Monday, May 05, 2008

What's in a name ?

Was watching the news this morning about a report of a cyclone in Burma...

Wait, I thought they are called Myanmar ? I have been using and hearing that name for a long time now. I thought they had changed it eons ago...

So I checked this morning. According to Wikipedia :

On 18 June 1989, the military junta passed the 'Adaptation of Expressions Law' that officially changed the English version of the country's name from Burma to Myanmar, and changed the English versions of many place names in the country along with it, such as its former capital city from Rangoon to Yangon (which represents its pronunciation more accurately in Burmese though not in Arakanese). This prompted one scholar to coin the term 'Myanmarification' to refer to the top-down programme of political and cultural reform that led to and followed in the wake of this renaming.[6] This decision has, however, not been subject to independent legislation and no national referendum was held to decide this change by the people.[1] The official name of the country in the Burmese language was Myanmar, and the official name of the country in English was Burma ever since the country gained independence from Britain in 1948. Within the Burmese language, Myanmar is the written, literary name of the country, while Bama or Bamar (from which "Burma" derives) is the oral, colloquial name. In spoken Burmese, the distinction is less clear than the English transliteration suggests.

The renaming proved to be politically controversial.[7] Opposition groups continue to use the name "Burma," since they do not recognize the legitimacy of the ruling military government nor its authority to rename the country in English. This name change was recognized by the United Nations, China, India, Singapore, Thailand, Lao, Vietnam, Bangladesh, ASEAN, and Russia. However it was not recognized by many western governments such as the United States, Australia, Canada or the United Kingdom, which continue to use "Burma," while the European Union uses "Burma/Myanmar" as an alternative.


And according to CIA Factbook :

Country name:
conventional long form: Union of Burma
conventional short form: Burma
local long form: Pyidaungzu Myanma Naingngandaw (translated by the US Government as Union of Myanma and by the Burmese as Union of Myanmar)
local short form: Myanma Naingngandaw
former: Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma
note: since 1989 the military authorities in Burma have promoted the name Myanmar as a conventional name for their state; this decision was not approved by any sitting legislature in Burma, and the US Government did not adopt the name, which is a derivative of the Burmese short-form name Myanma Naingngandaw


So what does it show when you see this :



And this :



Can't see the subtle difference ?

Hint : Note the country name and the city name...

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