OT: "Burma" (no longer Re: OT: Latin subject-verb agreement)

It may be a spelling pronunciation, but there's a purely phonetic
component as well, perhaps conditioned by exposure to English
exolects.  When i hear a non-rhotic English speaker say a word like
/bV:m@/, what I hear is "/br\=m@/ with a British accent", even without
ever seeing it written down.


On 12/29/07, Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> wrote:
> Quoting "T. A. McLeay" <conlang@...>:
>
> > caeruleancentaur wrote:
> > >> "T. A. McLeay" <conlang@...> wrote:
> > >
> > >> The Burmese words for "Burma" and "Myanmar" contain no /r/.* For
> > >> instance, "Myanmar" is "Myanma" in Burmese, and "Burma" is "Bama".
> > >> The <r> represents a low tone because low tones are long and
> > >> long /a:/ is represented in non-rhotic English as <ar>. Americans
> > >> pronounce an /r/ that does not exist in the original word, because
> > >> it is based on an orthography not intended for them.
> > >
> > >> [*]: Historically the my- of "Myanmar" was mr-
> > >
> > > Fascinating!  Who knew?  But I'm wondering if we should limit the /r/
> > > to Americans.  I copied the following from the Wiktionary entry.
> >
> > Unfortunately I can't read a lot of them (a lot have been turned into
> > codes) but, I suppose, they've borrowed it from American English or
> > they've borrowed it from English English and don't necessarily pronounce
> > the /r/ or they've done the same thing as American English and
> > misinterpreted the English transliteration. Given the Japanese "Biruma",
> > the last one seems to be the most likely.
>
> For the European langs that use the spelling 'Burma' I'm willing to bet they
> simply took the spelling from English English. In Swedish at least, the
> pronunciation is simply derived from the spelling: [b8r\ma] (modulo
> dialect).
> This is the usual fate of the names of distant places in Swedish.
>
> More interesting are the forms like "Birmania" - was there perhaps an
> English
> alternative spelling 'Birma'?
>
>  Andreas
>
> [snip]
>

--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>