Re: OT: Latin subject-verb agreement

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]