Re: Burma v. Myanmar (was: A BrSc a? & Nyuu Romaji)

At 5:32 pm -0400 22/4/02, Douglas Koller, Latin & French wrote:
[snip]
>I worked with a native Burmese speaker back in Taiwan, and what I
>gleaned from him, IIRC, is that these are two separate words for the
>same thing. I know no Burmese, but to my ear, his pronunciation of
>what we spell "Burma" was something along the lines of /bVmV/, while
>"Myanmar" was sump'n like /mjVmmV/ (I know from him that there are
>three tones in Burmese, but don't know what they are or how to mark
>them in romanization). IIRC, he said you could kinda-sorta use them
>interchangeably, but there were political considerations involved
>(ie: if a government official is standing within earshot, use
>"Myanmar"; if among friends, anything goes).
When a language has irregular spellings, 'spelling pronunciations' are
always a possibility, e.g. the surname 'Menzies' /"mINiz/ is now often
pronounced /"MEnzi:z/.   I wonder if /mjVmmV/ is not, in fact, a spelling
pronunciation adopted by the present military regime - together with its
insistence that the outside write {Myanmar} - to distance itself from the
"old Burma".

Just a thought.

Ray.

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