What do YOU say? Has there been a slight leavening in the longstanding debate as to what we call it (Burma or Myanmar)? To get the background on the debate, read…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Burma
Now — what’s your opinion? And which is the PROPER way to call it?
My son, who lived in Myanmar for 4+ years, assures me that the locals exclusively call it Myanmar. “Burma” is a corruption of Bomar, the name of the dominant people group, which was used by colonial powers.
We are referring to it as Myanmar and are looking forward to being able to bring our ship, Logos Hope, there later this year!
If you want to learn more about us, check us out at http://www.omships.org
I’ve never gotten why Westerners balk at using “Myanmar”, other than “Burma” is perhaps a little easier to say.
There’s plenty of other places that have changed their names (e.g., Dahomey to Benin, Rhodesia to Zimbabwe, or Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, etc.), and the new names were quickly accepted.
Burma is the original name. It was changed during the army time at the instruction of the Buddhist monks, who like driving based on their vision in 1965, directed the powers to change diving from the left to the right. So for me it is Burma.
Quite often we have names for places in our mother tongue that does not agree with the name the locals use – for example Germany in English but Germans say Deutschland; Austria and Oesterreich; or the old city name in English is Brunswick which comes from the original Lower German name but now in High German it is Braunschweig. Why do we have to make a (political) statement about the name used – it is a traditional language name that may vary and should have to be changed after every regime change. No wonder people do not know there geography – you have to relearn everything every few years and give up.
One other thought on the difference of names…
For a lot of peoples (especially tribals), the names that they call themselves, in their own languages frequently are frequently a variant of “the people” or “our people”, and the word used for outsiders may be related to “enemy” or “heathen” or “barbarians”, or some other pejorative term.
I know that the people in Ecuador that Jim Elliot and Nate Saint were trying to reach are sometimes called “Auca”, but that’s a name that comes from another tribe, the Quechua. I believe that name means something like “savages”. The name that that they use for themselves is “Wodani”, and probably a variant of “the people”.
With Myanmar/Burma, knowing the diverse ethnic and religious mix there, it may be that which name is preferred depends on who’s saying it. I’m guessing, but it seems entirely possible that peoples that are allied with and friendly to the ruling regime use Myanmar, and people who are opposed prefer using Burma, as a way of voicing that opposition.