear. One often heard etymology, which is given official credence in Myanmar, is that the name comes from Sanskrit Brahma, which is the name of the realm of the gods, from where came the first humans. This interpretation of the name was spread to India by some Buddhist monks from Ceylon and, although the usage is no longer current, Burma/Myanmar was historically known in India as "Brahma-desh" ("Brahma-land"). This etymology, however, is rejected by most linguists.

In the decades preceding independence, independence parties were in search of a name for the new country to be born, which would be made up not only of Burmese speaking people, but also of many minorities. In the 1920s, some favored the name Myanma, which had been the name applied to the old Burman kingdom destroyed by the British in the 19th century. In the 1930s, the left-wing independence parties favored the name Bama, as they thought this name was more inclusive of minorities than Myanma. Indeed, the Burmese puppet state set up by the Japanese occupation forces during the Second World War was officially called Bama. However, at the time of independence in 1948 it was the name Myanma that was chosen for the new country. This name has been the official name of Burma/Myanmar in the Burmese language ever since 1948, while the name Bama is used by Burmese people in colloquial conversation.

Despite the controversy in the years preceding independence, it remains certain that historically (before the 20th century) both the names Bama and Myanma referred only to the polities established by Burmese speaking people in the Irrawaddy River valley, and neither of these two names included the current minorities of Myanmar. Historically, there has never been a name for the whole country Burma/Myanmar, which is in part a creation of the British colonial authorities, who annexed to their colony of Burma some peripheral areas (inhabited by non-Burmese speaking people) which had never been part of the old Burman kingdom.

[edit] 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 adopted by 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 Yangon 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 with 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 medial "r" in "Burma" is absent in standard 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. Minorities, 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. 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. However, as in Oxford English orthography, the "r" indicates lengthening of the vowel. 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 recognised by the United Nations, but several countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia 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].

[edit] Adjective oddities

According to the government sponsored naming pattern, the country is known as "Myanmar" in English. The adjective derived from the country's name is "Myanma" (no final "r"). In Burmese, the word Myanma, when used as a noun, is pronounced in the low tone (long "a"), whereas when used as an adjective, it is pronounced in the creaky tone (short "a"). To reflect this, the 1989 commission decided to drop the final "r" in the English adjective "Myanma" (since the final "r" indicates lengthening in Oxford English). Most people, even in Myanmar, are unaware of these subtleties, and so we find both "Myanma Airways" (correct spelling) and "Myanmar Airways" (incorrect spelling, but used officially anyway). Some English speakers have even coined the adjective "Myanmarese" to follow English rather than Burmese grammatical rules, which has no official recognition inside Myanmar.

Again according to the official government naming pattern, the name of the dominant ethnicity of Myanmar, whose people speak the Burmese language, is "Bamar" (again, final "r" only added to denote a long "a" in Burmese). Thus, Myanmar is a country inhabited by the Bamars plus many minorities. The Bamars and the minorities are all known as Myanma people.

In common English usage, the country is known as "Burma". In British usage, inhabitants of Burma, no matter what their ethnicity, are known as Burmese, while the dominant ethnicity (speaking Burmese) is known as "Burmans". The language of the Burmans, however, is known as the Burmese language, not as the Burman language, although confusingly enough the "Burmese" language is considered one of the Tibeto-"Burman" languages. In American usage, the meaning of Burmese and Burman are often the opposite of British usage: Burman refers to all the people of Myanmar, while Burmese refers specifically to the Burmese speaking ethnicity dominating the country.

Note that the Myanma[r] Language Commission's position on the name of the country in English ("Myanmar", which it says includes all the peoples of the country) is inconsistent with its position on the name of the language ("Myanma", which is only spoken by the Burmans, not the other peoples)—another reflection of the fact that the Commission was not presided over by linguists.

Correspondence of Myanmar government usage and British usage: