Talk:Myanmar

'Myanmar' or Burma

The international name change is about as sensible as the rest of the world being forced to call Germany 'Deutschland' or Hungary 'Magyarorszag'. Yes, rename it Burma. That's what we the British called it and that's good enough.

Do you still call the United States your "colonies"? When a country establishes itself as a soverign nation they have the right to change their name, and we should all recognize that. There is a difference between Germany and 'Deutschland' and Burman and 'Myanmar' Germany is the English translation of 'Deutschland'. 'Myanmar' is an entirely new name, chosen by it's government and people. Sure it's not as easy to pronounce, but there ya have it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.245.193.10 (talk) 10:19, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, a country can rename itself, in its own language. But it cannot dictate the word for its country in other languages. The previous commentator is right: "Germany" is the English rendering of "Deutschland." By the same token, however, "Burma" is the English word for "Myanma" (which is not a new name in Burmese) or "Bama." Thus "Burma" is as legitimate as "Germany" as an English word. There is no reason to dispense with it.--LapisQuem 14:21, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Germany is not demanding we call it Deutschland. The name "Burma" has a highly charged history vis a vis the British history in the area. The United Nations recognizes Myanmar, so I don't see how the country is "dictating" anything. While there is no such thing as a completely neutral term, using "Burma" in opposition to the UN and the government's wishes is clearly a political move. Wikipedia should stay out of this and use the most simple method- the name the country wishes to be called. Again, this is not Germany and there is clearly a controversy. 218.152.32.149 05:43, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I xtrongly suggest we all call this country Burma as it shows we do not recognise the barbaric and inhumane idiots who run Burma. The UN should never have recognised Myanmar!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.142.209.165 (talk) 06:41, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

20,000 Monks Protest

This section needs to be examined. The first paragraph has way too many differing points to be cohesive. For example, one sentence says that "Myanmar’s comedian Zaganar and star Kyaw Thu brought food and water to the monks." Although it is an interesting tidbit, it seems out of place in the abbreviated article section. Achika54 18:55, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Human rights are closely related to economic development. So I think Burma needs stability and economic development, not revolution. So, I support the government. No government allows rebellions, including US government. If I organize a lot of people with the purpose of overthrowing the US government, I guess I will be arrested or beaten to death too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.151.71.18 (talk) 20:07, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Or the nazi-germany government...Slipzen 00:14, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Changes

There should be something limiting editing of this page. Many people have been vandalizing it so if it could be brought down to a few honest people who will only put in necessary edits, that would be good.

Name conflict

It should be called Burma. The US and UK Governments do not recognise the change of name made by the unelected military junta. Even the BBC does not use the word "Myanmar". [1] —Preceding unsigned comment added by NOKRAPP (talk • contribs) 01:37, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree, it should be called either, Burma (Myanmar) or Myanmar (Burma). -- (Cocoaguy ここがいい _contribs^talk) 00:09, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

It is inaccurate to refer to the country as Myanmar on the English Wikipedia, as its proper English name is Burma. It's no different than calling Deutschland Germany, Ísland Iceland, etc. End of discussion. Xizer 01:19, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

It's time to call Burma "Burma," and to rename Wikipedia's article accordingly. "Burma" is an English rendering of a name Burmese use for their own country. No one calls it colonialism when we refuse, in English-language documents, to call Germany "Deutschland," or to call Ireland "Eire." If there is any issue of colonialism in this discussion (and I don't see one), it's that those outsiders who comply with the whim of the country's rapacious oligarchy by assenting to their renaming of Burma as "Myanmar" by fiat are complicit in a gross form of colonialism by native elite. If Qaddafi decided to rename Libya "Earth Paradise One," must the world comply? Yes, "Myanmar" has a legitimate use by Burmese themselves, but the question is not what should Burmese call their own country. That is their business. The question is: what is the English word for this country? The answer is "Burma." English people do not object to French people who choose to call England "Angleterre." Americans do not object when Bulgarians call America "Sasht." What the people of other countries choose to call them is their business. Congress could not decree that the Bulgarians must refer to the United States as the United States, and the "State Peace and Development Council" cannot decree what English speakers must call Burma. (What would the "State Peace and Development Council" think if we decreed that its new name is "The Gathering of Pigs at the Trough"?) "Burma/Myanmar" is NOT "neutral point of view," because it legitimizes an arbitrary interference in the English language. Besides its clumsiness, it makes no more sense that a decree from London that the French must call England "Angleterre/England," as a compromise to insisting that the French call England "England." —Preceding unsigned comment added by LapisQuem (talk • contribs) 14:53, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

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! Therefore we should change the name from Myanmar to Burma! This is the correct name of the country. The change will reflect a neutral POV as opposed to Myanmar which infers a recognition of the military rule in Burma.

I agree! I don't think it should be listed as Yangon, or Myanmar. The renaming is not recognised by most countries, and is a symbol of the military dictatorship. Many local people still refer to it as Myanmar, and use this name as a symbol of non violent resistance to the military government. I need not mention of course, that the military government changed the name in the ninties. As Wikipedia is meant to be a symbol of freedom of speech and democracy, we should not recognise this name and instead have it as "Rangoon" and "Burma". Segafreak2 22:38, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is politically biased, it means it supports the West and censors oppositions. It recognises what has officially been recognised in the US. Wikipedia is not a symbol of freedom of speech and democracy, it is simply a propaganda rag, it is a political PR tool and a propaganda website. I suggest you read Wikipedia Policies and understand what it wants you to believe what it stands for. Okkar 08:04, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Many countries do not have democratically-elected legislatures nor any institutions of democracy for that matter (e.g. China, Laos, and Vietnam, to name a few). The military junta may be illegitimate, but that does not mean that we cannot ignore the local conventions of English name spelling (MOS conventions), which were changed in 1989. Showing "support" for nonviolent protest itself presents a POV; besides, Wikipedia is meant to be a neutr

al source of information, not a bastion of pro-democratic ideology. And you yourself said something about how many locals refer to Burma as Myanmar in English, which is correct. Expatriate Burmese are more likely to use the same terms recognised by pro-democracy movement (e.g. Burma, Rangoon, Pegu). --Hintha 03:05, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

As far as I am aware, the names "Myanmar", "Yangon", etc. are in use by the United Nations and other international organisations, even though some of their members don't like the use of the name - it's in use for official purposes, so it should probably be left. Whilst I don't support the illegitimate regime and its alleged abuses, let's stick with what's on recognised internationally. JROBBO 01:29, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

In my view even if every sngle Burmese rose as one and acclaimed the name of their country to be Myanmar we should still use Burma. It's Burma in English. I don't care what it is in Burmese. (Yes I know I'm losing to the PC advocates but I'd say the same for Calcutta, Madras and Florence.) Avalon 20:12, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

You should care what it is in Burmese, because this article is about their country. Have you no respect for burmese people? English doesnt rule the world and you should stop living the dream of old colonial empire. Okkar 17:55, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

(Shakes head wearily.) I will try to explain once more. This is an English encyclopædia. We use English. The English word for that country is "Burma". It has a different name in Burmese and probably different names in German, Italian and Japanese. All of these are important for German, Italian and Japanese encyclopædias. I do not take offence that Germans call my country Australien or that Frenchmen call it Australie. Why should you be offended that we want to use English? Avalon 08:35, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

More importantly, why should you have a say in what we should call our country? this maybe English wikipedia, but it doesnt have the right to insist upon calling other people country any name that is convienient in English. Do you insist that "Thailand" be called "Siam" and Mumbai be called "Bombay", because these are the English names? Isnt it a bit ignorant to suggest that "we call it what we want, cos it is English wikipedia"? Okkar 09:11, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

No, Yes, No. Avalon 09:56, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Okkar is disingenuous by bringing in Mumbai-Bombay as some sort of justification for a spurious us-and-them argument. Read up about this and you'll find exactly the same kind of political loading there and in many other cases of name-changing around the world as in the Myanmar-Burma question. Plenty of Hindi-, Bengali-, Tamil- etcetera-speakers call the city Bombay both in their language and in English. There are well-documented political reasons why Hindu nationalists (BJP-aligned) went through the renaming exercise during their brief term in power. In a similar way, for instance, some placenames in Zimbabwe were renamed at independence. This renaming was done to "Shona-rize" names that had an Nguni bent. (ZANU, supported by the largely Shona majority, defeated rival liberation movement ZAPU, supported by the minority Nguni-speaking Matabele. They then mounted a purge of the minority Matabele, which included the well-documented Bulawayo massacres.) For example, Gwelo became Gweru. But (and this is my point) the change has been repeatedly painted, whether out of ignorance or mischief, as being a move from Europeanized to authentic Africanized forms. Think about this before getting swept along in some sort of misguided PC fervour for new names. Things aren't always as simple as they seem or as some would have us believe. Brockle 14:22, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

It is amusing to read the funny and childish discussions by some editors that to use Burmese is an insult like 'N' word. (May be they need to please their political masters. If not they would be arrested again!) We all Burmese knew that Myanmar is associated with SLORC/SPDC and most of the opposition is using Burma as a sign of resistance. Calling Burma is not an insult to anyone. If some of you think so, try to avoid using yourselves Bama/Bamar/Burmese. May be start to use Myanmarese? (I am amused that the person who said it is an insult, call himself Burmese. Is he trying to insult himself?

In a certain sense, it is an insult like the 'N' word, which is exactly why Bush and the British use it. It's their way of deriding the uppity Wogs who think they can use some name for their country other than what is acceptable to the Big White Guys. --Marvin Diode 22:25, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Wiki should stand on the neutral ground by using Burma/Myanmar. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Darz kkg (talk • contribs) 15:34, 6 February 2007 (UTC).

I support this view. Let's use Myanmar/Burma. I will change the article if nobody have contrary views. 80.202.209.139 23:07, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Article name remains as it is according to UN charter. We will not allow the use of Wikipedia as a political playground. Keep your politics out of here please. Okkar 02:09, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

No, I agree the article name should be changed. Many people refer to this country as Burma. 80.202.209.139 12:17, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

United Nation refer to this country as "Myanmar", it stays as it is. We are not here to accomodate the political divide. Okkar 10:32, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Accomodating political divide is exactly what we do by using Myanmar as page title158.37.149.25 14:09, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

According to History and treaty signature of King Thibaw , He used Myanmar and all the old kingdom use Myanmar , Burma was only use by colony governmet and Pro imperialism. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.81.64.34 (talk) 15:20, 24 April 2007 (UTC).

The name conflict of Burma to Myanmar becomes a popular context in the Western arena. Over here, my argument is that the Burmese made mistake and confusion themselves. Since the conversion(adaption) of Burmese language from Mon and Pali, they have wrongly pronounced about 5 alphabets File:Mon alphabet.jpg and they can't pronounce 3 vowels such as File:Mon alphabet1.jpg. In the case of pronouncing Rangoon was right because they have a letter 'File:Mon vowel.jpg' stand for 'Ra'. In the case of pronouncing Sri Lanka, they prounance 'Thiri Linka' which is wrong. The alphabet 'File:Mon conson.jpg' stands for 'Sa' in Pali. Then, Burmese language was regarded as 'writing is the correct, although reading is the phonetics'. Kwantonge 01:38, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

This is really a pointless argument, that has been exacerbated by various western governments. I have lived in Myanmar, and to the people that live there, and in their language the country's name is Myanmar. They identify themselves according to their ethinicity as Burmese, Mon, Shan, Rakhine, Kachin, etc. I rarely ever heard anyone, except perhaps the generals, call themselves Myanmar, in the sense of the nationality. Regardless, the name of the country now, is the Union of Myanmar. Burma is a legacy name imposed on the country by the British colonialists. No one seems to bring that up. The country's rulers (whether they are legitimate or not) want the country to be called Myanmar. Accept it and move on! I am not trying to defend the regime on this point, I am just saying that I think it is really a moot point. There is so much more to write about Myanmar, we should just drop the name issue and move on. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Surmuppen (talk • contribs) 13:33, 28 April 2007 (UTC).

This is an interesting conversation and it would be interesting if there were an entry on naming and colonialism. I will start off by stating that I believe "unbiased" is a myth. And people that I have met from the 'land of pagodas' have used "Burma". Their reason was that the junta, the men with the guns, changed the name and not the overwhelmingly popularly elected government. It is true that Burma was the name given by the British colonialists. The junta uses this for the reason for the name change. The thing that always bothered me about the junta's reasoning was that I had always seen colonialism as the exploitation of a land's people and resources, which is exactly what so many trans-national corporations had been doing with the junta. Too me it seemed Orwellian (in a strange twist of fate, George Orwell also happened to be stationed in Burma as a colonial ----fill in blank---- before coming to hate imperialism). Many corporations have in the last decade and a half ceased operations in the country often stating that business cannot be done there without directly benefitting the junta and the human rights abuses done by the regime, including forced slave labor. It is of course, understood all that pay attention to such things, that the reason is a business one by the corporations. Consumer boycotts and bad P.R. are bad for the bottom line. It is thus less profitable to do business in the country than to continue exploiting the people, land, and/or the general "business climate" that authorities influence. It had seemed that the junta was colonizing its own population with the corporations, which have been a historic tool of imperialism/colonialism.

If one moves their mouse over links to the various languages, some list a variation of Myanmar and some Burma, with local pronunciations no doubt, since some spoken languages do not have certain sounds. Perhaps what is the dominant usage leads? They all seem to have something like "also known as the other name". It seems like this might be the best bet. Yet it shows wikipedia's bias: to dominant power structures, but not necessarily popular. Good or bad? Just noting and important for readers to recognize the bias and perhaps for wikipedia to acknowledge this to its readers? I am not merely saying the ruling junta, but dominant power structures in general. The United Nations, the United States which has been the most dominant power structure there, corporations which are the most dominant power structure in the US (and perhaps globally), and states in general which along with corporations are the two most dominant power structures in the world today. I am not advocating for a popular vote on the name of the article on Burma/Myanmar, as this too would have biases towards those with access to a computer with internet. Here again, towards those with power; i.e. those who can use their resources on such instead of survival/food/shelter/etc.

The argument the junta uses for Myanmar is compelling and with the ability to redistribute power/respect to those who have historically been abused as less than human with colonization. Since colonization cannot happen without the dehumanization of and labelling of 'the other'. Self identity, you respect us for who we are and what we call ourselves, our land, ways we see the world, etc can/could go a long way towards decolonization. I believe Edward Said has written on this type of topic. I've never read any Said, only read about whay he has written.

Personally I believe we should use the terminology that people living in an area call things. Like Thailand instead of Siam or Côte d'Ivoire instead of Ivory Coast. But how do we adjust when names in another language are in such popular usage? For example English speakers use Japan rather than Nihon or East Timor rather than Timor-Leste. Then again, perhaps even all these new names bow down to dominant power structures of the area? Maybe in a very rural setting someone has never even heard of the name of the dominant power structure, i.e. the country in which they live and just call "the land" where they live by some other name. Here we should not consider such people "backwards". Isn't this rather arrogant of us and kind of how colonization begins? The view that the modern day nation-state is superior to other forms of human organization is too a bias. Anyway, I still think it sad that the UN uses the name Myanmar and simply see this as bias towards the dominant power structures. Dominant in this case meaning powerful because of money and/or guns. Wikipedia too is a power structure. I'd go with Burma with a cultural/historical explanation that some also call it Myanmar because of X reasons. But since wikipedia has its biases, naming both seems like the best it can do. 68.78.215.244 00:15, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

This is the English Wikipedia, so we use the English name as per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). As English is not an official language, the name used by the government is of little consequence to the English name. If English speakers call it Burma then Burma is, by definition, its English name. Thehalfone 22:52, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Kind of like English speakers use the words "Japan", "Germany", and "Korea", while in those languages there are different words for those countries? Makes sense. Then the words should be reversed and Myanmar should be a couple sentences in like the word Burma currently is or maybe not even until further in the article talking about Burma's form of government/unresolved political situation. I just entered the word "Nihon", the pronunciation for the Japanese word for Japan, into the wikipedia search and it redirected me to the page for Japan. User:Theralforne's argument makes a lot more sense than the "UN uses it argument". Since the UN is a political organization it is not neutral. 67.53.78.15 18:43, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

This is English Wikipedia. The disputed name-change of the country was for the English iteration. The major English-speaking countries in the world are Britain, Ireland, USA and Australia. The article specifically says that all these countries' governments use the name Burma. So surely the article should be moved? By the way, Thehalfone, exactly how is English "not an official language"? U-Mos 18:27, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

One presumes he means it is not the official language of Burma, U-Mos. XINOPH | TALK 00:14, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that given this dispute over the name, this article should be slapped with an NPOV tag until this dispute is settled. How can an article using the military regime's name for the country be from a neutral point of view? All in favor?XINOPH | TALK 00:14, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I, uh, 2nd that. 67.53.78.15 01:59, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Aye! The countries name is Burma. Supporting 'Myanmar' is to support an illegal military junta. Wikipedia doesn't want to take a stance. Fine, but Wikipedia *is* taking a stance by calling the article Myanmar, and the stance is the wrong one! What's next? Taiwan being considered a part of China because the Chinese government fails to recognise it as an independant nation? I vote for NPOV tag. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.26.160.72 (talk) 02:30, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok so a country was named (however) So the people use the name So the people are happy with it ...and they call themselves Burmese. So then (recently) an illegal military junta steps in, removes the democratically elected government, by force. They change the name, purely for arbitrary reasons, without public approval. The Burmese people continue to call themselves Burmese. The illegal military junta renames their country Myanmar. The vast majority of nations refuse to acknowledge the new name, because of the status of the illegal government. Wikipedia claims to not want part in politics, so calls it Myanmar. In my mind's eye, that's tantamount to endorsing the junta, which is tantamount to endorsing every evil thing that happens to the people of Burma. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.26.160.72 (talk) 02:37, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

The illegal military junta is hardly a recent thing. They've been ruling for significantly longer then Myanmar/Burma was a democratic republic. Heck even the new name has lasted longer then Myanmar/Burma was a democratic republic. Also, I don't see any evidence the vast majority of nations refuse to recognise the name. The vast majority of Western governments perhaps but the vast majority of nations are not part of the 'West' and I strongly suspect the vast majority of governments acknowledge the new name. Also your claim that recognising the military government as the current government, illegitimate or not somehow means you endorse or the evil things said military government does is ridiculous. If anything, refusing to recognise that the military government is the current government just makes it worse IMHO. Nil Einne 06:46, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

So the U.S. steps in because they really like Alberta's oil sands. Our puny country of only 32 million people is easily over powered by the 300 million+ machine that is the U.S. So they oust our government and call us Kanata State. So this guy will just go - "Sure, ok. It's now called Kanata State." Even tho' every heart living here calls themselves Canadian. ...feels wrong, doesn't it? ...and that's an invasion - a legitimate reason for a name change once a war is decided. We're talking about a country whose *democratically elected government* *still* calls itself Burma. The military junta is *not* the real government. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.166.15.245 (talk) 14:06, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

The BBC has chosen to use the proper name of Burma since it is an illegal regime who has picked a fake name - if its good enough for the BBC it should be for wikicensorpedia. --IceHunter 15:15, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I concur with the BBC comment. -172.216.183.174 21:33, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

The European Union uses Burma/Myanmar on the European Commission external relations page as well as in the names of resolutions linked on that page. From this page is appears that the EU recognizes "Union of Myanmar" as the official name, but uses Burma/Myanmar and sometimes Myanmar/Burma as reference names. With several other states including the USA recognizing the name Burma I think I can safely say that the name Burma is recognized internationally at least as much as the name Myanmar. I suppose we could find out what name the foreign ministers of each state use to come to a consensus if necessary. From a quick search on a couple of Western countries it appears to me that both names are always used to avoid confusion. I would recommend we use the name Burma/Myanmar like the European Commission does to avoid confusion.--Burzum 23:56, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Until this article is moved to my:United States of America, or even my:United States, credence cannot be given to any arguments that the English WP article should be at Myanmar instead of Burma. Putting it at Myanmar to begin with was a result of someone's hypersensitivity to the possibility that they might be seen as less than 100% neutral, which apparently in their mind means "English is wrong by default". Hardly neutral. 71.87.23.22 15:48, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

"Burma's democracy movement prefers the form 'Burma' because they do not accept the legitimacy of the unelected military regime to change the official name of the country. Internationally, both names are recognised." So I can only assume that Wikipedia calling it "Myanmar" is an endorsement of legitimacy for the junta that has controlled the country for 45 years against the will of the Burmese people. --75.58.86.135 19:06, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd support moving the page to Myanmar/Burma, to reflect common usage in the English-speaking world, while recognising the official name for the country. Tim Vickers 03:03, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually...I am a Burmese, and in our language, we call the country "Myanmar-pyay", which means "country Myanmar". "Myanma Naingngandaw" is an extremely formal name which has the same meaning. We also use "Burma-pyay" (I use this, actually, a lot of people use this). Oficially, however, "Burma" is in English, for international use (a long time back). "Burma" is actually like an ethnic group in the country, and all the ethnic groups, combined, were referred to as "Myanmar". That is why the name of the country was changed to "Union of Myanmar"; to include and unite all the ethnic groups. Just wanted to add that because I heard so many different infos about the name here. Wikipedia might have explained this somewhere, but still, I wanted to add it again.

However, people are against the new name due to the reasons Wikipedia, and some users here, noted. Even though the real name IS Myanmar, they feel it need not have been changed officially, especially because it was the regime which changed it. I have a neutral opinion..having been born and grown up in another country. However...if I were to choose, I support changing the name to Myanmar/Burma. Sumhtun 12:08, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

The safest course is to maintain a respectful distance and err of the side of conservativeness, nomenclaturally speaking. The name in English has been and remains Burma. The renaming by SLORC is controversial. Until such time as the people of Burma make it clear that it is they and not a repressive military junta that prefer the name to be Myanmar (and Yangon, &cet.), the present name should be conserved. I agree with the many edits here expounding this view or other views that nevertheless support the conservative argument (unsigned per LapisQuem, Xinoph, U-Mos, IceHunter, Avalon, Thehalfone & mult. anon. al.) Additionally, no matter what the people decide, the English name for now is Burma. If the people do decide on Myanmar, the English name may eventually transmute to Myanmar (or it may stay as Burma). SLORC may try to change the name by diktak. Burmese people may reject or eventually accept that. But the name in other languages cannot be decided by diktak and will be decided by usage, gradually. However, to insist on calling it Myanmar at the present time is so politically loaded it makes you wonder why there's even any debate about this (and why Myanmar prevails in the wiki article). Brockle 14:22, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

The US Department of State lists the country as Burma. Cmdrnmartin 15:51, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

IMO, the use of "Burma" as describing the post-1989 Myanmar nation is offensive. The country's official name is Myanmar. Why should certain westerners impose their will on an independent nation? The days of colonialism are over. The Burmese government which represents the Burmese people whether you like it or not, wants the country to be called Myanmar. And the argument that English speakers collectively refer to Myanmar as "Burma" is FALSE. I call Myanmar by it's proper name of Myanmar. So does CNN, NBC, The New York Times, and plenty of other English speaking media outlets. Most importantly the United Nations, which Myanmar is a member of, calls the country by its correct name of Myanmar. --Tocino 19:38, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

The United States does not recognize "Myanmar" as the country name in support of the PEOPLE that are in current struggle with the military over the country. In support of this movement the light is being taken away from Myanmar to focus on Burma. English-Wikepedia the United States Government does not recognize Myanmar! Burma for the people of Burma. A future that is grim awaits these people. All they want is your support. Will you give it? Gisela Gurdado San Bernardino, California

Who said that the people want their country to be called "Myanmar"?? They are against the name change. They may call the country Myanmar, but that's because it's that way in their language. They want the name to remain as "Burma", for the rest of the world to continue using the name "Burma". "Burma" is seen as the English name for their country, and there is nothing offensive about that. I myself use Burma only (even when speaking Burmese), and not Myanmar. On another note, CNN refers to Burma as "Myanmar, also known as Burma". Some countries, like USA for example, use Burma. The new name was created by the regime which should not have been in power at all. That's why I think the name of the article should be changed to Myanmar/Burma. Sumhtun 06:21, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I object to the idea that Wikipedia should be taking a political stand by preferring "Burma." I refer you to WP:SOAP. Bush and the British government, and the media which follow their lead, use "Burma" to express their disapproval of the government of this country. That's condescending and dismissive of the nation's sovereignty. The United Nations approach is correct. Wikipedia should take its cue from the UN. Find some other way to express your support for "regime change." --Marvin Diode 06:33, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Here, here. And while we're there, let's change all references of Germany to Deutschland, Japan to Nihon-koku, India to Bhārat Gaṇarajya, etc, etc.

I admit to disagreeing with the junta, but WP needs to either follow the "English" spellings of names, or the official ones. Mixing and matching is pointless. IanYates 08:46, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

As I stated earlier the argument that most English speakers refer to Myanmar as "Burma" does not hold up to the facts. First of all there is no way to prove what the average English speaker prefers. Also the majority of American media call the country by its official name of Myanmar. Do the majority of American media also call Germany "Deutschland" or Ireland "Eire"... No. --Tocino 16:27, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

If I would have known it was wikipedia's policy to defer to the language used for confusions over naming, I would have agreed with "Burma" a long time ago for being non-political on wikipedia rather than being long-winded above. (for a while I wanted both toe be used, leading with Burma/Myanmar) Using Myanmar is when wikipedia is being political and violating its own policies. I don't care what the US government uses or even the UN. As a native English speaker, I will continue to use Burma. The major corporate media in the US defer to power structures and profit. They could not get interviews otherwise. So I ignore their - at this point in history - wrong English usage. 67.53.78.15 22:48, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

If, after having invaded Iraq, the USA decided that Iraq was now called "Georgebushland", would those who go with the military government of Burma's unilateral decision to change the name of that country also use Georgebushland? Hell, if you're going to swallow the Burmese government's line you may as well also call the treatment of protestors a legitimate and proportionate means of dealing with wholly unjustified protests.-Riedquat 23:36, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Human rights are closely related to economic development. So I think Burma needs stability and economic development, not revolution. So, I support the government. No government allows rebellions, including US government. If I organize a lot of people with the purpose of overthrowing the US government, I guess I will be arrested or beaten to death too.

Human Rights in Myanmar

I have created a seperate heading for this as is found the in DPRK and Iran articles given that the lack of respect for any form of human rights in Burma. A seperate section would highlight this whereas as it is currently subsumed under the "politics" section it is not immediatly obvious Cxk271 10:56, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

How about the lack of respect for human rights in the United States of America? You know, the whole throwing out of habeus corpus, Gitmo and the war crimes of Iraq. It's one thing murdering citizens of your own country. It's quite another to do so in a foreign war of aggression.-anonymous observation 28-9-07

Is there a policy on random, irrelevant comments like the one above? Because I wouldn't just want to go deleting or crossing out other people's entries, no matter how irrelevant they are.68.225.147.109 05:44, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

"That may play in the sticks, but this is Capital City"

What's the deal with the capital? Editors keep switching it back and forth from Yangon to Naypyidaw. The only source I've seen other than Wikipedia that claims a change of capital is this Chinese "People's Daily". Does anyone have a cite for this from a more reliable source? L0b0t 06:30, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

The Guardian provides an article ([2]) as does BBC News ([3]). There are many other articles if you search "Pyinmana", "Naypyidaw" or "Nay Pyi Taw". I believe anonymous editors keep on reverting the capital back to Yangon because of a bias (favouring the stances of western countries, and the exiled government) because they believe the current government is illegitimate, although it has jurisdiction within the country. --Hintha 22:04, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I do not think this is a bias attitude to take. It isn't some fringe US-imperialist stance to say that Aung San Suu Kyi is the properly elected and rightful leader of the Burmese people. This happens to be the stance of the vast majority of countries whose readers use the English wikipedia, not to mention the UN. Therefore, I see no reason why any creedence whatsoever should be given to any decision made by the illegal government. If the Chinese and Japanese apologists want to propagate the revisionism by the illegal government on their language wikipedia, fine, but not on the English wikipedia. This is just one of those cases where there is no ambiguity at all over who is right and who is wrong. So continue to expect prompt removal of the illegal government's revisionist propaganda. --130.127.121.188 16:05, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Aung San Suu Kyi was not elected (she was General Secretary of her party)--National League for Democracy parliament members were elected to office. Provide me with a reference that states that Aung San Suu Kyi would have assumed the office of Prime Minister in the 1990 election. --Hintha 23:02, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Nope-- the NLD is the ruling party. In the 1990 election, even if those statistics are right (where did you get them? I've always seen that the NLD got 60% of the popular vote), it's irrelevant, because it's not how the system works. The NLD won 392 seats in the parliament out of an available 485 seats-- 80.82% of the parliament seats. That's a clear majority. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.135.230.130 (talk) 19:41, 24 April 2007 (UTC).

How do we proceed to name this area of land/'territory' if we take the stand that all governments are illegitimate or rather not being biased towards the legitimacy of governments? It is not a matter of one (the junta or the popularly elected NLD) being legitimate or even the defacto rulers of a land/'territory' being able to have their say on what the land/'territory' is called. Doing so gives legitimacy to governments, and thus a bias existent in wikipedia. To further attempt to reach the unreachable point of unbiased, we can say the powerful of the land, in this case being those with guns, call the territory Myanmar. Other centers of power call the territory Burma. Also, most of the people living there as well. We should not fail to note how these centers of power are centers of power. That is, how they got to be this way. In the case of the junta, by guns and by the power centers of other lands allowing it to be named as such. So, yes, other power centers, each individual person, bodies attempting to lay and legitimize the basis of conduct outside ones land/'territory' such as the UN, as well as the power center that is wikipedia. In at least not naming both as the name of the entry Myanmar/Burma or Burma/Myanmar, whichever, and instead choosing Myanmar alone, wikipedia is endorsing the name and the regime's rule. Wikipedia IS being biased, taking a POV. Whichever, it does not matter. Choose Myanmar/Burma if you wish. Just be slightly less biased. And yes, unbiased really is a myth. The seat of power from which the rulers operate should be noted, but the name of the entry should be corrected. It might also be noted what other power centers across the land do or do not recognize the change. Saying simply: the capital has moved, is a defacto endorsement of the regime. VeriGGlater 22:12, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Use the junta and opposition capitals. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.100.48.231 (talk) 21:39, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Just as an aside, the notion of legitimacy or illegitimacy of a government is entirely subjective. Many individuals in post-World War I Germany thought the declaration of a republic, without the consent of Emperor Wilhelm II, was illegitimate, and that the true government was Imperial, i.e. non-democratic. The Taiwanese Nationalist Chinese government considers the Communist government of the mainland illegitimate, and vice versa. The only objectively correct statement on one government or another is whether it is, de facto, in control of public affairs. --Chr.K. 15:20, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

The German comparison raises an interesting point - democracy isn't the issue, it's legitimacy (or at least acceptance). -Riedquat 23:41, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

pronunciation

Could someone please change the pronunciation guide to IPA, or else add a link to whatever system is used currently? As it is, the pronunciation key doesn't help.--345Kai 12:46, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it's pronounced "Mee-an-mar" (got it from Seinfeld) but I'll go check. _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  23:54, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it's pronounced in 2 syllables, "meean - ma" (rough transliteration), and not in 3 (e.g. "me-an-mar").--Hintha 04:45, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

In fact, several different English pronunciations are possible and used and recorded in dictionaries.[4] And Merriam-Webster’s was obviously quoted incorrectly; US pronunciation does not drop r at the end of syllables, and modern British pronunciation guides also usually include it and add that it is not pronounced in some kinds of English. --Espoo 08:14, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Fighting Peacock

I believe SimonBillenness seems to be misrepresenting "Fighting Peacock" as NLD "emblem". "Peacock" represent our country's flag before we were colonised by the British, hence why ABSU flag included a peacock emblem to represent our nation's struggle to gain independance from the British. Fighting Peacock on the other hand is the emblem of the "Student Front" (Kyaungthar Tat Oo) of ABSU. "Student Front" represent a wing within ABSU that includes a group of students, who sworn to sacrifice their lives for the greater cause in the name of their country. They are always at the forefront of ABSU and student lead demonstrations and they are the ones who always take the first strike from batons and galloping horses during the colonial era. It is a fact that many students have died under the flag of "Fighting Peacock" througout the history of our country. Although, "Student Front" was officially disbanded and banned along with ABSU during BSPP era, the stories of "Student Front" with their dedication, sacrifice, courage and honour has masmerized and captivated every generation of young students.

At the beginning of 1988 uprising, it was the students from High Schools, came out carrying "Fighting Peacock" flags along with their school banners when they marched through the streets of our cities. The 88 generation high school students immidiately assume the position of "Student Front" during the 1988 uprising and it was them who paid the highest price. NLD, as political party adopted the symbol of "Fighting Peacock" into their party flag after the uprising in order to honour the students of Myanmar, who were always at the forefront of the struggle for their country and those who lay down their lives in the name of "democracy" and "freedom". Fighting Peack is not just a mere representation of courage or freedom, nor is it a mere logo on the flag of a political party, it is much more than that. It a symbol that represents courage, honour and sacrifice of the "students" of Myanmar, it represent the history of our country's struggle from both foreign invasions and tyranny, it represent our forefathers and it represent the fighting spirit of the "students" of Myanmar. NLD and ASSK would not be where they are today, if it wasnt for those students waving "Fighting Peacock" flags in 1988. If you said you are for freedom and democracy, then honour those students who brought about the change, honour those students who gave up their lives so that NLD can sit and complain about how they have won 1990 election and still not in the office.

Thanks to a mixure of political correctness and pure ignorant, we all have forgotten the fallen heroes and the spirit of "Fighting Peacock". Instead of honouring them for their sacrifices, we sat by sideline and watch people like SimonBillenness exploiting "fighting peacock" to promote NLD and NCGUB. Is this the way their death should be honoured? They didnt die for NLD, they died for our country and now we are repaying their deaths by letting political parties exploit the "Fighting Peacock" symbol. It is an insult to suggest that "Fighting Peacock" represent NLD as NLD has done nothing to earn the honour and respect that goes with the symbol of "Fighting Peacock". It belongs to the students of Myanmar. It should be clarify in the description of NLD flag, otherwise, we are effectively rewriting the history of "Fighting Peacock" and dishonouring those students who gave up their lives during the struggle. Okkar 20:28, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

This misses the fact that the NLD flag includes the "fighting peacock." Mentioning the peacock in the description of the flag is simply stating a demonstrated fact. I'd suggest keeping the flag where it is but including the history of the symbol in another article. SimonBillenness 04:29, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

If you read properly you will see that NLD exploited the "fighting peacock" emblem in their flag. You mentioned in the description of the flag as though NLD's own fighting peacock, which constitute misrepresentation and disrespectful. I suggest you clarify the description accordingly or remove the flag all together. I'd rather remove the flag. Okkar 09:02, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I refer you to my previous comment. SimonBillenness 15:42, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I refer you to my previous comment and the one before, the flag should be removed since it is misrepresenting and misleading. Okkar 17:12, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

We appear to be at an impasse. Let's figure out a mutually acceptable compromise. I would be comfortable with you creating a new Wikipage specifically on the "fighting peacock" where you could include the full history of the symbol. Much of the information is in your post above. But leave the flag alone. SimonBillenness 02:53, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Like i said before, you need to edit the flag description first else it would get removed as it is misleading. Okkar 09:09, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Please just edit the description of the flag yourself but leave the flag itself in the article. SimonBillenness 13:16, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

If you dont remove the claims, i will remove the flag alltogether. Okkar 10:12, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

If the description of the flag is inaccurate, then edit the description or add the information you provided above for better balance and context. The current description of the flag is: "The flag of the National League for Democracy includes a 'fighting peacock' that is generally regarded as a symbol of freedom." Please tell us what is inaccurate about that description. SimonBillenness 13:48, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Fighting Peacock does not represent "Freedom", it represent courage, honour and sacrifice of burmese students, it is the emblem of "Student Front" of ABSU. Your description is not only inaccurate, but also misleading, misrepresenting and above all disrespectful. It appears that you are just using the word "Fighting Peacock" in order to promote NLD, instead of actually understanding the full meaning of it. If you dont know the meaning of it, you shouldnt include it. For someone of your standing, i.e. being Director of US Campaign for Burma and Amnesty International, it goes without saying that you should be well verse in this kind of information, after all you have been representing and campaigning for democracy in burma, right? (according to your organisation's namesake). How can you lobby for democracy in Burma and understand the struggle of our people, if you dont even know the meaning of "Fighting Peacock"? Perhaps you should change the name of your organisation to "US Campaign for NLD" instead? seeing as you clearly have not a lot of knowledge on the burmese democracy struggle, the role of students and the meaning of "Fighting Peacock". It seems you lobbyists have no idea about anything else if it doesnt involved NLD or DASSK. Okkar 14:41, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I edited the description of the flag as per your suggestion. In future, if you dispute the text included with the NLD flag, edit the description and don't just delete the flag. Thank you! SimonBillenness 14:48, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for editing the NLD flag description, Okkar. I just edited it for spelling and grammar only. I appreciate our collaboration over this. My best wishes to you. SimonBillenness 15:59, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Dont get all cheesy on me Simon, just becase we collaborated on this, that dont mean we gonna be having cold shower together on hot summer days! :-) Okkar 18:41, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.182.181.122 (talk) 18:00, 29 April 2007 (UTC).

Good Grief - these two dudes must have a lot of time on their hands. Far Canal 03:51, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Why are we insisting on Recognizing Militia Rule?

We are we insisting on recognizing militia rule in Burma, by havng soley Myanmar as the name? --Hayden5650 02:08, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Good question. The so called "government" is little more than a bunch of bullies who are defying the will of the people through overwhelming arms and the support of its neighbours. 204.52.215.13 07:30, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Would it not also be the case that describing (in the section "Government and Politics") the military junta as a socialist military dictatorship is surely a contradiction in terms? Soarhead77 16:58, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Although the military dictatorship may claim to be socialist, the World Social Website in it's article "Burmese military cracks down on escalating protests" (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/sep2007/burm-s27.shtml) describes the protesters as "... students, workers, monks, and the urban and rural poor challeng[ing] the military dictatorship, demanding democratic rights and improved living standards." The article notes that people cannot afford to send their children to school or buy medicine -- both of which are free in socialist societies. The ruling military junta began decentralizing economic control in 1989. Furthermore the military junta’s slashing of fuel subsidies last month is entirely in line with IMF and World Bank’s free market policies. It is a member of ASEAN, a a free trade organization whose policies include of opening up the country to foreign investors. And various global corporations and foreign governments have financed with the military junta government to gain access to Myanmar’s natural resources and have have been criticised for profiting from the brutal dictatorship. The characterization of the military junta as "socialist" is inaccurate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rczach (talk • contribs) 19:36, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Etymology section

According to the etymology section, the written/formal form of the country's name has always been, and still is, transliterated as "Myanma". Yet, the government requests that the country's name in English be called "Myanmar". Is this correct? The native language calls it "Myanma", but the native government specifically requests that English add an "r" at the end? In my little mind, that would be like Côte d'Ivoire asking other countries to call it "Côte d'Ivoira", or some such. Is there something more to this? -BaronGrackle 12:16, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Here's something more, from the CIA site: "local long form:" Pyidaungzu Myanma Naingngandaw (translated by the US Government as Union of Myanma and by the Burmese as Union of Myanmar)". So weird. You'd think we'd be able to agree on that sort of thing. Okay... if Myanmar uses "Myanmar" as its transliteration, while the U.S. uses "Myanma", then should we note in the etymology section that the native government has always called itself "Myanmar"? It sounds like "Myanma" is just the U.S. interpretation of how it transliterates. Thoughts? -BaronGrackle 17:20, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Maybe someone who speaks Burmese would better be able to help you here, but my understanding is that with Burmese being so different to English, you can't just transliterate each letter of Burmese into a letter of English. So maybe the 'a' sounding vowel at the end of Myanma is often pronounced with a slight 'r' sound too. Just speculation though. --Nathan (Talk) 11:42, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't speak Burmese but I do know the Burmese alphabet from being able to read and speak languages that use similar alphabets. From this I can tell you that the scholarly transcription of Myanmar would look something like "mran'mā", pronounced myanmah [mjənmɑː]. The last "a" is broad, as in most English dialects' pronunciation of "father". I suspect that the regime intends the terminal "r" to indicate this, based on (irony alert) colonial-era British English usage. One sees similar usages in Thailand (e.g., "far" for [fɑː]). Mrrhum 15:30, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Silly comparisons

This kind of sentence "It is somewhat smaller than the US state of Texas and slightly larger than Afghanistan" is ridiculous. This is Wikipedia not Americanpedia and we don't need every non-American country, city or region to be compared to an American state just because many Americans are so stupid that they can't understand sizes quoted in square kilometres or square miles. I'm just relieved that you don't refer to London as "London, England" or Slovakia as "Slovakia, which is in Europe" (like frequently happens on US TV). Let's develop a proper encyclopaedia and not a fact book for stupid people. 213.230.130.54 18:50, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• I wholeheartedly agree with most of your points, yet you may find that the distinguishing of "London, England" would be more commonly found in Canada than in the United States. Remember that self-centrism is a common worldwide condition. :-) -BaronGrackle 15:08, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Interesting tid-bit: The population of Myanmar is 127% larger than the population of Canada. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.245.193.10 (talk) 10:25, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

okkar

Would you mind declearing your political stance or stance on Burma/Myanmar? I have just gone through a lot of your edits and you refuse the agree with the stance of several democratic nations and refugees, inclding the exiled politicians, on about every count. You contantly accuse others for being a spokeperson for NCGUB and revert their edits. You have several warnings for your misuse of reverts on your user talk page. Claiming that you are neutral is a joke. Zarkow 125.24.209.24 10:41, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Name of the Article

Shouldn't this article be at the title that reflects common usage in English? In most news articles to this day, Burma is the term used (recent example). The article can of course also reference the name used by the military government. Icsunonove 02:39, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

The article gives me the impression that the UN calls the country Myanmar when refering to it in English. Since the English world is somewhat divided on the issue, we should go with what the UN says. Or we could apply our own naming conventions for the British/American difference. While this isn't the exact same issue, it is in principle. And while those conventions say to go with what the first major editor used, in principle they really just want you to leave things alone and not engage in any controversial movement. Though many English sources use Myanmar and many citizens of Myanmar use Burma, either of the most unbiased methods (in my opinion) support using Myanmar. Atropos 02:03, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I think your point about the UN is wrong; the UN doesn't "say" anything. They simply list what member countries ask them to list. I'm not sure what you are talking about with the major editor and the bit about "they really just want you". If most English sources use Myanmar, then that is correct usage. It is like Constantinople; Istanbul was not used in English until the 19th or 20th century. Icsunonove 18:19, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Note some people have argued the most common usage by English speakers in Myanmar/Burma is Burma but there has been no evidence for this. We know that the most vocal supporters of the democracy movement retain the name Burma and we also know that the majority of the population appears to support the democracy movement. However this doesn't prove that the majority of the population retain the name Burma. The reality is we don't know precisely because the military doesn't allow these sort of things to be known. Also, whether or not the government is legitimate is kind of irrelevant IMHO. The fact of the matter, is illegitimate or not, they are the current government. If and when a more democract government takes over and if they decide to readopt the name Burma then we can change the name. Finally I disagree with the view that only native speaker of English matter. What the country is called by non-native speakers of English is just as important. E.g. India, ASEAN etc Nil Einne 06:38, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Uh, I don't know where the last comment came from. Soap boxing? :-) So should non-native speakers of Chinese go change some Chinese dictionaries? hah. We are simply supposed to use what is common usage in English. If it is Myanmar, or Burma, whatever. It seems that by just looking at BBC articles, they use Burma, and my own opinion is that Burma is the more well-known term in English to describe this area. We'd have to figure out how to prove either one, I guess. Icsunonove 18:19, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

The last comment came in response to the numerous comments I've read in this thread an above seemingly claiming that only native speakers matter and that we're somehow legitimising the government by recognising that they've changed the name which a number of people have adopted. It was also a response to the unproven claim that Burma is preferred in Myanmar/Burma. The fact is, non native speaker have just as much right to influence a language as native speakers. If a Malaysian or a Singaporean or an Indian speaking English calls the country Myanmar then you have to consider their usage just as much as you consider an American or a Australia. Also, BBC is not the authority on naming countries Nil Einne 16:26, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

How does one measure common usage in English? Is there any evidence at all that Burma is predominant over Myanmar in the language? If one term is the dominant usage (by an overwhelming amount), then there is no question about what to use. If both terms have similar usage, meaning the dominant usage is unclear, then we should fall back to the one that the country calls itself. --Polaron | Talk 18:34, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

You can start off by reading Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names). Some recommended methods are looking at what is used in major news sources (BBC, etc.), referring to encyclopedias, atlases, and also doing Google searches (for example, Google Scholar). Also, a bit of common sense? In this day and age, if you ask some of your friends if they've heard about Burma versus Myanmar, which one do you think will honestly be more well known? Icsunonove 00:00, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Well the BBC have given up and gone back to useing Burma boston globe burma The Press Association Burma sydney morning herald Burma wall street journal burma.Geni 12:30, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Al Jazeera uses Myanmar, as does Xiahua, The Star Malaysia, at least 3 Indian papers I found [5] [6] [7], Channel News Asia, 2 South African sources use Myanmar [8] [9] one uses Burma [10] (of the 3 I found). Even the New Zealand Herald often uses Myanmar; Spiegel [11] [12] & DW-World sometimes do as well seemingly (I noticed Burma was used as well sometimes by both German sources. Fact is you're not going to get anywhere with these who uses what arguments since all it reveals is what we already know. American, Canadian, British, Australian and New Zealand sources often use Burma but some use Myanmar. Some are also inconsistent or don't appear to have a clear editorial policy and the usage various (presumuably based on who wrote the story or where they sourced it from). Most Asian countries use Myanmar. Nil Einne 16:26, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Congrats, you just made their argument. English language sources most often use Burma. The argument is that since this is an English encyclopedia, we should use the common English name. You just provided the proof that the common English name is Burma. What non-English countries call Burma is irrelevant. Alyeska 18:53, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

No I didn't. These sources ARE English sources. And if another country calls Myanmar/Burma, Myanmar in English then that is relevant. English native countries don't get exclusively rights on the English language as hard as that may be for you to accept Nil Einne 15:50, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

This nonsense of naming English Wikipedia articles according to the latest whims of local government is not restricted to "Myanmar", although two other examples of the ridiculous extent to which this is going can be found at Ayeyarwady River (that's the Irrawaddy, in case you were wondering), and Yangon (Rangoon, for those who weren't sure...) If a stop is not put to this, soon English speakers won't be able to find any articles about places in the non-English-speaking world...Hong Kong will be moved to Xianggang, China will be moved to Zhongguo, Japan to Nihon (Nippon would, of course, be "too English"), and South Africa to (pick your favorite from an array of bewildering names, my guess is) yaseNingizimu Afrika. Another form of the same "English is the problem" sentiment has long since gotten Bombay, Calcutta, Benares, and Madras moved to names nobody outside India uses (and in most cases, names nobody outside India has ever even heard of), and has filled Desi articles with the word "crore" which, while used in Indian English is regarded as an unrecognizable typo everywhere else. Imagine the uproar about POV and "biased preference for a regional variety of English" if someone went through and changed Soft drink to Coke or Dragonfly to Skeeterhawk. 71.87.23.22 16:10, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Speak for yourself. I'm well aware of Mumbai, Kolkata & Chennai and they would probably be the names I would use in normal usage and I've never been to India nor am I Indian. I've never heard of Varanasi but then again I've never heard of Benares either so... Just because you're incapable of learning new words doesn't mean the rest of use are. Nil Einne 16:26, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

There's no need to wax nasty. I am well aware of all the "new" names for Indian cities, including Varanasi/Benares. You don't make yourself appear intelligent by proclaiming your extensive knowledge in one area and then proclaiming your ignorance in the same area...and attempting to imply that other people are stupid doesn't help your case. See vainglory. 71.87.23.22 17:50, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

You specifically said you consider the new names unrecognisable typos, I was commenting on that... Also you seemed to be completely missing my point. The whole point of what I was saying was that I'm not familiar with India. I freely admit I know very little about India. Despite that, I'm able to learn that names can change and when they do, I'm able to learn the new names. According to you, most people including you can't. But I don't see any evidence this is true. If you did have to know everything about India to learn the new names then you might have a point. But you don't and by your own admission I'm proof of that... Nil Einne 15:48, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Doing various searches on Google News using news sources based in the major English speaking countries, one comes up with the following. This is a search that uses only one term and not the other (i.e. excludes searches that use both terms):

• US prefers Myanmar by 4.7:1
• Canada prefers Myanmar by 4.5:1
• India prefers Myanmar by 2.2:1
• UK prefers Burma by 1.9:1
• Australia prefers Burma by 5.0:1

If no exclusions are made (i.e. include hits with both terms present), the results become:

• India prefers Myanmar by 1.5:1
• US prefers Myanmar by 1.4:1
• Canada prefers Myanmar by 1.3:1
• UK prefers Burma by 1.3:1
• Australia prefers Burma by 1.8:1

--Polaron | Talk 16:43, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Infiltration of Protestors

I made a change about the infiltration of protestors. I don't know how to add a link to the page, but the info came from here: http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/pm/weblog.php?id=P278 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.145.241.85 (talk) 12:31, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Official name

Burma, unofficially the Union of Myanmar..

Officially I think it's Union of Myanmar, but many like to call it Burma (even officials).

84.202.208.245 14:10, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

What happens if the junta is overthrown?

Are we going to retitle this article, or are we going to start a new one under the Burma title, a la the Soviet Union and Russian Federation? --Hemlock Martinis 20:05, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Move it now, as below. The Russian Federation is not the same thing as the Soviet Union; it used to be a subset. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:50, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

If the Junta steps down we'll be editing the article on Tibet within 6 months for similar reasons.

Budhist monks FTW! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.245.193.10 (talk) 10:27, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was Move to Burma. There are equally valid arguments on both sides of the debate: a significant majority of editors prefer Burma though, according to the "principle of least astonishment". I suppose that there's an emotional level of revolt towards the junta involved, and that "Myanmar" would likely be accepted per similar precedents if there's a democratic government. Oh well. Duja► 08:09, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

---

Myanmar → Burma — The fresh turmoil in this country has apparently reignited the discussion on whether should this article here be named Myanmar or Burma. I am requesting this to be moved to Burma, as that seems to be the most commonly used name among English speakers. Furthermore, the name Myanmar has never been recognized by the Burmese opposition nor has by many countries (including the United States). —Húsönd 23:44, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Support. Burma is the correct name! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 156.109.18.10 (talk) 12:03, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
• Support. Burma is the name used by the United States government (see CIA and U.S. State Department). The European Union uses both names (Warning: PDF). We shouldn't legitimize the regime by shying away from the country's real name. --Hemlock Martinis 00:23, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• I used the same argument to oppose Ulaanbaatar -> Ulan Bator (The US State Department uses Ulaanbaatar) but that was ignored. Note also that the UN uses Myanmar overwhelmingly. Do we want to list how every government or international organization in the world refer to Myanmar/Burma and tally it up? --Polaron | Talk 00:35, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• The uniqueness of this situation does not lend itself to comparisons with most other naming arguments. Also, some international organizations/governments have more influence than others, so a simple tally wouldn't really help us. --Hemlock Martinis 00:40, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• So which organizations/countries are valid and which are not? Aside from the UN, the ISO and the IOC both use Myanmar. --Polaron | Talk 00:46, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• It's not a matter of validity, it's a matter of weight. Also, the UN and IOC's naming conventions are chosen by the states themselves. So of course the UN will call it Myanmar, because that's the name the junta wants. --Hemlock Martinis 00:52, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• Just as I expected. Those that don't conform to your view do not have weight. I will reply with the response I got from the Ulaanbaatar naming: Wikipedia is not an arm of the US State Department. --Polaron | Talk 00:56, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• It's not just the US using Burma, I shouldn't have singled it out. I should now perhaps remind that common usage is not just about something that is written but also something that is spoken. I believe that despite "Myanmar" seemingly occurs more frequently on the web for whatever reason, "Burma" is orally far more widespread. It could be a good idea if users taking part in this survey stated which form they personally use if we are to determine what's common usage.--Húsönd 01:14, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• Conforming to my views has nothing to do with it. I'm just trying to tell you why the UN and IOC ones aren't helpful. --Hemlock Martinis 01:08, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• Weak Oppose - Burma is not more common by a long shot. Myanmar receives 42,600,000 hits on Google[13] and Burma receives a mere 7,120,000 hits[14] (note that the search is modified to only include English pages). Reginmund 00:25, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose There is no evidence that Burma is the more common name. Burma is overwhelmingly used only by the UK Government. The EU uses Burma/Myanmar. The UN overwhelmingly uses Myanmar. News sources vary with US/Canada/India-based sources generally preferring Myanmar and Australia/UK-based sources preferring Burma. In the absence of evidence for the what the common name is, the name that the entity calls itself should be the fall back name. --Polaron | Talk 01:00, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• News sources can call a country whatever they like. I'm uncomfortable with relying on them. As for the UN, we've already established that a member country picks the name that they want the UN to refer to them as, so that tells us nothing. --Hemlock Martinis 01:05, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
• Also, I did a Google News search for "burma", and the following news outlets use Burma over Myanmar: TIME Magazine, The Telegraph and Reuters were some of the first ones to come up. --Hemlock Martinis 01:18, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• So again where should we look for common names? Only the EU and the US government count? Everything else does not count? News organizations do not count? Then who determines common names. Searches on Google Scholar turn roughly equal numbers. What about current encyclopedias? Which sources count for determining common usage? Do you want a counter list of news organizations that prefer Myanmar? --Polaron | Talk 01:20, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
• Oh and while Time and The Telegraph prefer Burma, Reuters overwhelmingly uses Myanmar. --Polaron | Talk 01:22, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• Here's something: We're an English encyclopedia. What do the governments of the English-speaking countries of the world use? The U.S. uses Burma. The U.K. uses Burma. Canada uses Burma. Ireland uses Burmese for the adjective and Burma/Myanmar for the country. Australia uses Burma. Why do we still have it as Myanmar? --Hemlock Martinis 01:26, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• Do English-language news sources and English-language academic journals count? Or do they not count because they can "call a country whatever they like"? And these governments don't call countries whatever they like, how? Please stop cherry-picking sources. What about modern dictionaries and encyclopedias? What about other governments of countries that have English as an official language? --Polaron | Talk 01:59, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• This is an international relations issue. Governmental and academic sources are far more useful to us than some cub reporter. And as for cherry-picking sources, I couldn't find anything about Burma on Jamaica's foreign ministry page and I forgot New Zealand. And I still have yet to see why we should use Myanmar instead of the country's proper name. --Hemlock Martinis 02:09, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• Myanmar is currently the country's proper name. Who is it that defines a country's proper name i your view? For what it's worth, hits on gov.ie are at 1:1, gov.au at 2:1, gov.uk at 18:1, US gov at 2.3:1, gc.ca at 1:1, govt.nz at 0.75:1, gov.jm at 0.25:1, europa.eu is at 0.5:1, and un.org is at 0.04:1 (all written as number of hits for burma only : number of hits for myanmar only) Aside from the UK (which overwhelmingly uses Burma) and the UN (which overwhelmingly uses Myanmar), the results are mixed. There is no overwhelming common usage of Burma. Of course the UN doesn't count but the UK does. --Polaron | Talk 02:22, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• The term "Myanmar" is an invention of the junta from when they were consolidating power after the 1988 uprising. Burma is the name of the country. Besides, the links to the respective foreign ministries and their official press releases have already shown which ones officially refer to the country by what name. I'm sorry, but I have to trust their press releases more than a simple Google search. --Hemlock Martinis 02:46, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support. Common usage is Burma in all national news media in the UK. --Philip Baird Shearer 10:38, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose. The name "Burma" is a relic of the colonial period, which explains why it is common usage in all national news media in the UK. --Marvin Diode 14:17, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• Marvin, it does not matter if it a "relic of the colonial period" (although as the Burmese opposition use it it can't be that much of a relic), as you recognise that it is in common usage, I think you should read the Wikipedia:Naming conventions policy and reconsider you position because it states "Generally, article naming should prefer what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature." --Philip Baird Shearer 17:19, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
• Well, as I've shown, all of the English-speaking governments use it, so this just isn't some colonial throwback. --Hemlock Martinis 18:15, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose. I'm not sure if there is a standard policy on this, but IMHO, it should be called what the occupying and controlling forces call it. That's Myanmar. That seems like it would be a good rule. It removes the politics from the situation. I imagine this is an issue because President Bush called it Burma at the UN. He did that for political reasons. We shouldn't introduce the Presidents politics here. This sounds like an attempt for diplomacy through Wikipedia, which I think is a bad idea. And, calling the article, or the state, Burma, would give the idea that the opposition forces have taken control and changed the name again. —Slipgrid 14:57, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• I'm uncomfortable with that "king-of-the-hill" type of solution, because it would lead to us warring over a bunch of other disputed territories. --Hemlock Martinis 18:15, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• The standard is not to follow the occupying forces, but to follow the bulk of English-language sources. The appropriate argument to be making is whether "Myanmar" or "Burma" is more common in sources. -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:28, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support This is the English Wikipedia; "Burma" is the English term. By what authority would we consider elevating "Myanmar" to official status in English? Its similarity to the local reference is invalid; if it were, we should rename "Hungary" to "Magyarorszag", "Finland" to "Suomi", "Japan" to "Nippon". This is EnWiki, not UNWiki. István 15:01, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

  Having grown up and gone to school in the English-speaking world, I've learned that it's called "Myanmar". I don't see how that name is any less English than "Burma". The Wikipedia standard is to use whatever's used by more English-language sources. Very few English-language sources refer to Finland as "Suomi", but quite a lot refer to "Burma" as "Myanmar". -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:28, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 1

• Support Not sure if this BBC article has been brought up yet (it covers the reasons why either Burma or Myanmar is used), but according to it, the opposition (i.e. the democratically elected government) does not recognize the change, as it was imposed by the illegitimate military junta. Same goes for the US, UK etc. --snowolfD4 ^{( talk / @ )} 15:08, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
• Support - the name in day-to-day English is Burma. SteveRwanda 15:28, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

  That depends which day-to-day English speakers you're talking to. I think the name in day-to-day English is Myanmar; how do we decide who's right? -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:28, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: There is no evidence that has yet been shown that Burma is the common English term. The most that has been shown is that the UK Government and the US State Department use it it in their official pronouncements, which they actively do so for political reasons. News agencies are mixed (some prefer Burma while some prefer Myanmar). The UN (which of course doesn't count since only the US and UK count) uses Myanmar. Most other governments have mixed usage. Please do not inject politics in naming issues. What is the most common name used to refer to the country in the English language? If that is not obvious (as is the case here), what should be the fall back name? Who should be the one to determine a country's name if the common name is unclear? Also, the arguments for naming Japan to Nippon, etc. are a red herring. The UN does not use those terms in English language documents.

There is no need for a "fall back name" as Burma has been and continues to be the official name of the Country in the English-speaking world. Specifically, by who's authority are we to change this? Its an important question. István 16:46, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, indeed. Who's the authority that dictates it should be changed to Burma? As I said, Burma is the name used only in official pronouncements of the US State Dept and the UK Govt. Other references to it are mixed. Other countries have mixed usage as well. The EU uses a mixed name. The UN uses Myanmar. Does the UK have more weight than the UN in what countries are called? What does the ISO say is the English short form name of this country? --Polaron | Talk 17:11, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Dictating a change to Burma? Burma's the country's name. If anything, Myanmar is the name being forced upon the international community by the junta. And it's not just the U.S. and UK, as I've shown. And as I've said before, governments choose what name the UN refers to them as. --Hemlock Martinis 18:15, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment Why is the UN's usage somehow "invalid"? The UN position is that it will respect and use the name the government of the country in question uses. That's an entirely valid form of reasoning and indeed the names used for most countries have come about precisely because of people using the name the country's government uses - e.g. "Iran" rather than "Persia". Timrollpickering 00:51, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

It's invalid because the junta decided that in the UN, Burma should be referred to as Myanmar. Thus, the UN calls Burma Myanmar not because they decided to, but because they have to out of diplomatic courtesy. --Hemlock Martinis 03:24, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

How is that less valid than the case of Iran? A major organisation opting to use the name the country's government uses itself is not just "diplomatic courtesy" - it is an act of recognising the country's autonomy. Governments that choose to use "Burma" are equally making a decision ultimately based on whether they recognise the country's autonomy or not. We shouldn't let the nature of the regime push us into POV soapboxing. Timrollpickering 09:42, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

How the UN chooses its names and how a language evolves its words are two different things. What's getting lost here is that there is often a difference between the formal name a national government selects for its country and the word for that country in other languages. The formal name a national government selects is naturally important to the UN, since the UN, as an assembly of the representatives of national governments, must to some extent honor the preferences of any government it recognizes. But this name is not always the same as the word for that country in another language. Every government represented in the UN can insist on the formal name it prefers the UN to use, or withdraw from the UN if it is dissatisfied. But the government of no nation on earth--not the United States, not the United Kingdom, not Iran, not North Korea, and not Burma--can dictate to the speakers of any other language what the word in that language shall be for any country. Although the Burmese government's claim to legitimacy is one of the weakest of any such claims on earth, this is ultimately beside the fact. If Switzerland's legislature, through a pristinely democratic referendum, were to decree that the people of all other countries must henceforth refer to Switzerland solely as "Helvetia," the absurdity of the claim would be obvious. They may refer to themselves as they please, but neither the Swiss government nor the Burmese can decree what the words of another language shall be. "Persia" became "Iran" not by decree of Iran, but by an acceptance of the word "Iran" by English speakers. The spread of "Myanmar" as an English word, however, is based on misapprehensions: that governments choose the word for their country in foreign languages, that the UN's selection of formal names for nations is relevant, or that there is colonialism in any case where the people of one country have a name for another country that is different from that country's own name for itself. If we grant control of our language to governments (domestic or foreign), we also invite abuses. Governments could decree (and have decreed) that they represent the "German Democratic Republic" or the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea," making neutral POV impossible because the very names lack neutrality. Wikipedia wisely chose not to play along, selecting instead "East Germany" and "North Korea" as neutral terms. --LapisQuem 13:45, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes and whose lead do you think the world was following when it accepted the change from "Persia" to "Iran"? With the exception of historic names, the names used for most countries are ultimately the bulk of speakers in a particular language following the lead of the country in question. If Switzerland opted to rename itself "Helvetia" in all languages then it's likely that a lot of the world would follow suit (as they did over Cote d'Ivoire) - some media organisations would chage their style guides and call it "Helvetia", with the wider population following suit. The tourist board would market the country as "Helvetia", the national sports teams would play as "Helvetia" and again usage would follow. The UN usage is based in the idea that a country can decide what its called and that decision should be reflected. That is an entirely legitimate opinion to hold in deciding what name to use for a country. Timrollpickering 16:31, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support - with redirect from Myanmar. But ultimately - unless we are trying to push a particular POV - it's not really that important what the article is called as long as it is well-written and easy to find for those looking for it. Dlabtot 16:09, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
• Support move to Burma provided we get a rediect from Myanmar. The majority of English sources (at least all UK broadcasters that i've seen mention it) use it and, according to the beeb, Burma is used in the country. Duke toaster 16:49, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

  The Associated Press prefers Myanmar. Reuters overwhelmingly uses Myanmar. Is this going to be a contest of what governments/institutions/organizations prefer? Why look only at the BBC? Why ignore other news agencies? --Polaron | Talk 17:11, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

  Here's the thing: The AP and Reuters may overwhelmingly use Myanmar, but English speakers overwhelmingly use Burma. Same for most of the world. So why sticking to a few governments/institutions/organizations that decided to abid by the decision of an authoritarian regime to change the well known name of its country, especially when that particular decision has an overwhelming lack of recognition? Húsönd 17:25, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

  But how do you know that Burma is much more predominant over Myanmar. Britannica uses Myanmar, Merriam-Webster uses Myanmar. The OED does not have an entry for the country but it does for "Burmese" which refers to Burma. At best, you can say that usage is mixed and Burma is not obviously the dominant name used. What do people in India or the Philippines use? --Polaron | Talk 18:03, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

  I know because everybody I know, no matter wherefrom, says Burma and not Myanmar. And that's obviously a personal experience, but I highly doubt someone would now come and say, "why that's strange, because everybody I know says Myanmar!". Common English, there couldn't be a simpler argument. Húsönd 18:53, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

  Yes, Whenever I hear "Myanmar" mentioned it's always quickly followed by "that's Burma", whereas "Burma" never needs explanation. That's the smoking gun... (speaking of which...) it is deliciously ironic that most who quickly adopted "Myanmar" in the early 90's did so to be "politically correct"; mistakenly assuming it an expression of solidarity with a struggling ex-colony when in fact they were following orders from a military dictatorship which is not a legitimate government. When a legitimate government does request we use "Myanmar" then this Wikipedian will consider it favourably; until then we should stick with its (English) official and common name "Burma" István 19:49, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

  People I know call it Myanmar. Are my acquaintances less representative of English speakers than yours? -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:28, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

  Apparently so; I would have to remind people what Myanmar was to use it, even in a university setting. The Politics department may differ. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:55, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

  Surely we can find something better than anecdotal evidence on which to base this decision? Simply asserting that "Burma" is more common is not convincing; I'd like to see evidence of this commonness. -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:06, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

  See #data. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:21, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

  Ok... it doesn't appear entirely conclusive. I see evidence pointing in both directions. Some English-language sources favor "Burma"; others favor "Myanmar". I don't see such weight of evidence as to justify moving from one controversial title to another. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:59, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

  The data shows a 2:1 ratio in favor of Burma. That's conclusive sounding to me. --Hemlock Martinis 03:24, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

  Yes, if you cherry-pick the data. Other data show more than 2:1 in favor of Myanmar. If you refrain from cherry-picking, it appears less certain. Do you really think it's so clear-cut? It seems to me that reasonable people may disagree which name has greater currency in English language sources. I would say that neither is clearly the most common. -GTBacchus^(talk) 04:09, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose Myanmar is a well-accepted name. Coined by the regime or not, if that is what the country wishes to be called, it ought to stay there. FWIW, the language page lists the language as Burmese.Ngchen 17:27, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• On Wikipedia, articles are named according to their most commonly used forms by English speakers. They do not abid by trends or whims of a particular government. Húsönd 17:40, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support move to Burma, I have always called it Burma, people I have talked to have always called it Burma and the news media I read always call it Burma. The only time when I come across the term Myanmar is when the actions of the Junta are being discussed. Tim Vickers 17:42, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

  That may be your experience. I learned in school that it's called Myanmar, people I know call it Myanmar, etc. Is my experience less valid than yours? Arguing from our personal experiences isn't really conclusive for this reason. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:59, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support move to Burma. This comes under the same argument as MOS:TRADE: it's a fancy spelling installed by management, which may change tomorrow. English usage is more stable, and should be followed. Wikipedia does not follow diplomatic usage; we say East Timor and North Korea. So here. (And so does the US Government, when it is discussing Burma, rather than addressing the present regime. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:48, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

  English usage in my experience tends to be "Myanmar" - whose experiences is more representative, mine or yours? -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:28, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support Burma is the common English name for the country. As already mentioned we don't need to rename articles at the whim of governments. A common name is preferable. Alyeska 18:57, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• Huh? if governemnts don't decide the name of a country who does? Wikipedia editors? Americans? "Whim of the government" indeed! SqueakBox 16:24, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support move to Burma. Mynamar was never accepted by the UK nor USA [15] and this wikipedia is in English so should follow the choices of the major English speaking countries. The BBC uses Burma. In addition the 1989 change to Mynamar was ordered by an unelected military regime. Plexos 19:33, 27 September 2007 (UTC). This survey goes round in circles and I don't think you can decide based on logical points like the UN uses Mynamar and the UK uses Burma which are contradictory. At the end of the day Wikipedia ought to do what is *right*, not what is politcal, just what is right, and it is right to oppose murderers. Therefore any prior decision by murderers ought not to be recognised by Wikipedia just like vandalism and other evils are opposed here. Crooks, vandals, and killers should have no authority. It was changed to Mynamar by force of the gun so the title should still be Burma. Plexos 15:04, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
• Support. "Burma" is an English word, just as "Germany," "Spain," and "Japan" are English words. There is no more reason to call Burma "Myanmar" in English than there is to call Japan "Nihon" or Spain "España" or Germany "Deutschland" in English. It is not colonialism because every language has its own names for other countries. Bulgarians call the United States "Sasht," and so what? It's their language. UN practice is no grounds for preferring "Myanmar," since the UN is an international body representing speakers of many languages, not a body that arbitrates English usage. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.143.34.172 (talk • contribs)

  Quite a lot of English speakers say "Myanmar" - very few English speakers refer to Germany as "Deutschland". I haven't seen any evidence that "Burma" is more common among English speakers. -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:46, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

  Exactly. English speakers don't say "Deutschland." But "Deutschland" (or "Bundesrepublik Deutschland") is Germany's official name, as decreed by the Bundestag in 1949. Now suppose the Bundestag decreed tomorrow that "Deutschland" was now the official name of the country in English too. Would English speakers comply? Of course not. But this is exactly what the "State Law and Order Restoration Council" did in 1988, and (I think we all can agree) with far less legitimacy. So why do English speakers--who would laugh at such a decree from the Bundestag--comply? Some apparently imagine that there is something "colonial" about having a name for a country that is different from the name the people of that country use for themselves. The absurdity of this claim is exposed by the numerous cases in which the former colonial powers themselves are called by different names in different lands. "Myanmar" exists in English only out of a misguided assumption that a country's name in any language is determined by the government (however illegitimate) of that country. The proof lies in the fact that almost no Enlish speaker called the country "Myanmar" before 1988. But if use of "Burma" is wrong, then for English speakers to persist in calling Deutschland "Germany" should offend every German. Shall we then have a discussion about renaming Wikipedia's article on Germany "Deutschland"? The claim would be just as legitimate. Until SLORC's decree the English word for Burma was "Burma," so, because SLORC is not an arbiter of English usage, the term already in use before the decree should stand.--LapisQuem 15:11, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose Bush uses the term Burma and we all think that's what this article should be called? I think not. How about we delete the article on Israel, a lot more don't recognize them than Myanmar. — 68.90.211.225 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. The preceding unsigned comment was added at UTC timestamp (UTC).

• Israel has nothing to do with this. And the United States government uses Burma regardless of which party is in control. Clinton was the one who first started sanctions against the junta, after all. --Hemlock Martinis 21:46, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support move to Burma, per Husond and István. K. Lásztocska 22:22, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support move to Burma per nom. Jooler 22:46, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
• Support - Burma is the common English name, used much more frequently than the artificial "Myanmar". See anything from Burmese Days, to Burma-Shave, to Mission of Burma. (For the same reason I'd also suggest moving Yangon to Rangoon.) Biruitorul 23:37, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Those names and products are historic though - it's rather like "Peking Duck" still being used, even on menus in Beijing. Timrollpickering 23:56, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose "Myanmar" is used heavily in English and there is no evidence that Burma is used overwhelmingly more for the country today (novels and products have the names anchored). The various media and foreign government usage is split on this and citing one over another is not the best way to show one term is preeminent. The nature of the regime that made the name change should not influence the article naming - that would be to indulge in POV soapboxing. There's no clear evidence that "Burma" is overwhelmingly the common usage in English and "Myanmar" a name that hasn't caught on (compare to say the failure of "Czechia" to catch on in English) and as the article is currently at "Myanmar" I see no clear case to move it. Timrollpickering 23:56, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

  Your assertions are good, but you've overlooked the fact that Burma is the name recognized by the English-speaking governments, as I've shown. Since we are an English encyclopedia, I don't think it gets much clearer than that. --Hemlock Martinis 00:03, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

  It gets a lot clearer than that. There's no sense pretending this case is simply open-and-shut. We don't base our usage on what English-speaking governments do - we look to all kinds of reliable English-language sources, and such usage is clearly mixed for the nation we're discussing. If there's one thing this decision isn't, it's obvious or clear-cut. -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:19, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

  Well, this does have a lot to do with international relations, so governments are very important to this discussion. Google Books and Google Scholar have a noticeably higher Burma to Myanmar ratio. Those facts tip it pretty heavily in favor of Burma in the grand scheme of things. --Hemlock Martinis 03:10, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

  I agree that governments are very important to this discussion; I would add that other English language sources are also very important. We try to reflect English usage, of which the English of international relations is a very important part.

  That said, Google News seems to favor Myanmar pretty heavily, and the English news outlets of the world cover a pretty large and diverse audience.

  I really can't tell which is more common. In the absence of compelling reason to move, I would tend to support staying still, until such time as a genuine consensus forms. Otherwise we'll just see a request to move it back to Myanmar a few months down the line. (We may get other requests if we stay here, but the inevitability of further move requests is not an argument to go along with them.) -GTBacchus^(talk) 04:31, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

  I dunno, currently we're hovering at about 75% consensus to move it to Burma, so we may not have to wait a few months after all. --Hemlock Martinis 15:33, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support move to Burma. This article encompasses a geographic location ("Burma", in English), rather than simply the current government (kind of similar to the article on Tibet, rather than the Chinese govt). As many nations still refer to it as Burma and as there is a government in exile the region should be referred to as Burma. --LEKI (talk) 03:51, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
• Support or better yet move to Myanmar (Burma) there seems to be some doubt over the validity that Burma is more popular usage then a mixed approach, but I see no argument at all for Myanmar to be perfered, by any orgainazion besides the UN. And while the UN counts it is vastly overshadowed by the other nations, news sources, etc... I feel that Google searches can't be representative in this argument due to the fact that the vast majority of web pages will use both terms at least once... --T-rex 05:03, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
• Qualified support for a move to Burma. Generally, I'd be the first to want Wikipedia to move articles to new names when organisations or countries decide they want to be known by a new name (I'm all in favour of Côte d'Ivoire, and have tried to get East Timor to be moved to Timor-Leste twice now), but in this case, the name change is not universally internationally recognised; thus, a case could be made to have the article at Burma. —Nightstallion 08:52, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
• Support per "It's general practice at the BBC to refer to the country as Burma... because most of its audience is familiar with that name rather than Myanmar". Number 57 09:11, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
• Support for a move to Burma because as a native English speaker who grew up in the United Kingdom that is what most people understand, especially those over a certain age. My school dictionaries all date prior to 1989 and Myanmar is completely absent from them. My various newer bilingual English dictionaries (Cassels, Collins) always include Burma with Myanmar as a new addition. In 1992 when speaking with British expatriates (over 30s) in Germany and the subject of Burma came up, we were aware of the new name but always used Burma. Those asking for evidence for this online will be disappointed. However I can well believe that certain circles of English speaking people would use Myanmar over Burma but these would tend to be the young, in my opinion. Also Wikipedia needs to not neglect the older who are not so vocal. In any case whatever happens I would like to make a small plea that whatever edits are made do not change the actual words people are quoted as having said with the various Burmese articles.-Wikianon 09:16, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Support for a move to Burma. This is indeed the English language Wikipedia, with both the UK and the USA officially recognising the name "Burma". All the UK news media (most notably the BBC) refer to the country as Burma, in fact most UK citizens will have never even heard of "Myanmar" (I had not until recently).C 1 09:58, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
• Support- move to Burma, common English language name for the country, and even used by the citizens. Astrotrain 10:42, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Support Common usage among reliable sources is what governs Wikipedia's WP:NAME conventions, not "official." Gizza^{Discuss ©} 11:14, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
• Support. Nightstallion's reasoning is similar to my own. I think when there's no clear-cut preference between two names, we should go with the older name, because the newer cannot be deemed to have supplanted the older (my rationale within the confines of WP:COMMONNAME). PLook at it from another angle: If the article were at Burma, would there be consensus that the article should be moved to Myanmar? If not, then perhaps the new name is not so established. --SigPig |^{SEND - OVER} 11:48, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Yes but equally would there be positive consensus to keep it at Burma beyond the "no consensus to move" and "if all else fails, use the name used by the first major editor" rules? The problem is that both names are used in English and the balance varies quite considerably between different English speaking countries (to say nothing of its use amongst English as a Seconfd Language speakers). Timrollpickering 16:24, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
• Support move to Burma for reasons of clarity, consistency and accuracy. --71.42.142.238 12:57, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose- the current regime, linguistics, and a steady history of reverting old colonial names of places are all on this side. I guarantee that, had the Soviet Union not fallen, the Wikipedia page for that country would be "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" instead of "Russia", regardless of the fact that "Russia" is more recognizable. -BaronGrackle 13:02, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
• Comment Perhaps this is an irrelevant comment, perhaps not. My old mobile phone had the option to have language set as "portuguese, english, blah, blah, myanmar". Not burmese. I am inclined to leave it as Myanmar, but there's no real documented strength on either side of the discussion so i'll have no final opinion on this subject - i am sure whatever comes out of this discussion, if i look for either name on wikipedia i'll find the other too. :) So, enjoy your slightly POV-ish discussion, and make a nice decision for me. ;) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.54.135.10 (talk) 13:49, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose - on the grounds of "Myanmar" not being any less valid than "Burma". ASEAN uses Myanmar, for one. Singapore uses "Myanmar" exclusively, both in the media and in the education system, as does English media in Malaysia. All I'm saying is that there's no justification for the claim that "Burma" is the "proper name" of the country. -ryand 14:11, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
• Support moving the article to what the country is actually called. dcandeto 15:11, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose Didn't notice this section until just now so I will echo my comments posted above in the ==Name conflict== section... "IMO, the use of "Burma" as describing the post-1989 Myanmar nation is offensive. The country's official name is Myanmar. Why should certain westerners impose their will on an independent nation? The days of colonialism are over. The Burmese government which represents the Burmese people whether you like it or not, wants the country to be called Myanmar. And the argument that English speakers collectively refer to Myanmar as "Burma" is FALSE. I call Myanmar by it's proper name of Myanmar. So does CNN, NBC, The New York Times, and [the majority of American news media]. Most importantly the United Nations, which Myanmar is a member of, calls the country by its correct name of Myanmar." --Tocino 16:50, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

• Comment:Examining these arguments carefully should lead the unbiased editor to decide for "Burma". Firstly, the Burmese government does not represent the Burmese people. The colonial legacy argument is fallacious; most Burmese favour using Burma over Myanmar in English, and do not find it offensive. Use of "Myanmar" is more AMBIGUOUS than "Burma" as the former normally begs explanation whereas the latter does not. Moreover, what is then the adjective derived from "Myanmar"? Myanmarian, Myanmarese, Myanmarish, Myanmartian? Myanmartial (as in "Myanmartial law?) Burma/Burmese is established, well known and unambiguous. Finally, preferred usage among news wire services are hardly authoritative, as they are decisions taken by editorial boards and I would suspect that some might change in the near future. The UN will use whatever the member requests, regardless of common usage. In Burma, both are used, either "Myanma" (formal, literary) or "Bama" (colloquial, familiar). WP:NAME mandates the name most commonly used by english speakers, minimizes ambiguity, and prefers a general (public) understanding over a specialist understanding. That being the case, it is a difficult decision yet "Burma" is clearly the least ambiguous, most used colloquially - even by the Burmese themselves, and therefore preferred. István 17:16, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

"Most Burmese [favor] using Burma over Myanmar..." The Burmese who favor "Burma" over Myanmar, favor it just to spite the current government. As for the overall population, I do not believe there is an independent study (without a pro-democracy bias) that supports your conclusion. --Tocino 18:16, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

• First, a junta that held elections and then imprisoned the winner does not represent the Burmese people. Second, how is it "colonialism" and "certain westerners imposing their will" if Aung San Suu Kyi and the rest of the opposition calls it Burma as well? --Hemlock Martinis 17:49, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm curious, why do you have to comment after every single Oppose or Strong Oppose statement? I don't see the users who Oppose doing the same to the people who Support. The PRC government represents the Chinese people. The Vietnamese government represents the Vietnamese people. These countries don't necessarily have free elections. It doesn't matter what form of government the country has, it still represents the wider population. It's colonialism because the people who are leading the anti-Myanmar charge are the British. The British who invaded Myanmar and created the name Burma. --Tocino 18:31, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

That is simply not true. In Burma, usage is "Myanma" in formal language (literary) and "Bama" in the familiar (colloquial) language. Neither were invented by the British or any other outside entity, neither bear negative connotations in the country. István 19:08, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm just a talkative guy, I guess. --Hemlock Martinis 22:27, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose In my mind the issue is not what is most widely known, or which term has the most number of Google hits. An encyclopedia should be up-to-date, not reflect prevailing beliefs simply because they are prevalent. It is very easy to have a redirect from Burma to Myanmar, and as far as I can tell, Myanmar is the current (english) name chosen by that country. If it changes in the future then move it to Burma. "A Modest Proposal" -- if this issue continues to be so contentious, get rid of both names from the title, have redirects from both Burma and Myanmar, and have the title of the article refer to "The Region Bordered by Countries X, Y, and Z" 209.242.154.132 17:14, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

• Actually, since Myanmar is the newer name, one could argue that it is the prevalent belief. --Hemlock Martinis 17:52, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

• The "Nation formerly known as Burma" perhaps (sadly) captures reality better than all others.István 18:01, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support. The official name is the Union of Myanmar. If that was the naming goal(choosing the official name), this page should be moved there. 82.31.164.67 19:16, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

  Since when does Wikipedia go with "official" names? I thought our policy was WP:COMMONNAME. -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:17, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support. I believe there is substantial movement to Burma by many news sources and governments at this point in time, and the "hit" data is already outdated. I'd be wary of claims of popularity or usage based on google hits. 38.112.153.190 19:37, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
• Support - Burma is the most common name for the country. --ざくら木 20:20, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose, the official short English name is Myanmar. At such time as Suu Kyi can take rightful control of the government, then rename it Burma. --Golbez 20:49, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

• GTBacchus put it quite well above when he said "The standard is not to follow the occupying forces, but to follow the bulk of English-language sources." If we did a king-of-the-hill type mentality around here we'd have a whole new assortment of geopolitical issues to have fun with. --Hemlock Martinis 22:19, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

• What occupying forces? This isn't Iraq and there are no occupying forces in Myanmar, to claim otherwise is purem POV pushing and is wildly inappropriate on the talk page of this article, go tell it ot a forum, here we are intereested in building an encyclopedia not in discussing politics, SqueakBox 01:24, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

• That's nowhere near what I said, but you're entitled to your opinion. --Hemlock Martinis 06:05, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

• It is not what you said it is what you quoted Bacchus as saying. If by king-of-the-hill you mean governments then that is exactly the mentality we need to write an encyclopedia, SqueakBox 16:17, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Would you care to elaborate on how following the whims of every government in the world would make us a better encyclopedia? The Great Soviet Encyclopedia already exists; we need not reproduce it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:25, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Whims re naming? That is a colossal piece of original research which has no place on wikipedia. What precisely are you suggesting? That we make the decision ourselves. That we let American and British people make the decision. Myanmar is a sovereign country and that makes for a sovereign governemnt who, of course, decide wha\t the country shall be named. Your comment is pure POV pushing and that is strictly prohibited by our policies. And we have an article on the Soviet Union because that was the name of the country at the time. We don't say Stalin was a lunatic and we know better as that would be presumptuous, SqueakBox 16:34, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

• • • No, I am suggesting that we follow policy and use the "most common name that does not conflict with other names", as Burma does not. Do what Rnglish does. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:52, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
      • We are an educational encyclopedia and policy does not justify pandering to people's ignorance. Many people mistakenly still believe the country is called Burma, but it isn't. It wiould be like we would have had to wait a number of years to stop calling Sri Lanka Ceylon and start calling it Sri Lanka because most English speakers were unaware of the name change. That is not creating an encycloepdia and if other rivals saw that we, as an encyclopedia, prefer to pander to people's ignorance based on an entirely mistaken readin gof policy, then we will become the laughing stiock of the encyclopedia world, SqueakBox 16:58, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 2

• Oppose as we should let the Burmese governemnt (which even in a dictatoprship is still the nearest to "the will of the people" that exists) decide their name. its a sovereign country and the legitimate government has the right to decide. No other country wants to call itself Myanmar (ie not a similar a similar situation to China/Taiwan or the 2 Koreas) nor can the oposition be considered a legitimate alternative government in this case. Similarly Yangon should not be called Rangoon. This seems very straightforward, if the government falls and another governemnet renames the country Burma we, following this logic, could then immediately change the name without debate, SqueakBox 20:59, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

  But our naming conventions call for us to use the most common name, not the one chosen by whichever government is in power. -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:17, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe that is actually so, its a reading of the policy but it also original research and very presumptuous of us to call it anything other than the English version of the name the country uses, so while the United Kingdom isnt actually called that (its a longer name) but the common name is that. Myanmar is an Enmglish word that is the common usage of the term the country is called and to cal it Burma is POV pushing OR, besides its called Myanmar by CNN so the argument that Burma is the common usage term is not true anyway, SqueakBox 00:53, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

• GTBacchus put it quite well above when he said "The standard is not to follow the occupying forces, but to follow the bulk of English-language sources." If we did a king-of-the-hill type mentality around here we'd have a whole new assortment of geopolitical issues to have fun with. --Hemlock Martinis 22:19, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

• Weak Support Burma is quite common, and Myanmar is somewhat common. 132.205.44.5 21:45, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
• Strong support: As shown by the wild array of pronunciations in dictionaries documented at the beginning of the article, which even the BBC is confused about (erroneously using a/A, the BBC's symbol for æ = a as in man, for all vowels in all variant pronunciations) Myanmar is not a well-established English name. As also explained here and as honest defenders of the use of Myanmar in WP probably admit, most English speakers have no idea where Myanmar is or perhaps even what it is. Very many more English speakers know where and what Burma is. Despite the common appearance of Myanmar in the media and even some specialist literature, it is therefore completely erroneous to say Myanmar is commonly used or even understood by the general population. The current lemma is therefore clearly in disagreement with the whole spirit and meaning of Wikipedia:Naming conventions: Generally, article naming should prefer what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature. This is justified by the following principle: Names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors; and for a general audience over specialists. --Espoo 01:05, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose "Myanmar" is the name of the country. It's pretty simple. This is not the forum to argue politics. When is this nonsense going to end? Do any of you actually believe that having the Wikipedia article named "Burma" instead of "Myanmar" will make conditions for the people there any better? This is an encyclopedia not a political debate society. Both the academic arena and the media favor "Myanmar" by a wide margin. For all the bleeding heart, "you're-just-following-the-occupying-forces" crowd, your time would be more wisely and effectively spent on lobbying Congress and the UN, not on POV-pushing on an free internet encyclopedia.--William Thweatt ^Talk | ^Contribs 01:19, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

  To quote Hemlock Martinis, your assertions are good, but it seems you didn't read what i wrote above and that you overlooked the fact that Burma is the name recognized by the English-speaking governments, as shown. Since we are an English encyclopedia, I don't think it gets much clearer than that.--Espoo 01:28, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

  The determinant in this discussion is the acknowledgment of the form that is most commonly used by English speakers, not so much the politicized reasoning about the rightfulness or legality of the name. Húsönd 01:33, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

• OpposeI use Myanmar, I've only ever seen it Myanmar in news sources, Google gives over twice the amount of hits to Myanmar, and that's what the government (or junta, whatever) wish to be called. Therefore, I believe it should be kept as Myanmar. — i ^said 01:36, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

• Almost all news sources that use M add the explanation "formerly called Burma". Most English speakers have no idea where Myanmar is or perhaps even what it is. Very many more English speakers know where and what Burma is. Despite the common appearance of Myanmar in the media and even some specialist literature, the current lemma is therefore clearly in disagreement with the whole spirit and meaning of Wikipedia:Naming conventions. --Espoo 01:42, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

• I didn't say most sources used Myanmar, I said that from what I see, Myanmar is much more widely used. And I don't like catering to unintelligent people who don't even know the country changed their name. And hey, if they search for Burma, but get redirected to Myanmar, they learned something. Whereas making it Burma with the (also called Myanmar by a considerable amount of news agencies for instance as well as by the junta) doesn't sit well with me. — i ^said 01:48, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

• [0) I never said that you said that most sources use M. I said that even those news sources that do use M need to explain it.] 1) WP can't be based on what sources you happen to have seen, especially since this shows you haven't bothered to look at many provided in this discussion and obviously not even bothered to read much of this discussion. 2) WP is not based on what you do or don't like. If you consider Wikipedia:Naming conventions to be "catering to unintelligent people", then start a discussion on that policy's talk page but don't muddle up this discussion with such irrelevant personal opinions that clearly violate WP policy. --Espoo 20:47, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

• My comment about people being unintelligent was foolish. I have since changed my reasoning, but not my opinion: According to the naming conventions, we use what the majority of the English-speaking population use. How do we determine that? Short of a poll of everyone who speaks English, we have to base it on published sources. We can't really go by "what people I know say", because there is no way to quantify that.I know I just contradicted myself; I disagree now with what I said So we should go by published sources. And as best I can tell, there is not a large portion of news and other published sources that use one over the other, largely a political statement against the junta. So, I support keeping it as Myanmar, because I fail to see evidence that a good amount more of English speakers use Burma than Myanmar, but the government does. — i ^said 01:56, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support move to Burma Most commonly used English name. Also the only name used by any Burmese governments with a democratic mandate (and by the military dictatorship itself for over 27 years). The idea that the country was only named "Burma" by the British Empire is refuted in this extract from Ethnicity in Asia, ed. by Colin Mackerras (RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), p. 174 [16]. Foreign governments don't dictate what their countries are called in English anyway. I've never heard anyone use the term "Myanmar" in conversation except as a joke. Only a couple of weeks before the latest uprising, I finished reading The River of Lost Footsteps: Histories of Burma (Faber and Faber, 2007) by Thant Myint-U, who also wrote The Making of Modern Burma (published by Cambridge University Press in 2001). --Folantin 10:11, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

• You've obviously not lived in Southeast Asia then where English language media and English language education use Myanmar (yes they do have English media and education there). And what's more, they actually pronounce myanmar correctly too! --Polaron | Talk 12:49, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

• Your argument being what? I should go to South-East Asia to learn English? Sorry. I don't need to since I live in England. Burmese exiles who speak English tend to use Burma, although they can no doubt pronounce "Myanmar" even better than Thais or Cambodians or whoever. --Folantin 13:33, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

• The point is that people outside your local circle do use Myanmar in serious (i.e. not as a joke) English conversation. Of course, those people probably don't county in your view since you do not know them. --Polaron | Talk 13:45, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, a joke. It's called black humour. You know, like using "Democratic Kampuchea" to refer to Pol Pot's Cambodia (which no doubt would have been the name urged on us by many editors had Wikipedia existed between 1975 and 1979). If we're going to stoop to the level of your last "argument", I'll counter with the observation that you clearly don't care about the views of Burmese exiles. --Folantin 14:00, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

• We shouldn't inject political views in this debate. It's a technique used by a few here to shut people up so they can't respond to you on the merits of debate which name is more common. And, mind you Cambodia was called Kampuchea in English in the 70s (look at old news reports and encyclopedias) before the official name change. --Polaron | Talk 14:25, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, I've read some of those things. They make (ahem) interesting reading today... The clinching argument here has been mentioned by other users' above: when people say Burma, nobody has to explain where it is, whereas the reverse is true of Myanmar. Plus, looking at this very article in its current form, we have nine different phonetic transcriptions for "Myanmar". Doesn't suggest there's much familiarity with the term in English!--Folantin 14:42, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

• Wikipedia practice is to use the most common English-language name. There is no reason why this article should be any different to everywhere else. Every single news report I read from the BBC, ITN, whatever, calls the place "Burma". UseCommonSense is relevant as well...Moreschi ^Talk 10:52, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

• Note that there are other news sources that use Myanmar instead of Burma. Only if you cherry pick your news sources can you conclude that Burma is more common. --Polaron | Talk 12:49, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Actually, the vast majority of news reports use both: Lexis for the last month shows 1315 with both, 448 for Myanmar without Burma, 365 for Burma without Myanmar. Looking at the results shows articles like "Signs of revolt in Burma (or is it Myanmar?)" from the Times of London, and an report from the Asia-Pacific monitoring service of the BBC. (They reflect the usage of the original, but most original reports use Burma after the first reference.) How are these to be counted? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:33, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
    • I tried a search using Lexis-Nexis Academic with a setting of "News, most recent 90 days (english, full text)" for the source with a date of "previous week". I get 522 hits for "burma AND NOT myanmar", 1882 hits for "myanmar AND NOT burma" and 2983 hits for "myanmar AND burma". I'm sure I can find instances of the other situation where the article uses burma in the first sentence and the rest of the text uses myanmar exclusively. --Polaron | Talk 01:05, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support Burma's much more common as far as I'm concerned. Makes me think of an old and not very good joke too. Q 'What's the national song of Burma?' A 'Me an' ma shadow'! Biofoundationsoflanguage 12:34, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
• Strong oppose there is absolutely no evidence I have seen that Burma is the most common name in English. While it is perhaps more common in the UK and perhaps the US and Australia as well (I'm not convince either one is more common in New Zealand and have no idea where Canada stands in all this) English is an international language and it is deeply flawed to to only consider the usage of 'native' speakers.I strongly suspect that people in India and South East Asia, much more commonly use and recognise Myanmar then they recognise Burma Nil Einne 15:29, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Several editors have said that there is no reason to give the anglophones of South East Asia more weight than the rest of us; but Nils' "suspicion" also appears doubtful. The overseas monitoring report mentioned above quotes a dozen Indian and East Asian sources; only three use Myanmar. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:09, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
    • I didn't say we should give them more weight. I do think we shouldn't given them lesser weight particularly in this istance given the geographical and political relationships between the countries. Also I said South East Asia, not East Asia (and no I don't consider South East Asia to be part of East Asia). I can't comment on this monitoring report since I don't have access to it. But from my experience, having grown up in Malaysia and also supported by other editors here. Myanmar is used more or less exclusively in English in Malaysia. Also in Singapore. I also believe that it's used in Thailand and in in the Philipines although I'm far less sure about this. Presuming by East Asian your including Japan and/or Korea then they may use Burma. No idea about that. (Japan is relevant since they apparently are one of the biggest aide donors to Myanmar/Burma, no idea about Korea. However I strongly suspect that the average educated Japanese is far less likely to know what Burma/Myanmar is prior to the recent events then the average educated SEAsian or Indian) They weren't really who I was thinking about though (I said SEA, India and China). From my own searches for India, as mentioned above (I did not cherry pick, I searched for Indian news sources and reported all that I found) all of them use Myanmar. Also, presuming this monitoring service includes sources from Burmese dissidents/exiles from within East Asia then it get even more complicated. I think we all agree that Burmese exiles tend to prefer Burma. However they aren't generally representative of the population of the countries they're living in. Nil Einne 16:18, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
      • Mainstream papers and news agencies from SEA, as far north as Hong Kong (Burma), as far south as Indonesia (also Burma) and Malaysia (Myanmar; Bernama, a part of the Information Ministry). East Asia was to include China. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:11, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose. in the same manner that the colonial name, Bombay is no longer used for Mumbai. the United Nations as well as most every other nation uses Myanmar, and for any reason given to not refer to a country by its official name, is an issue of NPOV and politics, neither of which is appropriate. English Wikipedia =/= Britsh-American Wikipedia, and with far more people speaking english outside of those two countries, imho the article should reflect that global view. --emerson7 16:17, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
  • We use Mumbai because it is demonstrably preferably used by English-speakers, both of India and of the rest of the world. There is no evidence that this is true of Myanmar; and we are intended to be used by Americans, Canadians, Britons and New Zealanders, at least as much as other nationalities. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:30, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
    • not one word just stated is supported by fact...it is 100% oppinion. --emerson7 16:35, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

      Unsupported?

      • The move discussion for Mumbai is on the archives of its talk page.
      • If there is evidence of worldwide (or, for that matter, Burmese anglophone) preference for Myanmar, present it.
      • Does Emerson really mean to argue that it is policy that we are intended to be used by Americans, Canadians, Irish, Britons and New Zealanders less than other nationalities? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:48, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

    • Yes but that doesn't mean we should prefer them over other English speakers. Also, I remain unconvinced about the New Zealand part. From my experience (I live in New Zealand and looked into this recently), Myanmar is commonly used here, I'm not convinced Burma is more common. I'm not as I suspect not many people are saying we should ignore the US, Canada, UK, Australia and NZ. What I am saying is that so far, the only evidence we have is that Burma is more common in the UK, perhaps in the US and Australia as well. However changing for this reason is very bad idea and stinks of systemic bias particularly given the significance of Myanmar to SEA, India and China. You need to consider what is common usage amongst English speakers of these countries as well. Note also that common usage is not a black and white thing even if we tend to think of it like that. For example if A is slightly more common then B in the UK but A is unheard of in the US, B is exclusive then if the article doesn't relate to the UK then perhaps we should use B. Where Myanmar/Burma fits into all this I don't know, I'm simply using it to exemplify why it's very poor practice to get caught up in what's more common in the US & UK. Nil Einne 16:39, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
      • Publications by Asian anglophones are included in the web as well, and so included in our data. I still no evidence for the proposition that they prefer Myanmar, anyway. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:59, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
        • But you need to consider these seperately. You can't simply lump them all together. If there are significantly more UK & US sources then not surprisingly the fact that Burma is perhaps more common in the UK & US will overwhelm the fact that Myanmar may be more common in India, Malaysia and Singapore (and probably the Phillipines and Thailand too). I've provided sources above and below in the data section (and based also on my own experience) which indicate to me that Myanmar is more common in much of Asia. It is up to you to accept my sources or dispute them. So far, the only evidence you have provided is your claim it's in some monitoring report which I can't analyse much. I have raised valid objections. The key thing to remember is that it is you who are arguing for the move so it's up to you to convince people who have valid reasons to oppose the move why the move should be made. Nil Einne 17:30, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
      • Nil's other point raises profound questions on national varieties of English. I am glad, therefore, that it doesn't seem to apply; I see no evidence that Burma is "unheard of" anywhere. One could read the BBC's comments as showing that Myanmar is. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:59, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
        • I don't see any evidence the BBC has any special expertise in this matter. Did they carry out polls throughout the world to gauge which is more common? I doubt it. I strongly suspect they're mostly relying on what's most recognised in the UK and to a less extent the other anglophile countries (US, Canada, Australia and NZ in particular). There may be valid reasons for them to do so but it is systemic bias for us to do so.
        • Note that Reuters was asked a few months ago why they use Myanmar instead of Burma. Their reply states in part that "News organizations, including Reuters, frequently review their naming conventions, taking into account what countries/cities call themselves, what the public at large tends to call them, what implications there may be in a name change for our neutrality, what names are most commonly used by our customers, etc". (See the March 28 entry [17]) I'm sure people will read into it whatever they want. --Polaron | Talk 00:49, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
      • And our job is to educate people not to pander to their ignorance, SqueakBox 17:02, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
        • Our job is to write English, not pander to your pedantry. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:11, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
        • That is just plain ridiculous, its you and your fellows who don't get to decide what a country is called, in English, no matter how loud you shout, and your calls to pander to people's ignorance is shocking given we are an encycloepdia not a political activism group. It is certainly not my or anyone else's pedantry to call the place Myanmar whereas it is your and others' pedantry and POV pushing to rename it to a name it isnt called anymore, SqueakBox 17:16, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
          • • I agree with Pmanderson's points in this section. Plus I'm not sure "the significance of Myanmar to SEA, India and China" (i.e. facilitating their trade relations with the Burmese junta) should be any concern of ours on Wikipedia. --Folantin 17:18, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
            • And the gentleBox doth protest too much. I have intentionally said nothing either way about SLORC; it was SqueakBox who !voted on the basis that it was the "nearest thing to the will of the people". It is the worldwide consensus (not just in SEA) of the English language that determines what we should do; all my efforts have been to determine our mistress's will. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:27, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
              • No governemnt exists unless by will of the people on some level, the owrldwide consensus is clearly that the country is called Myanmar and we at wikipedia are not empowered to do original reasearch and then claim otherwise based on that OR, SqueakBox 17:34, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
                • Their political power came by using bullets to repress those with ballots. I don't think they exactly have the will of the people behind them. --Hemlock Martinis 00:13, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
• Support. I suggest Suu Kyi is more in touch with the feelings in Burma about what the country should be called than the government. Plus the BBC think Burma is more recognised. This is in the absence of any clear evidence that Myanmar is favoured by English speakers.Eiler7 17:27, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

• • Your original research re Suu Kyi is not a reason to change the name, we are nopt empowered to make these decisions based on our own beliefs, SqueakBox 17:34, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

• Um, that's not original research. She and her party have come out and said many times that their country's name is Burma. And since their legitimacy comes from the ballot box and not the gun barrel, I think she would be more in tune with the Burmese people. --Hemlock Martinis 00:13, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support. The article indicates that "Burma" is still more commonly used in countries where the English language predominates. Sandstein 20:24, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
• Support - official name. Most newspapers are now calling it Burma as well. The Evil Spartan 02:27, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
• Support - I suspect a number of news outlets are now using "Burma" over "Myanmar" as a means of protest against the junta, just as I suspect a number of news outlets first used "Myanmar" as a result of the self-flaggelation Western journalists frequently engage in. At the end of the day, the usage of news outlets, however, does not translate to popular usage except over a longer period of time and under much more intense interest by the population (in this case, the world's Anglophone population). Witness, for example, the explosion (no irony intended) in the use of "Palestinian territories" in recent years. This misnomer has entered common parlance, while "Myanmar" has not. The country is best known by people who don't follow politics of what is, for all intents and purposes, to the mind of the common Anglophone, for whom the country remains an obscure backwater, as "Burma". Anecdotally, about a week and a half ago, I was chatting with my office manager, talking about the proliferation of [pet] rat breeds that I'd found in the WP article on the subject, when she mentioned that she really likes WP, and said that she'd just used it earlier that day to find out where exactly Burma is, and was surprised to see that the article was at "Myanmar", a name she'd never heard of. While there are those in this discussion who prefer to dismiss her lack of knowledge on the subject as "ignorance", I am compelled to dismiss such dismissal as bordering on (if not outright) "arrogance". The attitude betrayed by that dismissal, however, seems to me to be underpinned by a sentiment that runs counter to WP's purpose: we are here to inform by reporting, we are not here to preach to the "ignorant", using our personal preferences and interpretations of world events as a basis for our presentation. This runs counter to WP:NOR and WP:NPOV. WP:NC, especially WP:UE, clearly prefers "Burma", honest reporting clearly demands that significant mention be made of "Myanmar". While it is true that "Czechia" has not made as great of inroads into English usage in the media as "Myanmar" has, calling this article "Myanmar" violates WP policies as renaming Czech Republic to "Czechia" would. On another note, something that has received too little consideration in this discussion is the potential extent to which the article being called "Myanmar" has influenced usage...by which I mean that some of what is being written out there and cited as evidence of English usage supporting "Myanmar" is colored by the location of the Wikipedia article. And no, I'm not talking about mirrors. That's my 4¢. Tomer^talk 04:54, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
• Support While there is ANY doubt over the legitimacy of the name-change (which I don't think anyone would deny there is), the article should be named "Burma". U-Mos 13:54, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
  • I don't think opinions on the legitimacy of the regime that asked for the change should influence the location of the article one way or the other - Myanmar is far from unique in having a regime and/or name change of questionable legitimacy. "Rhodesia" was technically as questionable for the country (which hardly anyone recognised) between 1964 and 1979 - legally the colony's name was still "Southern Rhodesia" despite the colonial executive declaring it had become "Rhodesia" in 1964 and declaring UDI in 1965. And "Zimbabwe Rhodesia" (1979-1980) was an internal settlement without international approval. However all the names are used for the relevant Wikipedia articles. I feel it would be NPOV to let views on the regime influence the location of the article. Timrollpickering 14:15, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
• Support It is inaccurate to refer to the country as Myanmar on the English Wikipedia, as the English speaking world refers to it as Burma. It's no different than calling Deutschland Germany, Ísland Iceland, etc. Xizer 18:50, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Sorry but these comparisons keep getting trotted out and they're simply not comparable. There have never been calls for "Germany" to be referred to as "Deutschland" in English and consequently "Deutschland" is never used in English except in very specific contexts. But there have been calls to use "Myanmar" in English and as has been shown by many users on this page there are many who have adopted the new name. This is comparable to Cote d'Ivoire, a name that has also been adopted in English. Myanmar is a word used for this country in English in a way that Cote d'Ivoire is and Deutschland isn't. However the word has originated, Wikipedia should not seek to dictate use or say WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Timrollpickering 19:34, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Perhaps a better example is East Germany instead of the GDR or DDR. --Philip Baird Shearer 06:04, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose but why don't we just settle with the south east asian trend,(myanmar), i think nowhere decolonisation immediatly brought total justice, however we can still respect these peoples wish to name their own country's (eg u dont start looking for india at "the dominion").77.251.179.188 20:43, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

• This has nothing to do with colonization or anything like that. The junta changed the country's name, not the people. --Hemlock Martinis 21:00, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support Burma Common english name; calling it Myanmar is equivalent to having the article for Vienna placed at Wien. Chubbles 20:50, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
• Support
• Support. Wikipedia is not bound to throw out the English name of the country and follow SLORC's weak transliteration system. (The Americans don't even say it right — most tack on a alveolar approximant becuase of the final "r.") —  AjaxSmack  22:02, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
• Support Almost no-one but the junta calls it Myanmar; in actual fact my Burmese friend continues to refer to it as Burma, as do her family, and their entire extended family, even those back in her home country itself. DEVS EX MACINA _pray 23:27, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
• Support As the name "Myanmar" has become the symbol for the military regime, also in Burma itself, I see no reason for Wikipedia to continue supporting the local junta. --Drieakko 04:10, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

WP should not change article names based on how we feel politically. WP is apolitical. -- Alan Liefting talk 05:04, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps, but either way you choose, you make a statement here. Is it then the corrupted military regime of the country that defines the name used in Wikipedia? --Drieakko 11:34, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

• Weak Oppose i think the title of the article should be "Burma/Myanmar" i have seen several news sources use this method of naming and it indicates the controversy in english language use that the section on etymology pretty fairly describes. Jieagles 13:56, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
• Support. The nasty regime renamed it. The M-name has five different pronunciations. 'Burma' is quicker to type. Rothorpe 14:17, 1 October 2007 (UTC).
• Oppose - I don't wish to answer a call from Rangoon and reply "Oh, that's in Burma isn't it?", jeopardising a potentially beautiful relationship. I don't wish to post things to Burma and discover 2 years later that they never arrived. Yes, it's a real pain to send things to "Democratic People's Republic of Korea", but let's live in the real world and respect the things that other people have to live under - it makes their lives safer, even as it makes our lives easier. PR^talk 07:27, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 3

• Weak SupportBurma is the most common name in the U.K., Australia, and Ireland. President Bush (though I'm not a fan) refers to the country as Burma. I know this is not a political forum, but Wikipedia is very popular and this decision is important and may send a message. The military regime apparently illegally changed the name to Myanmar. Please see my compromise offer below, which I think would make a good solution.Randomfrenchie 00:25, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
• New Solution How about titling the article Myanmar (Burma). This would be a good and fair compromise. Randomfrenchie 00:25, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

  Why not Burma (Myanmar)? I don't think it is a compromise at all. --Philip Baird Shearer 07:44, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

• Support, per evidence section below. -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:45, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Data

• Google Scholar: Burma 60,400; Myanmar: 48,000;
• Google Books: Burma 41,000; Myanmar 3,800
  • This is not a typo. If it is restricted to recent books, there is still a 2:1 ratio in favor of Burma (and some evidence, btw, that Myanmar was not invented by the present regime). Many of the hits on Myanmar, including two of those on the first use "Myanmar (Burma)" in the title, additional evidence that Myanmar is not English, but requires translation. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:05, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
• Snowulf's BBC article says: It's general practice at the BBC to refer to the country as Burma, and the BBC News website says this is because most of its audience is familiar with that name rather than Myanmar. (my ital.) This is the reason for WP:UE also. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:18, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• Presumably their main audience is in the UK where the government uses the name Burma for political purposes. Note that Reuters uses Myanmar. --Polaron | Talk 22:30, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
  • The BBC's audience is worldwide; there's a reason they call it the World Service. And do you really believe that the BBC News is at the service of the Labour administration? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:45, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
    • But why single out the BBC? My point is, looking at the whole picture, usage is mixed. Some prefer Burma and some prefer Myanmar. And it appears neither is dominant in news reports. --Polaron | Talk 22:53, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
      • Because it's an explicit statement, by a reliable source, of which name is more recognizable (and therefore which name satisfies the purpose of WP:COMMONNAME). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:59, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• Google News: Burma without Myanmar: 3,551; Myanmar without Burma: 6,777. It is about 1:1 if hits where both terms are present are included.
  • And the difference appears to be largely datelines. The Burmese government may well check that stories filed within Burma spell according to their desires. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:46, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Not necessarily. The Associated Press uses Myanmar and USA Today edits the dateline to conform to its manual of style which uses Burma. [18] --Polaron | Talk 22:49, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
• Please see lots of additional data below . I made that new section because i wasn't sure if people would be upset about making this data section so much longer. --Espoo 10:04, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

While Google searches are misleading, a search on English language pages for "burma -myanmar" gets 4.6 million hits (6.1 million for "burma" only) while "myanmar -burma" gets 34 million hits (39.8 million for "myanmar" only). Similar searches on Google News for the news sources located on the largest English-speaking countries are shown above. At a minimum, this shows that "Burma" is not the most common name in English. The question is, when the common name is not obvious, which name should we fall back on. --Polaron | Talk 00:33, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Google searches are not an accurate metric of actual English-language usage by any stretch of the imagination. dcandeto 15:21, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

• Google News results (copied from above for reference):
• Doing various searches on Google News using news sources based in the major English speaking countries, one comes up with the following. This is a search that uses only one term and not the other (i.e. excludes searches that use both terms):

   US prefers Myanmar by 4.7:1 (actually though President Bush refers to the country as Burma, which is correct)
   Canada prefers Myanmar by 4.5:1
   India prefers Myanmar by 2.2:1
   UK prefers Burma by 1.9:1
   Australia prefers Burma by 5.0:1

• If no exclusions are made (i.e. include hits with both terms present), the results become:

   India prefers Myanmar by 1.5:1
   US prefers Myanmar by 1.4:1
   Canada prefers Myanmar by 1.3:1
   UK prefers Burma by 1.3:1
   Australia prefers Burma by 1.8:1

I would like to point out that disregarding the news agencies because they "can call a country whatever they like" is not a valid argument. The governments of countries can also call countries whatever they like. In fact, governments are probably less reliable because they may have political motivation to use one name over the other. And please don't assume that the country names news reports use are due to some "cub reporter". News agencies have a manual of style that they follow for these things. There is still no evidence that, looking at the entirety of English language usage, Burma is the undisputed common name. Burma is only common in UK government sources and US State Department sources. Even the whole US government taken as a whole has mixed usage. --Polaron | Talk 02:39, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, that's a mischaracterization of my evidence. I've posted links for multiple English-speaking governments, and all of them referred to Burma by its proper name. It's all for the same event (the protests going on right now) so that should indicate the cohesion of the usage. I see no evidence of any mixed usage among the U.S. government - the Clinton and Bush administrations have always taken a hard stance on the regime in Burma, and the CIA and State Department links reflect that. The U.S. government refuses to legitimize the military junta by calling Burma "Myanmar", and we should do the same. --Hemlock Martinis 04:34, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Why? Not only are you advocating that Wikipedia take a political stance via the naming of the article, you're advocating that we take the political stance of the United States government? -ryand 13:43, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

One point I'd like to make is that the analysis of Google News, or any other news survey, will be badly distorted by newspapers' utilization of the AP Stylebook. If the AP Style Guide has decided, on whatever evidence it wishes, to standardize on the name Myanmar, then virtually all newspapers in the United States will follow. This doesn't mean there is a consensus among 58,000 newspapers that Myanmar is correct; it's a consensus (or maybe just a majority vote? Who knows?) of whatever few individuals write the AP Style Guide. Tempshill 21:01, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

---

In my experiance, if Myanmar is prefered by an English language publication they usually qualify the first usage of Myanmar with Burma by way of an explanation. But if an English language publication uses Burma qualification with Myanmar is less common. It seems that most publication expect their readers/listeners/viewers/ to know what Burma is, but do not expect them to know what Myanmar is. I think the article should be at Burma with a redirect from Myanmar. --Philip Baird Shearer 11:06, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

---

If we do rename this article, should that carry over to the rest of the encyclopedia? --Hemlock Martinis 20:18, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Ref U Thant - there is no mention of Myanmar in the article (as of this moment), only "Burma" - it may not be such a daunting task at all. István 20:32, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, the categories aren't going to be fun. --Hemlock Martinis 21:14, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Take them to CFD; which has a bot. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:54, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• Okay there are several examples of other countries flying around this discussion. I don't think Germany is a valid comparison because "Germany" is what the country calls itself in English - for example the embassy in the UK will have "Germany" rather than "Deutschland" on all English language material, English language versions of international treaties will say "Federal Republic of Germany" not "Bundesrepublik Deutschland" and so forth. A more appropriate case to compare Myanmar to is Côte d'Ivoire, which is the name used by that country in all languages rather than "Ivory Coast" in English (or, say, "Elfenbeinküste" in German). The Wikipedia article is at Côte d'Ivoire - should we not follow the "official short name form" convention, rather than getting into arguments about who's media or government uses what term more often? Timrollpickering 22:50, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
  • No, because it's not our convention. The argument at Côte d'Ivoire was that English actually uses it; by comparison, East Timor is not the official short name, but English usage. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:54, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
  • "Deutschland" is an apt analogue. Timrollpickering notes that Germany itself agrees that its English name is "Germany." But to make the English word for Germany dependent upon what the German government chooses as the English word for its country is strange indeed. By this argument, if the Bundestag decreed that Germany's English name was "Deutschland," the English-speaking world would have to comply. This would of course be absurd. Nevertheless, many English speakers complied when the State Law and Order Restoration Council issued an analogous decree. To let this stand would open a most dangerous precedent. We would have to call North Korea "the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea," a name that would defy NPOV. If another junta somewhere else in the world ruled that its country is now called, in English, "Blissful Abode of the Master Race," we would have to comply. The fact that "Myanmar" happens to be a neutral Burmese word in no way removes this difficulty, because the use of "Myanmar" in English remains based upon a governmental decree, and to accept the name on this basis opens this door.--LapisQuem 15:33, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
    • It's not an appropriate analogue because Germany is not and never had pushed for such a change. If it did then the English language usage would change at the high level - for example all English language output from the country's government would use "Deutschland", the country's tourist board would market it as "Deutschland", the football team would come to be called "Deutschland" in matches and wider usage would follow on - I suspect a lot of media outlets would change their style guides in line with the country's decision. But the point is that Germany has not done this so it is not a valid comparison. Cases like Côte d'Ivoire are because there has been active decisions and demands for renaming.
    • Most extraordinary. The analogue, incidentally, was not what Germany is called in English, but what it would be called if the Bundestag decreed that its English name is "Deutschland." It had not occurred to me that there would be English speakers who imagined that such a decree would have any force. Why it should have any force is very, very hard to imagine. Of course, no one expects Germany to issue such a decree, because the German government respects each country's right to use a word in its own language for Germany, and would not have the effrontery to try. The State Law and Order Restoration Council did not hold this respect. Apparently, however, we must comply anyway. "Yes, sir, Senior General Than Shwe"--LapisQuem 16:40, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
      • I find it surprising that anyone would doubt that the German government would follow the Bundestag's lead in such a situation when it came to what is used by the tourist board, visa forms, press releases, English language texts of treaties and so forth. Or that some media organisations would amend their style guide to use "Deutschland" instead of "Germany", in the same way that style guides changed from "Rhodesia" to "Zimbabwe-Rhodesia" to "Zimbabwe", or "Ivory Coast" to "Cote d'Ivoire". And this is frankly a straw man as "Myanmar" is a word used in English to describe the country. Timrollpickering 20:12, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
    • The names used in the English language for most countries are ultimately what the country has decided on with the rest of the world following its lead. A few years ago the country called "Zaire" changed its name to "Democratic Republic of Congo" and the world followed suit. "Persia" was renamed "Iran" in the 1930s and the latter name is now the most commonly used for that country (although some London restaurants serving its cuisine still use "Persian"). Opinions on the current regime in Myanmar/Burma are POV and we should not let soapboxing on it determine the name of the article. Timrollpickering 16:19, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
    • The current regime in "Myanmar/Burma" decreed the English name change, and not the Burmese people. Abiding by its decree is a recognition of the legitimacy of this regime, and thus POV. Neutral POV would be to desist from name changes barring extraordinary reasons, and a decree from SLORC's generals is no such reason. Morevoer the issue is not what the Burmese people wish to call themselves, or what the Burmese regime wishes to call the nation it rules, but rather what English speakers shall call the country. The answer should come from the practice of English speakers themselves, with the self confidence to use their own words until they have compelling reasons of their own to change them.--LapisQuem 16:49, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
      • The problem is that both words are used in English for this country - it's not a case that chosing one over the other is "taking sides", but unfortunately too many people advocating using "Burma" seem to be doing so on the basis of a POV about the country's current regime. The names for countries do change quite a bit - why don't we use "Bohemia" for the Czech Republic? It's not because of technical quibbles about whether "Bohemia" covers all of it... Timrollpickering 20:12, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
      • Was the government of Zaire legitimate when the name change occurred? I suspect neither of us knows without going and looking it up. I'm not a fan of the Myanmar change, but I don't like the idea of Wikipedia editors judging the legitimacy (according to what standard?) of a country's government in deciding whether to abide by name changes. Is the People's Republic of China legitimate by your standards? Should we listen to anything they say? Tempshill 21:08, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
• An alternative is to use Myanmar/Burma as the page heading. However, in general, staking a position between two opposing sides pleases nobody and just gets you shot at from both directions. Tim Vickers 23:59, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
  • And is likely to produce a move request to Burma/Myanmar, than which few things would be more frivolous. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:10, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Very true! Tim Vickers 00:26, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Yeah, I'd much rather have it be just Burma or just Myanmar than have both names there. That would just look sloppy. --Hemlock Martinis 03:12, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
  • I think it's worth considering. This country's naming situation is rather unique, I think, and a dual heading would more accurately reflect the reality. As far as everyone on both sides complaining they are being treated unfairly: in a lot of journalism fields, this is considered a sign that you have written the article perfectly. Tempshill 21:10, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
• To anyone who is interested, I have also requested a vote to change Yangon to Rangoon. Reginmund 03:35, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Are there any other cities that were renamed by the junta? --Hemlock Martinis 03:41, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

    Irrawaddy River but perhaps this article Names of Burma/Myanmar is worth reading before any other changes are proposed. --Philip Baird Shearer 12:12, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

That article is entirely original research though. --snowolfD4 ^{( talk / @ )} 13:22, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

No; it is (partly) unsourced, which is not the same thing. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:35, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

• I mentioned this before the move discussion. I'm including it here in case it's lost. Al Jazeera uses Myanmar, as does Xiahua, The Star Malaysia, at least 3 Indian papers I found [19] [20] [21], Channel News Asia, 2 South African sources use Myanmar [22] [23] one uses Burma [24] (of the 3 I found). Even the New Zealand Herald often uses Myanmar; Spiegel [25] [26] & DW-World sometimes do as well seemingly (I noticed Burma was used as well sometimes by both German sources.
• Some may accuse me of cherry picking sources but here's what I'll say (believe me or not is up to you). I chose Al Jazeera as one of the most well known international English source from outside the English world. I chose Xiahua as the best source I knew from China. I chose The Star as one of the Malaysia sources I know but I'm extremely confident all Malaysian sources use Myanmar predominantly. I chose Channel News Asia since I recognised it, it's a somewhat Pan-Asian source although it's really Singaporean. I searched for Indian papers and found 3. I search for South African sources and found 3. I searched for German sources and found 2 (Spiegel was the key one since I recognised it).
• I'm also including a Singaporean source [27] & the other 2 Malaysian ones [28] [29] [30] (I'm not sure why there are 2 different pages for The Sun, I don't read it so I simply included both. The second one seems to be the 'right' one) & also [31] which is an internet only news source for Malaysia (and which is therefore able to operate more independently) although they concentrate on Malaysia internally predominantly. Nil Einne 17:16, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
• Nil Einne 17:16, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
• Further to the above (again I searched for stuff like Indonesia news etc. No Myanmar or Burma in my searches. I did not cherry pick results but chose whatever I found that I thought was useful or I recognised from previous reading it unrelated to Myanmar/Burma. If you don't want to believe me, that's up to you); Indonesia [32] (first Google result and also the one I recognise, they also claim to be Indonesia's leading English daily), [33] might be useful for finding more sources; Thailand [34] (I recognise this, didn't look for more); Philippines [35], [36], [37], [38], [39]; I admit I didn't look at any of these extensively but from what I did see Myanmar is predominant. I could search more but I can't be bothered because I tire of this argument and I have yet to see any evidence of that Myanmar is not predominant by far in SEA. And it really doesn't surprise me. From my experience most SEA governments and sources use official names. (And yes this includes Timor Leste now, not East Timor). Their people adapt. The politics of the naming is usually ignored. Yes there are cases like Taiwan which get complicated but other then that... This will be my last post on this matter I stand by my claims. Nil Einne 17:48, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Let's not count media from countries where English is a second language please. AFAIK the only South-East Asian states where English has some sort of official recognition and significant numbers of speakers of English as a first (or joint first) language are Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines. --Folantin 17:59, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Well yes I wasn't particularly interested in Indonesia myself. I only included it because someone above mentioned an Indonesia source uses Burma and I wanted to confirm or deny it. I did include Thailand on purpose because although their English usage is fairly small, they are fairly large and also share a border with Thailand and probably have more a indepth relationship with Myanmar/Burma then much of the rest of the SEA (who are also fairly close) and so I suspect the vast majority of English speaking Thais will probably be aware of and discuss Myanmar on occasion (even before the recent events). Of primary interest IMHO are the 3 you listed, Thailand, India (and to some extent China but because of their limited English usage perhaps not so much although given their population they can't be ignored).
    • Anyway I only came back since I wanted to clarify that I'm not convinced common usage is Burma. But I also believe that common usage has limited appliciability when it comes to country names in particular since ultimately (and I largely agree with SqueekBox et al) baring cases with political ramifications such as this, people adapt to and start using the official names. This makes it difficult or impossible to determine what is common usage amongst other things and also leads to strong systemic bias issues. You're welcome to disagree with me, I only say this to put all my cards on the table before I leave lest people accuse me of using the common usage concerns to try an get my way because of my view on official names.
    • Nil Einne 18:19, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
      • The only other country you mention I'd include is India because "English has some sort of official recognition and significant numbers of speakers of English as a first (or joint first) language". Not the case for Thailand or China (barring Hong Kong maybe). I'm certainly not convinced that "Myanmar" is generally used in English without having to be explained with reference to Burma. This might become true at some future point, but it's not the case now. Plus, nobody seems to know what the standard pronunciation of "Myanmar" is in English, suggesting it doesn't exactly spring to the tongue in everyday conversation, whereas this doesn't happen with Burma. --Folantin 18:35, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay yes I know I have the very bad habit of not leaving when I say I would, I was just talking to someone and finally thought of a way to explain something which had been bugging me. Some people have suggested that because most people would recognise Burma but some wouldn't recognise Myanmar then we should stick with Burma. I strongly disagree. Some people argue Calcutta etc should be the names for the Indian places. By the earlier simplistic logic, it should be since most people will recognise Calcutta (and yes I know some people support this view). If you agree that it should be Kolkata then hopefully you agree it isn't just what most people recognise that matters. Other factors needs to be considered. As an editor arguing for the move put it, what is preferred matters. What is preferred here is obviously very controversial and uncertain. For example, in SEA and probably India I concede Burma is likely to be recognised. However I strongly suspect it's usually seen as archaic (you learn about Burma in history and Myanmar in geography). I don't see why you can ignore this viewpoint any more then you ignore that some people have heard of Burma but not Myanmar. Official names, as I mentioned above, matter to them. If Myanmar changes back to Burma then yes they'll also go back. Nil Einne 18:51, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't necessarily agree that it should be Kolkata quite yet since it hasn't filtered into common use in sizeable sections of the English-speaking world. On the other hand, English is one of the official languages of India (plus it is a democracy) so I don't really mind if Wikipedia reflects that. But governments (especially foreign ones) shouldn't dictate English usage. After all, our article on Bangkok is not under its official Thai name of Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Yuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit (or even, to be serious, just Krung Thep). --Folantin 19:11, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Possible Compromises

How about moving the article to something along the lines of:

• Myanmar/Burma
• Myanmar (Burma)
• Burma (Myanmar)
• Burma/Myanmar

I know this may have already been discussed but please post your opinions here.

Randomfrenchie 00:28, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I think that Burma (Myanmar) order makes sense (shows a preference for "Burma" while acknowledging the widespread use of "Myanmar") and I feel like the parenthetical usage is more visually appealing and more commonly used on Wikipedia (I'm sure there are a few article names with a "/" in the middle, but I can't think of any.) — DIEGO ^talk 04:36, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I'd rather have it as just Myanmar or just Burma. Or we could split it into two articles. --Hemlock Martinis 05:12, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Thank you

I was referred to this Myanmar / Burma naming debate, and I read all the comments carefully and with great interest. I ended up, as it seems most of us are, with a slight preference in one direction, but without an overwhelming feeling one way or the other.

So I can add nothing substantial or useful to the debate, except for this: I find this discussion to be delightful, rational, kind, thoughtful, and respectful. And I want to thank everyone involved for handling the issue with sensitivity and thoughtfulness. It is a "borderline case" in the true sense of that word: there are good arguments for both sides, and it all seems somewhat balanced. Sometimes debates like this go downhill into flames, and this one has not. Everyone involved should feel proud about that.--Jimbo Wales 05:57, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Garbled English

"President Thabo Mbeki called respect for peaceful protests versus junta ruling Myanmar. Buddhist monks were at a riot police road block, as Myanmar crackdown drew outrage, protests and demonstrations worldwide against Myanmar violence. George Bush demanded an end to Myanmar violence, as 9 dissidents were killed." I propose to change this to "President Thabo Mbeki called for respect for peaceful protests versus the junta ruling Myanmar. Buddhist monks were at a riot police road block, as the Myanmar crackdown drew outrage, protests and demonstrations worldwide against Myanmar violence. George Bush demanded an end to Myanmar violence, as 9 dissidents were killed." I am not sure whether this is what the original writer intended in the sentence about Mbeki. Is Mbeki supposed to be calling for the protestors to respect the juntaor for the junta to respect the protestors? Edison 13:35, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Naming controversy - something to consider

As far as I am aware referring to 'Myanmar' as 'Burma' is pretty much the same as people referring to Great Britain as 'England'. The name also pre-dates this Junta and is a term which is inclusive of all the ethnicities and not just the Burmese. If the governemnt of the day in Myanmar (whether democratic or not) wishes the country to be called and be known as 'Myanmar' then so be it, 'Myanmar' it is. This reminds me of a well written comment on the Cote d'Ivoire discussion page, where there is a similiar argument that Cote d'Ivoire is French for Ivory Coast and because this is English Wiki then Ivory Coast should be used even though the government of the Cote d'Ivoire wishes that this be the official name (in all languages). The comment made was along the lines of the following. Burkino Faso (formerly known as Upper Volta in the English language) is a native African name which means "Land of Upright People", now does this mean we should ignore the name Burkino Faso and start referring to the country as "Land of Upright People" ?! It seems that just because a country may have a name in another major international language that we think its fit to use an anglicised version, whereas we don't mind indigenous language names. Whether or not a place name has an alternative English name or not is irrelevant. True, people will still call 'Myanmar' Burma in 50yrs time, names and habits do stick. However it does not change the fact that the official name of Myanmar (at the moment, pending regime change) is 'Myanmar'. There has also been reference to the BBC calling 'Myanmar' Burma, So what? Since when was the BBC the authority on place names or even pronunciation? Christ, a lot of the time they are hard pushed to get a geographic location in the United Kingdom right, never mind half way around the world! I believe the BBC's official policy of naming convention (or it used to be) was that it referred to places etc as they are commonly called or known as, which as we all know does not necessarily mean it is correct (e.g referring to 'Netherlands' as 'Holland'). Another example I could use is the present state of Zimbabwe, should we disregard this 'African-ised term' (its not English word is it) and instead use Rhodesia, should we also do the same for Harare and revert to its original name Salisbury? One could go on and on, fact is place names change and evolve, just as countries are born and then disappear, just look what happened to Poland once upon a time! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.76.97.173 (talk) 14:22, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

First of all, Burma and Myanmar are the same word. Second, governments cannot dictate what proper English usage is any more than you can dictate that "ain't" isn't a word, and splitting infinitives is improper. People call it Burma; therefore, it is Burma, regardless of what the Burmese junta prescribes. Most people call Zimbabwe "Zimbabwe," and most people call Burma "Burma." dcandeto 15:34, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Except, one gets the impression from Google that most people call it Myanmar... -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:51, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

1) Google hits indicate how many websites, not how many people use an expression. 2) Most people writing in the Internet about current events use the same expressions as or directly copy news sources. 3) As explained in the discussion above, most news sources follow some style guide, so the number of news sources using M instead of or before mentioning B does not indicate the same number of independent decisions for M. They're simply following, for example, the AP style guide. 4) Even those that use M first almost always explain that this means B because 5) Most English speakers except in some Asian countries have no idea where or what M is, but most know that B is a country and have a vague idea of in what part of the world it's located. 6) Based on 4 and 5, it's obvious that most people outside of Asia never use M, and the extreme confusion about how to pronounce M proves it is not at all widely used. --Espoo 21:19, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

1) I'm pretty much aware of that, but I don't mean to use ghit counts as anything other than a rough guide. 2) and 3) I don't see why it matters whether we're counting "independent decisions". Is most English usage determined by independent decisions, or don't most of us rather repeat words and phrases we've heard others use? Nowhere in WP:COMMONNAME does it say we need to consider why a name is common. 4) When I search Google news for "Myanmar -Burma" and "Burma -Myanmar", I see twice as many hits for the former, which seems to belie your claim that M is almost always explained as meaning B. 5) and 6) I see that you're asserting what "most English speakers" know about, but I don't see any evidence for these claims. I've never been to Asia, and I think I've seen more usage of Myanmar than of Burma. Am I to believe that my experience is so remarkable and unique? Do you know "most people outside of Asia" better than I do? -GTBacchus^(talk) 07:35, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

GTBacchus, I would say that your experience isn't necessarily "remarkable" or "unique", but I would say you are more travelled than the majority of Anglophones, and, as a teacher, hopefully have read more than the "average" intelligent but not-so-widely-travelled or so-up-to-date-on-international-naming-intrigue, Anglophone. I perceive in your above statement that you are trying to portray yourself as an "average" Anglophone, and I rather doubt that that portrayal is even remotely accurate. A cursory review of my contributions in related discussions will reveal that I am a stickler for distinguishing between simple: as an online encyclopedia for "dumb Anglophones", and en: for the literate. This is not, however, in my view, a distinction between "dumb" and "literate" Anglophones, this argument is over a distinction between "literate" Anglophones, and a minority of Anglophones (overrepresented among Wikipedians) who consider themselves, pompously in some cases, I daresay, "literati". (And no, I'm not accusing you...) Tomer^talk 08:18, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok. You and Espoo talked me into it. I think Burma really is more common, and should be used per the principle of least astonishment. Well argued. (Oh, and I've been called worse than 'literati', and thrown out of much nicer bars than this one! ;) ). I suspect I'm too involved to close the move request, though. -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:43, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

What about referring to the United Kingdom [of Great Britain and Northern Ireland] as 'Great Britain'? Biofoundationsoflanguage 12:23, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

News organizations' usage doesn't count.

Sorry for repeating myself but I'll do so because I see a lot of citing of magazines' and newspapers' usage that isn't relevant.

Surveying news organizations for their usages of "Burma" or "Myanmar" is strongly suspect because most newspapers and news magazines in the US refer to the AP Stylebook for all such decisions. If the AP Stylebook says it's Myanmar, then nearly all newspapers in the US will use Myanmar. Evidence that 58,000 newspapers and news magazines use the term "Myanmar" doesn't mean that 58,000 newspapers have judged the situation and made a careful decision; it just means that a few people at the Associated Press have made a decision, and 58,000 newspapers and news magazines subsequently slaved themselves to that decision. Tempshill 21:17, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

The regime changed the name but they are unelected and they rule by force. The protesters I see on the news both Burmese in their own country and the ones in exile, carry banners clearly with the name "Burma" on it. I lived next door in Thailand for 3 years and met many Burmese born people and Karens too. They refer to "Burma" as their homeland and where there from. They pronounce "Myanmar" with a scowl, which directly relates to military government. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.65.64.201 (talk) 21:22, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Our policy says to follow the most common usage in English-language sources. It doesn't say to decide whether each source's reason for their usage "counts" or not. That strikes me as a POV decision to make. -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:15, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

It makes no difference to us whether a government is elected or not, we are an encyclopedia not a political activism organisation. We should use the common English term for what the country (ie its government) calls itself, and that is Myanmar. Were there more sources in English for Burma doesn't affect that at all, or if more people use the word Burma doesn't affect it either, the latter especially not as we are here to educate the ignorant, SqueakBox 23:29, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Google is one form of evidence, beyond the anecdotal, for what the common English term is; others can be found at WP:NCGN; the same page has several cautions about Googling, and advises against trusting raw www.google.com searches. I am convinced that Myanmar is not (yet, if ever) the common English term; and we are not here to ladle information down our readers' throats, but to communicate with them. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:37, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

We are not here to pander to people's ignorance but to inform people so if do not realise Burma is now called Myanmar we are here to teach them, SqueakBox 16:49, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, none of us is here from the pro-ladling contingent, right? So, if we're all agreed that we'd like to use the most commonly recognized term, perhaps we can agree that it's not entirely clear which name is more commonly recognized. I see anecdotal evidence for both sides... Google-based evidence for both sides, and... um... I can't tell. Maybe "Burma" is still more common. Maybe "Myanmar" has supplanted it, in the English of most speakers worldwide. I don't think we've been presented with the right information to say for sure, nor do we know whether such information exists. How can we tell which is more commonly recognized? -GTBacchus^(talk) 04:31, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:NCGN has six suggested methods, one being the usage of Google Scholar and Google Books. It does not mention, and should, an assertion by a neutral and reliable source; but then that doesn't happen that often. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:28, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

CIA heroin connection?

Is this information corroborated by other sources? --Espoo 02:07, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, we know that many former Chinese Nationalists from when Chinese Communists came to power fled to northern Burma and went on to the drug trade. - According to Prof Alfred McCoy in his "The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade" as well as other sources. 67.53.78.15 00:31, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Railroad history

Unfortunately the article can't be changed by anonymous or new members. So I have to ask if the phrase explaining that the first railroads were built in the 1800s means that we have to rewrite the history of that technology? Between 1800 and 1810 there didn't exist so many railroads and until now I hadn´t heard anything about important Burmese contributions (or a simultaneous discovery). Someone should write "19th century" or preferably give a better number. 84.178.118.252 08:53, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

The 1800's is more naturally the century than the decade; but this fix seems harmless. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:29, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

"Occupation"

I'd like to protest against the use of the term "former British occupied territories" in the history section as that is not a neutral PoV. Wiktionary, which I think is the best source for how words should be used in Wikipedia, defines occupation in that sense as control by a hostile army, and so while the British Army was certainly occupying territory during the Anglo-Burmese wars, a permenant and recognised civil administration can never occupy territory. And I think saying British colonialism was overtly hostile is not entirely neutral. Stupid, mismanaged, insensitive, yes. No dispute there. But not universally "hostile." Wiktionary says "belonging to an enemy, showing the disposition of an enemy" (again, can't apply after Anglo-Burmese wars), "showing ill will and malevolance, or a desire to thwart or injure" (I've yet to see proof that mainstream colonialists were in any way malevolant. Never ascribe to malice what could be ascribed to mere stupity), "occupied by an enemy or enemies" (bit of a loop, isn't it?), "inimical, unfriendly" (this one is the only one even debatable, but doesn't get past my civil administration argument.

For a comparison, since the United States has its borders recognised almost universaly, but is built on land annexed from the original inhabitants, the entire country should be declared "occupied" unless this is changed. More importantly, since the Burmese annexed independant kingdoms several times, a lot of Burmese territory was "occupied" before Britain turned up.

And another thing: "Kipling’s poem 'Mandalay' is now all that most people in Britain remember of Myanmar’s difficult and often brutal colonisation." That's I'd like a source on that, because I live in Edinburgh and I can say with confidence that it's an outright lie. Most people here either have absolutely no idea where Burma is, know about it from the recent events but have never heard "The Road to Mandalay", or are educated folks who know plenty about Burma. That sentence is not neutral, is aseemingly innaccurate, and needs a citation.

An Anonymous Contributor. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.192.125.107 (talk) 10:26, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Interesting. How would you approach the use of the term "Occupied [Palestinian] Territories" then, to describe the situation with Israel? Tomer^talk 05:26, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

One can not compare the situation of military occupations/annexations before and after the introduction of the IV Geneva Convention. Military occupation used to end when military law ended and a civilian law was introduced. Today this is no longer the case because annexations are not accepted as lawful under international law unless the population of the occupied territory clearly express a wish to succeed from the state to which they belong. So today a territory remains occupied even if the occupier declares an annexation and puts in a civilian government. --Philip Baird Shearer 13:00, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

By your definition, then, the occupation of the "Occupied [Palestinian] Territories" ended in 1967 (several years before the term came into widespread use), since Jordan annexed the West Bank, while Israel has not. I think this pretty clearly demonstrates the extent to which political agendas drive usage in the media, including naming, as I've commented on elsewhere on this page. Tomer^talk 17:15, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

It is not my definition. Israel occupies the West Bank (Israel agrees that it does). International opinion is that Israel is also still in military occupation of East Jerusalem, something which Israel does not agree on as it says the capital of the State of Israel. BTW the the term territory is not a new one it has been around a very long time when describing issues like this one (see paragraph one of the The Palestine Mandate "to entrust to a Mandatory selected by the said Powers the administration of the territory of Palestine, which formerly belonged to the Turkish Empire". --Philip Baird Shearer 00:34, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

What you're talking about has nothing to do with the point I was making, namely, that nobody ever called the territories "Occupied" when they were occupied by Jordan and Egypt, and, in the case of the WB, annexed by Jordan. They only became "Occupied [Palestinian] Territories" in 1967. The point I was making had nothing to do with status of the territories, legality of occupation or annexation, etc. It had exclusively to do with the way that political agendas drive language usage in the media and how that "trickles down", if you will, to popular usage. The relevance here, of course, as I have said elsewhere, is that people get much more media exposure to the Israelis vs. non-Israeli Arabs fracas than they do to the ongoing situation in Burma. The media's adoption of the term "Occupied [Palestinian] Territories" has, consequently, had a much greater impact on popular usage not only because of the bizarrely disproportionate (one might say "obsessive") amount of coverage given to Israel and her neighbors, as opposed to Burma...but also because the media's adoption of the junta's respelling has been much less uniform...driven, I maintain, by the political views of journalists and editors. Nothing about what I said should be misconstrued as a desire to go off on a tangent about the situation in the Middle East, however, my sole purpose was to point out the relationship between journalists' politics and their consequent usage, and the further relationship between what the media obsesses about and what goes from media usage to popular usage. Tomer^talk 01:47, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

But the complaint you were asking the question about was "I'd like to protest against the use of the term "former British occupied territories" in the history section as that is not a neutral PoV.". I was pointing out that IMHO the comparison is not helpful because one can not compare the two as the legal status was different because the colonial status of Burma followed a beligerent military occupation long before GCIV became part of international law. It is like saying that the Falkland Islands are are military occupied territory which they are not. The were however under military occupation by both the Argentinians and the British military until such time as the British military handed control back to the civilian government. The important point under international law is the type of government in the Falkland islands is an internal British issue because the islands are recognised by most of the international community as under British sovereignty. But even if the British had lost the Falklands War the islands would have remained under Argentinian military occupation even if the Argentinians had put in a civilian government until/unless the UN security council/Britain agreed that they were part of the sovereign territory of Argentina (which would to a large extent have depended on the local population desiring a change of soverignty). So to describe Burma as "former British occupied territories" is not an accurate description "former British colonies" or "former British territories" would be better. --Philip Baird Shearer 10:10, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I was asking a bit tongue-in-cheek. The term "occupied" is used here, just as it is in the case of what I referred to, to elicit an emotional response rather than a rational response. The relevance comes in in relation to my discussion higher up the page where I point out that the media warp public perception according to their own viewpoint. This discussion has departed, almost from the beginning, from its intended direction because of more of the same. Calling Burma "former British occupied territories" clearly falls under the rubric of sensationalism, but people too often only recognize sensationalism when it contradicts their own worldview, as has now clearly been demonstrated. Tomer^talk 15:51, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

This is the Edinburgh guy again. I'd just like to say that I don't know terribly much about the situation in Palestine, but shall we get back on topic? This is SEA, not the Middle East. Does anyone have a reply which is an agreement to my argument or a rational and relevant counter-argument? -Anonymous Edinburgh Guy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.192.125.107 (talk) 19:07, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

pronunciation: unsourced edits

Timeineurope keeps adding pronunciation variants using /æ/ (= a as in man) without providing a source. I have reverted his edits already twice, so now it's time for others to step in if he does it again.

All the dictionaries found here and here and here provide different variants that use only the sound of A in father for the two As in Myanmar, and none provide variants with the sound of A in man.

Timeineurope however insists on misinterpreting the pronunciations provided by the BBC here. These use only the symbols a/A, but Timeineurope feels free to interpret some of these as /ɑ/ (= a in father) and some as /æ/, which is an incorrect interpretation of the BBC pronunciation guide, whose symbols are explained in the link provided at the bottom of the same page.

What complicates the matter is that the BBC guide erroneously uses its own incorrect symbol a/A (as in man) instead of its own correct one aa/AA (as in father), but this is no excuse for interpreting some of these a/As as /æ/ and some as /ɑ/.

To make a long story short, there are many variant English pronunciations of Myanmar in use (both in the same and in different kinds of English) but they all only vary in where to place the stress and how to pronounce the Y. All reputable sources listed record only the pronunciation /ɑ/ as in father for both As.

In case Timeineurope again adds the following unsourced edit (which is contradicted by all the sources provided):

/ˌmjænˈmɑː(ɹ)/, /ˌmjɑːnˈmɑː(ɹ)/, /ˈmjænˌmɑː(ɹ)/, /ˈmjɑːnˌmɑː(ɹ)/, /miˈænˌmɑː(ɹ)/, /miˌɑːnˈmɑː(ɹ)/, /ˈmiːənˌmɑː(ɹ)/, /ˈmjɑːnˈmɑː(ɹ)/, or /ˌmaɪənˈmɑː(ɹ)/

please replace it with the following edit (which is based on the dictionaries listed above):

/ˌmjɑnˈmɑː(ɹ)/, /ˈmjɑːnˌmɑ(ɹ)/, /ˈmjɑːnˈmɑː(ɹ)/, /ˌmaɪənˈmɑː(ɹ)/, /ˈmiːənˌmɑː(ɹ)/, or /miˈɑːnmɑː(ɹ)/

--Espoo 18:50, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Sure, the BBC Pronunciation Unit should follow their own transcription system. They should definitely write "maar" rather than "mar" when they mean /mɑː(ɹ)/. However, that they don't doesn't mean that there's any doubt as to how their transcriptions are to be interpreted. As they write themselves, it's "-ar as in 'bar'".

Timeineurope 11:56, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes. And in no way do they indicate that some of the As should be transcribed as /ɑ/ and some as /æ/, which you kept doing. That was my point, and you didn't respond to that. Your repeated edits with /æ/ and /ɑ/ in the same word had no source to back them up and were contradicted by all sources provided, even the BBC guide since it uses the same (albeit incorrect) symbol all the time. --Espoo 13:54, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

While there is no doubt whatsoever that my interpretation is the one intended by the BBC, I won't respond to your comment now but instead suggest you save yourself and me a lot of time and effort and simply contact the BBC Pronunciation Unit, who will confirm my interpretation.

Note that my interpretation is in line with the BBC Pronunciation Unit's previous pronunciation guide – they probably just forgot that they had changed their phonetic spelling system.

Timeineurope 15:29, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

The BBC lists, for example, MYAN-mar and myan-MAR as the first variant and the one it recommends. You transliterated these as /ˈmjænˌmɑː(ɹ)/ and /ˌmjænˈmɑː(ɹ)/, which are both simply incorrect according to both the BBC and all dictionaries listed as sources. There is nothing in the new or the old "pronunciation guides" (phonetic respelling guides) of the BBC that can be interpreted to mean that the sounds of the first and second syllables in either MYAN-mar or myan-MAR are different. That is simply your invention, and you have still not provided as source for that simply erroneous claim. The guide clearly states "Stressed syllables are given in CAPITALS", so the upper and lower case As in MYAN-mar are clearly the same sound, and your addition of /ˈmjænˌmɑː(ɹ)/ was simply erroneous. I hope this is now explained clearly enough for you to understand. --Espoo 16:47, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

The old "pronunciation guide" (you were the first to use that term) says "a as in cat" and "ar as in bar", which, if applied to "myan-MAR", means that the first syllable has the cat vowel and the second syllable has the bar vowel.

Timeineurope 17:15, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation "guides" that use phrases like "a as in cat" are worthless as pronunciation guides, since "a as in cat" is not pronounced /æ/ in all dialects of English. In fact, while I am loathe to use Wikipedia as a source in support of arguments over how anything should appear in other WP articles (except when it comes to discussions about article formatting and other stylistic issues, which this is not), if you look at Burmese language#Vowels, you will see that /æ/ does not, in fact, appear there...making the claim that any pronunciation guide indicating /æ/ is correct is, quite probably, incorrect. Tomer^talk 17:26, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

You're confusing English with Burmese. We are talking about the pronunciation of M in English. --Espoo 17:34, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

No, you're confusing IPA with "a as in cat", both of you. :-p Tomer^talk 17:38, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

That pronunciation (applied to "myan-MAR", means that the first syllable has the cat vowel and the second syllable has the bar vowel), if indeed what BBC intended, is not recorded in any of the dictionaries found here and here and here. Since it is also not the pronunciation that results from the guide linked to on the relevant page, it cannot be used as a reliable source in Wikipedia. --Espoo 17:31, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I think you're wrong. It's quite clear from the BBC's guide that the default interpretation of "a" in their system is the vowel in man, /æ/ or /a/ depending on your preferred transcription. If the BBC meant to show /ɑː/ in the first syllable, they'd have written it as "myaan", which they didn't. (As pointed out, there is a problem with the transcription as far as the second syllable is concerned, but Timeineurope's explanation about the old version of their guide seems entirely plausible.)

I'd also point out that the dictionaries you're quoting are American, and British and American English often differ on how to interpret [a] sounds in foreign words (e.g. pasta).

--JHJ 17:41, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

That's the first plausible explanation i've heard, but in fact one, Wordsmyth, is probably British, although they neglect to mention anything about their dialect of English, which shows how provincial and unreliable they are. And since the BBC's explanation of the variants says nothing about US variants, i assumed that they of course meant /ɑ/ for all uses of the letter A as in all the US dictionaries and encyclopedias listed since the BBC normally is not so provincial... Please provide a quote from a UK reference work! --Espoo 18:38, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

The Wordsmyth pronunciation guide is almost certainly American: you can tell because it doesn't distinguish the vowels of father and hot. There aren't any good online dictionaries which include place names and which give British English pronunciation that I know of, so I think the obvious solution is for someone to find a copy of J. C. Wells's Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, which is quite comprehensive, and see what he has to say. (I expect that a pronunciation with /æ/ will be included, partly because I think the BBC's page is actually clear enough on the first syllable, and partly because as a native speaker of British English myself I just find /ɑː/ there unlikely.)--JHJ 19:09, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah yes, the ghæstliness of "pæsta". Wouldn't it be nice if the dictators in Burma had specified whether they intended "Myanmar" or "Myænmar" (or "Myanmár" or "Myænmár")? Tomer^talk 17:44, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

The relevant page says "-ar as in 'bar'", superseding anything the guide might say on what "-ar" means. Timeineurope 17:43, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

So then the /r/ really is pronounced, since for the majority of native English-speakers "ar" in "bar" is pronounced /ɑɹ/, right? Tomer^talk 17:46, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

It says that only and specifically next to one variant, so that says nothing about the others. Its mention next to that one variant can very well be understood to mean it does not apply to the others. In any case, it's clearly ambivalent and not marked by the precision shown by good journalism or good scholarship, so this BBC page should be removed from WP until and if it's been corrected. --Espoo 18:32, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

How about this instead "Myanmar, pronounced /'bɝ·mʌ/..."? I like that better. Tomer^talk 17:49, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

etymology: unsourced edits

Timeineurope keeps editing the etymology section without providing a source for his edit. I have reverted his edits already twice, so now it's time for others to step in if he does it again.

There is no reason to question the quality of the information provided by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation here. This is definitely a reputable source as defined in the relevant WP policy. If Timeineurope wants to remove this information, he has to either provide another source or he has to contact the writer of that article to check his sources. Information provided by CBC is definitely a more reliable source on scientific subjects than unsourced edits by Timeineurope. --Espoo 14:20, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I have restored the etymology section to how it was before you made your changes – I don't need to source that. Wikipedia:Reliable sources says: "A reliable source is a published work regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand." Are you seriously going to maintain that journalists' writings are "regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to" scientific subjects?

Timeineurope 14:37, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

When restoring a section to a previous version replaces a statement with a source with a statement without a source, this is a clear violation of the spirit and intent of Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Due to your edit, the section now says "This name was used as early as the 12th century, but its etymology remains unclear."

In addition, you are of course free to remove any unsourced material from any article in Wikipedia, but that kind of behavior would reduce most articles to about probably 20 or 30% of their current length and would be considered very disruptive by most Wikipedians. The right to remove unsourced material is almost universally interpreted as the right to remove only such unsourced material that editors know or suspect to be incorrect.

Even more disruptive would be the removal of all sourced material if the sources are publications in major, respected newspapers. This is also true when these are used as sources for information on scientific topics. This kind of behavior would be considered very disruptive by almost all Wikipedians and would reduce most articles to probably about 10% of their current length. So unless you have a good reason to question the correctness of the information provided by CBC, your behavior is quite uncalled for. Your behavior is especially disruptive and childish considering your willingness to use the British counterpart to the CBC, the BBC, as a reputable source. If you have information that comes from a more reputable source than CBC, please feel free to add it, but stop removing the following edit, which someone else will hopefully soon put back, since i don't want to break the three-revert rule:

The first written record of the name, with the spelling Mirma, is from 1102, but its etymology remains unclear. Later written records use the spelling Mranma, the current form used in Burmese. The first part, mran, is pronounced /ˌmjɑn/ in Burmese, so Mranma would actually correspond to the English spelling Myanma. The "r" at the end is added only in English and in most European languages.

--Espoo 17:19, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

It is always OK to remove content that isn't reliably sourced – even if that results in the article saying something that also isn't reliably sourced. We have a right to remove unreliably sourced content and we don't have a duty to make sure what results is reliably sourced.

I am not saying the CBC is an unreliable source on all subjects, only scientific subjects. Wikipedia:Reliable sources says "A reliable source is a published work regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand". Journalists' writings are not "regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to" scientific subjects. In fact, they are often regarded as the exact opposite – ask any scientist.

Timeineurope 18:17, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

In other words, you are ignoring what i said (The right to remove unsourced material is almost universally interpreted as the right to remove only such unsourced material that editors know or suspect to be incorrect.) and its implication of being even more disruptive in removing sourced material that you do not know to be incorrect. Unless you have information from a reliable source that discredits the CBC, your simultaneous use of BBC info on "scientific" matters and removal of CBC info on "scientific" matters is disruptive and childish. --Espoo 19:07, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

What part of "removed incorrect, although partly sourced, information" don't you understand?

Martha Figueroa-Clark, who wrote the BBC page, is a published phonetician.

Please respect Wikipedia:No personal attacks.

Timeineurope 19:34, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

As already said many times, you claim that something is incorrect without providing any source for that claim. You do not even provide information about any knowledge you may personally have that gives you reason to suspect the correctness of the info provided. And as also already explained several times, information provided in major, respected broadcasting corporations, especially of the caliber of the CBC and BBC, is definitely what is meant as a quotable source by Wikipedia:Reliable sources, even on "scientific" subjects. I know that journalists' writings are not regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to scientific subjects by you and many scientists, but there is no ban on them in WP policies. On the contrary, they are considered much better than providing info with no source at all. You have apparently also not understood that journalists make just as many mistakes in writing on any subject, not just ones you call "scientific". According to your logic, reputable media sources couldn't be quoted on any subject. Good journalists research their subject carefully and base it on exactly those kinds of expert sources you would like to see used here in WP. I have nothing against those kinds of sources, and they're definitely preferable, and anything quoted from even reputable media sources contradicted by these preferable expert sources of course has to be removed.

Something supposedly written by a published phonetician that purports to present all or most variant pronunciations but ignores US pronunciation and that incorrectly uses the appended phonetic respelling guide is not a reliable source. Her text was perhaps sloppily edited by a member of that overworked and overtaxed profession whose writings on some topics you want to ban as sources on WP and implicitly propose banning as sources on all topics.

I have tried to show the contradictions in your editing. I'm sorry if you feel offended by the descriptive words I used, but the intent was to describe the character of the editing and why it is disruptive, not to describe you personally. Sorry, i'll try to be more careful in describing edits and possible contradictions in them and to be more careful in using words that clearly apply to the edits and not the person making them.

The most disturbing thing about your unsourced and even unexplained claim of the incorectness of the information from the CBC is that you seem unconcerned that your claim is contradicted by Names of Burma/Myanmar, which you have probably not even bothered to look at. --Espoo 20:26, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

It is not usual, nor is it necessary, to provide a source when removing unreliably sourced content. The source can't go in the article, and it is not at all usual to put it in the edit summary. It is also not considered necessary to put the source on the talk page. In short, I did nothing out of the ordinary.

Journalists don't "make just as many mistakes in writing on any subject". Science stands out as the one subject never to trust a journalist on. The reason for that is probably that science is harder to understand than other subjects. Compare the average newspaper article on science and the average newspaper article on politics and you'll see the difference. It may be true that good journalists research their subject carefully, but, needless to say, many journalists aren't good journalists – and it doesn't matter that they base what they write on "expert sources" if they lack the skills necessary to understand them, indeed, most bad science journalism probably stems from journalists' misunderstandings of expert sources.

The BBC page neither explicitly nor implicitly "purports to present all or most variant pronunciations". The main point of these pages is to communicate the BBC Pronunciation Unit's recommendations. Since the BBC doesn't use American English, the Pronunciation Unit naturally "ignores US pronunciation".

The reason the CBC article is supported by Names of Burma/Myanmar is probably that that Wikipedia article was the CBC journalist's source. Compare:

Wikipedia: The first time the name of the country appeared was in a Mon inscription dated 1102, inside which the name was spelled Mirma. The first record of the name in a Burmese inscription is dated 1190, in which inscription the name was spelled Mranma. Today in Burmese the name is still spelled Mranma, but over time the "r" sound disappeared in most dialects of the Burmese language and was replaced with a "y" glide, so although the name is spelled "Mranma", it is actually pronounced Myanma. In Chinese, the name [...] was recorded as [...] (pronounced "Miǎn" in Mandarin).

CBC: The name first appears in a manuscript from 1102, spelled Mirma. Later manuscripts spell the name Mranma, the current name used in Burmese language. The "mran" is actually pronounced "mian" - so it's pronounced Myanma.

There it is, complete with misunderstandings: "mian" is Mandarin, not Burmese, and it's inscriptions, not manuscripts.

In Names of Burma/Myanmar, no source is given, so in end effect, this information is completely unsourced.

This is what happens when you trust journalists on science.

Timeineurope 11:04, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

You continue to refuse to say what you think is incorrect in the information you removed with nothing but the vague "explanation" that journalists are usually wrong in reporting on "scientific" topics. Your attempt to divert attention to the other article's possible errors is not going to be successful. Please state clearly what is wrong in the info originally quoted by me from the CBC article:

The first written record of the name, with the spelling Mirma, is from 1102, but its etymology remains unclear. Later written records use the spelling Mranma, the current form used in Burmese. The first part, mran, is pronounced /ˌmjɑn/ in Burmese, so Mranma would actually correspond to the English spelling Myanma. The "r" at the end is added only in English[7] and in most European languages. --Espoo 11:39, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

What part of ""mian" is Mandarin, not Burmese" don't you understand? While it is not necessary to go into detail on what is incorrect when removing unreliably sourced information, here goes:

The first part of the word (which shouldn't be given as "mran", see below) is not pronounced /ˌmjɑn/ in Burmese. The claim that it is pronounced "mian" stems from the CBC journalist's misunderstanding of the Wikipedia article, which gives "Miǎn" as a Mandarin, not a Burmese, pronunciation. Even if it were pronounced "mian", the interpretation of that as /ˌmjɑn/ is your own invention (the modern Mandarin pronunciation of "mian" is closer to /mjɛn/).

It makes as little sense to say that Burmese uses the spelling Mranma and pronounces it as Myanma as it does to say that it uses the spelling Myanma and used to pronounce that as Mranma. Burmese is spelt using Burmese characters, and the character that used to be pronounced /r/ is now pronounced /j/ (cf. Rangoon/Yangon). The Burmese spelling used to be pronounced Mranma and is now pronounced Myanma – it isn't Mranma pronounced Myanma. The best way to solve this problem is to include the Burmese spelling – any rendering in the Roman alphabet is flawed, either because it uses <r> for both /j/ and /r/ or because it uses <y> or <j> for both /r/ and /j/.

The first sentence doesn't identify Mirma as being a Mon spelling and thus leaves readers to think it is a Burmese spelling.

Saying that it "would actually correspond to the English spelling Myanma" implies that it wouldn't correspond to the English spelling Myanmar. However, either spelling is an acceptable rendering. The spelling Myanmar was devised by non-rhotic English speakers – they didn't pronounce the "r".

Anyway, I have better things to do with my time than engage in endless discussions with impolite opponents, so this is the last you will hear from me on this subject.

Timeineurope 13:50, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm really sorry to have upset you again, but i do sincerely hope you will agree that it was a good idea to ask for at least something to back up the claim that the CBC info was incorrect. You're quite right that it is not necessary to go into detail on what is incorrect when removing unreliably sourced information, but please try to understand that it would in future be a good idea to provide at least a tiny bit of information to show other editors such a removal is not based on a private theory or personal bias.

So far, all you'd said to explain your revert was claim that the info was wrong and that journalists can't be trusted on this topic. (Your other explanations concerned the WP, not the CBC article. - Use of "manuscripts" instead of "inscriptions" is no reason to remove the entire info, especially since it used "writings".) Other editors had no way of knowing whether this was a simplistic claim based on some personal crusade against quotes from news sources on certain topics and whether your claim was not some personal theory. Now that editors know how much you know about this topic, they will certainly believe there is good reason to leave the CBC stuff out.

Too bad that you weren't able or willing to rewrite correctly the info that the CBC journalist unsuccessfully tried to explain and summarise. I assure you CBC journalists do not usually make stuff up as they go, and they wouldn't even know how to on this topic. They may misunderstand and oversimplify, but i'm 99% sure the CBC info you simply deleted was based on some correct info from a reputable source. I highly doubt CBC would use Wikipedia as its only source. I'm sure you know where to find the relevant sources to rewrite this part of this section correctly. Right now, the heading is a joke because most of the section is talking about other things than etymology.

It was not necessary to go into such detail in backing up your claim, but i assure you your time was not wasted. Your information will help future editors prevent the same and similar nonsense misleading simplification from reappearing in the article and will help them understand the relevant transliteration problems.

I will be adding sourced information on the etymology of the country names and the naming history, and i hope you will check whether this info is correct and remove anything that is not. I already have some ready from Britannica, and we know that that is no proof of correctness. In fact, many scientists consider encyclopedias at best as reliable as the work of good journalists :-) --Espoo 12:37, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

reliable sources on English use of Myanmar and Burma and on the legality and validity of the name change

Please only add information from reliable sources to the lists below. These include not only scholarly and academic publications, government websites, and reference works but obviously also reputable media sources. In a changing situation, in other words always, the media is usually able to provide more up-to-date and in that sense more reliable information on current use of a term than even scholarly publications if these are not very recent.

• Some reliable sources state or imply that English use of Myanmar is still so rare in common usage that it is not understood by most English speakers and that it is still so rare or new even among educated speakers that at least 6(!) variant English pronunciations exist (in each dialect of English). A linguist will be able to tell us if this is proof that the term is not really yet established as an English word.

http://www.onelook.com/?loc=bm3&w=myanmar http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/myanmar http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/cgi-bin/cmudict?in=myanmar&stress=-s#lookup

http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/burma.htm (makes Firefox freeze up) says: "It used to be the Union of Burma and even now most people outside of the country call it Burma"

• Below is a list of academic sites, institutes, and articles that use only or mainly B in official names and institutes or in articles, which is a strong indication that Myanmar is not accepted by scholars as the correct English term for the country. The world's only peer-reviewed printed research journal on Burma published outside of Burma is called the Journal of Burma Studies and was established in 1996, 7 years after the junta changed the name.

Center for Burma Studies

Journal of Burma Studies "The world's only peer-reviewed printed research journal on Burma published outside of Burma/ Myanmar. The Journal of Burma Studies was established in March 1996"

University of Texas Libraries

Cornell

http://web.soas.ac.uk/burma/index.html

http://southasia.uchicago.edu

http://www.cis.yale.edu/seas/index.htm

http://www.indiana.edu/~bsa/burma.html

http://library.dartmouth.edu/guides/sub.php?page_id=3926&subject_id=25&section_id=1 "For example, you want books about Myanmar, but does the catalog use "Myanmar" or "Burma"? If you do a subject search for "Myanmar," click here to see what happens." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Espoo (talk • contribs) 10:18, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Nobel Peace Prize 1991 Presentation Speech (also listed below because both an academic institute and an internationally respected organisation)

• Below is a list of government sites and sites of internationally reputable institutions and organisations, including websites of the so-called opposition (which in fact represents the legal government of B), that use only or mainly B in official names and institutes or in articles, which is a strong indication that Myanmar is not accepted by these as the correct English term for the country.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/35910.htm explains "the democratically elected but never convened Parliament of 1990 does not recognize the name change" According to international law, this means that the official name is in fact still Burma.

Human Rights Education Institute of Burma

Nobel Peace Prize 1991 Presentation Speech

http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c=Page&cid=1007029394365&a=KCountryProfile&aid=1018965307901 says the same as the US State Department, but doesn't point out that Burma's democracy movement is in fact the democratically elected government of B: "Burma's democracy movement prefers the form ‘Burma’ because they do not accept the legitimacy of the unelected military regime to change the official name of the country."

• Contrary to what is claimed by some in the move discussion above, use of M instead of B in English in Asia is not at all obvious. Just one example:

756 from bangkokpost.com for burma.

62 from bangkokpost.com for myanmar.

• Use of B instead of M is twice as high on edu pages when used in normal running text, as shown by these searches for "and B" and "and M":

28,300 for site:edu "and burma.

14,800 for site:edu "and myanmar.

• Use of B instead of M is twice as high in Google Scholar hits when used in normal running text, as shown by these searches for "and B" and "and M":

10,300 for "and burma

5,440 for "and myanmar.

--Espoo 09:02, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

missing external links and relevant info

No govermnent website nor mention of physical server locations of it nor of the "official Myanmar wireless internet service provider" http://www.myanma.net/ --Espoo 11:46, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

last paragraph of 20,000 monks protest section

This paragraph is only one sentence, and appears to be a list of newspaper headlines or something similar. I have to go to a class, but would suggest that someone rewrite this in a coherent fashion. Natalie 14:07, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Does this section belong under Economy? My understanding is that the protest was in regard to political suppression and a lack of democratic processes, not economic concerns. TechBear 16:40, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

The paragraph I'm thinking of begins "On 29 September 2007, tourists vanished from Myanmar;" and continues on for eight more lines with only one period. I don't think it, in it's current form at least, belongs anywhere since it appears to be a bunch of newspaper headlines strung together as prose. I'm working on it. Natalie 19:23, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I've ended up just cutting the whole paragraph, since it had no coherent narrative. The paragraph immediately above it has a similar problem, and someone (presumably the writer) provided Google News search results as a reference, which definitely suggests they were just copying newspaper headlines in a list. Aside from the complete lack of readability, this would also constitute copyright infringement. I don' want to just erase most of the section, though, so I'm going to try to copy some from the main article. Natalie 19:29, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

October requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was Speedy close. We just did this. A decision has already been reached. --Hemlock Martinis 00:30, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

---

Burma → Myanmar — Myanmar is the official name of the country. The majority of American media use Myanmar. The United Nations uses Myanmar. English usage of Myanmar is wide spread. The article was named Myanmar for a very long time until suddenly Myanmar came into the news and activists changed the name without a consensus. —Tocino 23:15, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Support. It has been 14 years since the name Myanmar became standard in U.S.-published World Atlases. Georgia guy 23:39, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

Surely there's some Wikipedia rule about not proposing a move back to a former name less than 24 hours after a successful vote to move a page in the opposite direction. Everybody who might comment has probably already done so and the proposer Tocino already voted in the last poll. This vote is utterly pointless, you can't keep having votes until you get your way. Jooler 23:55, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I concur. The decision's been made. --Hemlock Martinis 00:26, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Regarding the above move request

This page has been moved, but there is not a clear and solid consensus among Wikipedians that we've settled on the best name. Nevertheless, I agree that it's very premature to start a fresh move request so few hours after one has closed.

I'd cheerfully listen to an argument that "Myanmar" will be recognized more easily by more English speakers than "Burma", but until that argument has been made and discussed thoroughly, a move request is inappropriate. Let's build a consensus first, and then we can move the page. Meanwhile, the artifice of a timed survey is unhelpful.

My personal suspicion regarding the name is that, if the name Myanmar get printed on enough maps and in enough media for enough years, then it will be the most commonly recognized among the upcoming generation of English speakers. Presumably we'll try to switch at that time, which will involve trying to determine when that is. -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:34, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

First of all, please show me the rule that says you can't have another poll. I find it amusing that the supposed pro-democracy side who support the name Burma will not allow a democractic poll to occur on WP. Secondly there wasn't a consensus to move the article from Myanmar to Burma. There was significant support for Myanmar. Despite this, the activists moved it anyway. The article should be moved back to it's original and correct name.... The name Myanmar which was the name of the article for a very long time. --Tocino 00:38, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

It's not about there being a "rule". Don't get hung up on the idea that Wikipedia is all about rules. The point is that we just had a long discussion attached to one move request; having another one right now is unlikely to change anything. Let's just talk about it, just like people, discussing any kind of question, and if it becomes clear that we're becoming convinced that more people recognize M, then we'll do a move request and move it back then. At this point, it appears that more people recognize "Burma" as the name of that country. -GTBacchus^(talk) 06:59, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I think we should at least wait one or two months before this is attempted by then.. perhaps world events would unfold that would necessitate another move, or something, but let's just wait before we do this whole shebang again. Personally, Burma is now in the right place, and the closing admin was right. DEVS EX MACINA _pray 01:45, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm mystified as to how anyone can say, after 14 years, that Burma is more common then Myanmar? Heck I remember it being common and the source of jokes back in 1996 with the Seinfeld episode The Foundation (Seinfeld). That is not to mention the overwhelming usage by the media of Myanmar now. I think its a safe bet that the current "redirect" of Myanmar is being used more often by curious readers to get to this article then Burma. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 01:57, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

It's really not "overwhelming". I think the reasonable position to take is that it's not entirely clear which version is more recognized. If some people are saying that one word is "obviously" more common than the other, and others are saying that the other is "obviously" more common, then neither is correct. It's clearly not obvious. -GTBacchus^(talk) 06:59, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm mystified as to how some people keep claiming that M is more common than B. In what country and among what kind of people? Most people in English-speaking countries outside of Asia have no idea where M is and many don't even know what it is. Most people do however know that B is a country, and almost all of these know that it's somewhere in Asia. And since most people in English-speaking countries had and have only a vague idea where Burma is, the change in the official name only confused them more. It takes much longer than 18 years (1989-2007) for a new name to become common in general use, especially if the old name is used extensively in both the media (at almost every first mention of M) and general speech when (rarely) speaking about it. Even those news outlets that mindlessly use M instead of what their customers understand and what the elected Burmese government (so-called opposition) wants show demonstrators saying mostly B and with signs using mostly B.

So far i've been speaking about what normal people understand and hear. I hope you're not seriously going to claim that more normal people in English-speaking countries (except perhaps in Asia) will actually use M in talking to others?! They would be afraid of sounding snobby or of not being understood and they don't even know how to say it, which is the main reason why they don't use it. Even highly educated people are confused, as shown by the many different pronunciations listed in dictionaries. This is proof that M only exists on paper and in the news. It is not yet really an English word. Most people have trouble understanding that writing is a tool, not a separate language. When a written word does not have only a few pronunciation variants, that is clear proof that the word is not yet part of the spoken, "real" language. As soon as a word is used often, only a few pronunciation variants survive.

In addition, use in scholarly, academic, and expert writing strongly favors B, as clearly shown here. The use of M in the media is simply mindless adoption of official Burmese and UN use, which is dictated by the wishes of the rulers of its member states, which can include crazy generals using unscientific transcriptions to promote their agenda. In addition, we all know that an excellent broadcasting company like the BBC makes its own decisions whereas most newspapers and other media mindlessly follow some style guide like the AP's, so the use of statistics to show how common some term is is OK (and scientific, i.e. linguistically correct, when done correctly) when dealing with use in normal English by the general public and on reputable websites and in other expert and general scholarly sources, but it is not a valid linguistic argument in discussing media use. --Espoo 06:12, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment Why do you suppose it takes more then 18 yrs for a name to become common? History (and Wikipedia) is littered with counter examples from businesses, to sport teams to stadiums, to numerous cities to numerous countries to airlines and even people. Typically when things change their names, people catch on. But I think one fundamental point is being missed in this discussion. "What leads our readers to these articles?" What makes people want to look up Myanmar and read about it. Something being in the news as a current event is a big driver and Wikipedia is becoming more and more of a go-to source for educational and school work. With the vast majority of maps and logically text books having the correct name and the clear majority of news sources using the correct name M vs B it seems quite reasonable that Myanmar is what the majority of readers are going to be searching for. To keep this article at an archaic and outdated names seem counterintuitive and backwards thinking. The only logical reason for ever not using the correct name is if the incorrect one is vastly more common then the correct one. This is a scenario where that is clearly not the case. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 07:46, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Espoo, all of your claims are OR that aren't backed up by the facts. I don't hear anyone in the United States say "Burma". I don't read about Burma anywhere besides on WP and British based media. NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, Associated Press, The New York Times, Yahoo! all use Myanmar. Even Fox News uses Myanmar. My local newspaper uses Myanmar. You go on to say that the wonderful BBC uses "Burma". Hmmm, maybe because the BBC is run by the British government and of course the British government refuses to recognize the wishes of the current government in Myanmar.--Tocino 08:16, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Agne and Tocino, your arguments are much the same, so i'll answer both here. Yes, when things change their name, people catch on, but not when they get their names changed by others considered as intruders or worse. And not when the elected Burmese government (so-called opposition) refuses to accept the new name. And not when most English-speaking experts and scholars continue to use the old, legitimate name. You desperately cling to the news Googles despite the repeated explanations of the lack of independent decision making by most news outlets, especially US, on (not only) naming issues. WP policy specifically refers to reputable sources, and use of B by experts outweighs mindless media usage. And the overwhelming preference for B over M in Google Scholar hits and Google edu hits is shown here - did you to look at that?

And NPR is comparable to BBC in the exceptional quality of its journalistic methods and integrity and independence. Claiming that the BBC is run by the British government means you know nothing about it. It's much more critical of the government than most US news outlets, who pander to the lowest common denominator (the mindless US majority that doesn't vote and wants even news to be entertainment) because they are so dependent on funds provided by advertising. It's no coincidence that it's NPR that has this story explaining "News agencies have differed over what to call the nation..." which shows that things are not as boringly bland and simple even in the US as you claim, including specifically info that shows your claim about CNN is wrong. Listen to the primer on the country's name linked to on that site. The CBC is already catching on, NPR is starting to switch, and apparently some US news outlets will sometime soon start following the well-established and uninterrupted use of Burma by experts and in research journals etc. instead of mindlessly and simplemindedly following the dictates of boorish generals who know very little about anything to do with society or names. It's scary to realise that even Dubya has more sense than most US media on such a simple case. And even if this were a simple UK/US difference, there would be no reason to call my carefully documented evidence of use in reputable sources OR. What do you think OR means? --Espoo 22:59, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Your agrument comes off as arrogant to me. All of the fine news sources I mentioned to you who use Myanmar are mindless idiots who will say or follow anything. Meanwhile the BBC which is apparently better and more independent than the rest has made the correct choice. This is what I'm getting from you. Of course you don't give any links to support. Well, how can you since they're mostly opinions? You also go on to insult the American people.

CNN uses Myanmar. Proof: 1 2 3

In America we are taught that the country is named Myanmar. In our school books (Example) and on maps everywhere. The majority of the independent media also uses Myanmar. I suspect many people will type in Myanmar to only get redirected to Burma, which then the Burma WP article will say that actually the person was right, the country's official name is Myanmar whether the British or Western Europeans like it or not. --Tocino 16:12, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

All of the fine news sources I mentioned to you who use Myanmar are mindless idiots who will say or follow anything. - I said nothing of the kind; sorry if it sounded like that. I simply repeated what has been explained many times, that it makes no sense to use Google searches on news to determine how common a term is in general use and among experts. It's been explained several times that most news outlets follow a few style guides and do not make independent naming decisions. What is significant is what decisions are made by news agencies and major newspapers, not how many minor news outlets follow some style guide. What is significant, for example, is that the British Reuters uses mostly M and only mentions B despite B being much more common in the UK. I also specifically pointed out an excellent and truly independent US news outlet that points out that the use of M/B is not a clearcut case even in the USA though most US news sources apparently use M. You however continue to ignore the fact that B is so common and M so uncommon in at least the UK that the BBC decided to use B for that reason, not due to the kind of reasons you invented with a clear intent to insult and claim that US media is not government controlled. Now when i point out that the BBC is not government controlled and much more independent than most US media because these are dependent on frantically appealing to the masses due to their dependence on advertising, contrary to the equally excellent NPR, you get upset.

I did not insult the US American people. I'm a US American myself, and i consider it no insult at all to point out that many of us no longer vote and want even news to be entertainment. That's the horrible truth, not an insult.

You also continue to ignore the fact that since B is strongly favored in reputable sources it's pretty irrelevant that even the fine US news sources you listed prefer M. WP is an encyclopedia, not a news source summary.

You also ignore the fact that the elected government of B, which is kept out of office by the illegal junta, is against the use of M. It's an incredible insult to the most cherished values of most US Americans if US schoolbooks use M despite this fact.

which then the Burma WP article will say that actually the person was right, the country's official name is Myanmar - This makes absolutely no sense; just because the official names of East Germany and North Korea are something else does not mean that the WP lemmas should not be the official names or use these in the WP article more than once.

Your listing of CNN links tries to simply ignore the fact that the NPR story clearly documents that at least some CNN reports/reporters use only or mainly B. Did you listen to the audio link here? --Espoo 21:10, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Espoo, I've got to say, your repeating that the ousted government is legitimate and elected, and the current government an illegal junta, weakens your case. It gives me the impression that you're supporting the name "Burma" for political reasons, which is precisely the wrong approach for Wikipedia. As for your claim that "most people in English-speaking countries outside of Asia have no idea where M is and many don't even know what it is," I really don't think you're qualified to make that claim, about what "most people in English-speaking countries" know. How many English-speaking countries have you lived in? To what extent does your circle of acquaintances represent a cross-section of all English speakers? -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:18, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

GTBacchus, it would certainly weaken my argument if it were the only thing i had to say. As it is, i'm listing it among and after many other and stronger arguments. More specifically, the kinds of reputable sources WP should mainly be based on clearly favor B and usually only also mention M because it's use is so prominent in many news outlets, at least in the USA (shown in the above section on reputable sources). However, the declared wish of an elected government is definitely also a reputable source that alone cannot influence WP naming, but should definitely be considered in a situation in which we seem to have a traditional, clear UK/US divide. In deciding on WP use, the declared wish of the elected government should at least balance the UN decision to use M and the decision of news outlets to follow UN practice. This is a good example in which a responsible WP editing decision should be able to balance even a large majority of Google hits or Google news hits with one official statement because it's obvious that those numbers would immediately switch the other way if the elected government is allowed to rule.

As for the claim that most people in English-speaking countries outside of Asia have no idea where M is and many don't even know what it is, i didn't reiterate the arguments and data again. They are the declared research to that effect by the BBC, the reports by some members of the discussion about widespread use of M in English in Asia, and my knowledge of US conditions, which is admittedly mostly based on experience from many years ago. (Since this is personal experience, i'll put it in parentheses: Most US Americans have trouble saying on which continent even well known countries like Austria and Finland are located, so i'm quite confident they still know more about B's than M's location because the name change of a country that is so exotic to most US Americans has no doubt not improved their state of knowledge about B. For most US news listeners, the news is entertainment.) More specifically, just because something is on the news often in the USA does not mean that most people use the name words to describe those events. So far, the only evidence for use of M in everyday English in the USA is from US dictionaries, and these report such a very exceptional and bewildering variety of pronunciations that this indicates the word is not used much in everyday speech.

What's ironic about this B/M debate is that it is apparently a traditional, clear UK/US divide, and these are known to cause much more interest in WP naming discussions than the sufferings or the wish of an entire people. It's also quite funny that it took so long to find out that this is a UK/US difference. If someone had bothered to contact a professor in both a UK and a US university, we could have saved huge amounts of time and energy. If this is such a clear regional English difference, we should of course consider renaming the article B/M, but we should definitely consider the declared wish of the elected B government and of the majority of Burmese people in deciding which to use mainly in the article. For the biggest irony is that the fervent defenders of M basing their arguments mainly on Google news hits and ignoring more reputable sources (the ones i documented) also blindly or dishonestly ignore the fact that most experts quoted in the news and most Burmese demonstrators in those same news sources use mostly B. The US news stories also regularly have things like "who wrote a book on B" or "the Open Society Institute's Burma Project/Southeast Asia" which clearly demonstrate what experts on B say and use. --Espoo 07:00, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I've raised the question of naming convention standards forcountry names here. -- Boracay Bill 02:01, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Would the people who argued for moving "Myanmar" to "Burma" also support moving "People's Republic of China" to "China". The exact same reasons listed above would be just as applicable here. Or will the supportes of the Myanmar mover argue that China (by itself) is not a common name used to refer to the PRC? Try and do all the searches you listed above. What does the US State Department use? What does the UK government use? What does the BBC use? --Polaron | Talk 04:24, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

China has nothing to do with this. It has a completely different geopolitical situation, so please stop trying to bring it up. Thank you. --Hemlock Martinis 06:02, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Really? I was going to follow up on the comment by wagering that a significant percentage of people and mass media refer to the Republic of China by some different name. But now, China's a straw man. Former Soviet Union's a straw man. Thailand, Iran, Vietnam, Cote d'Ivoire, anything that is an example is a straw man. The counterexamples offered are English translations of nations that have made no official request of how to be known in English. I'd be eager for an example of a nation that 1) had a name given to it by some European colonial power, 2) has officially changed that name to something else and requested others to do so, 3) has had that name recognized by the English spoken in the U.N., and 4) has a Wikipedia page named for the former colonial name. If there is none, then I suggest that straw is a sturdier substance than air. -BaronGrackle 06:15, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Nobody is seriously suggesting that the official name of Burma should not be prominently mentioned in the WP article. Nobody is seriously suggesting doing anything like that for any of the other countries listed. And China is a completely different situation than B because almost everyone knows that there is discussion about what China really is and includes. No reputable source will ever use simply China even when the whole text is only about mainland C or only about Taiwan. If there were 2 parts of Burma claiming they were the real B, nobody would seriously suggest calling only one of them B in WP. And yes, moving ROC to Taiwan could probably be supported with sufficient data on common and scholarly use.

And as for your 1-4, 2=3 as has been explained many times, and 2 is in violation of the wishes of the elected government of B, so all you've got left is 1, and there are many countries like that. --Espoo 06:28, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

You said that "No reputable source will ever use simply China even when the whole text is only about mainland C or only about Taiwan". Are you sure about that? Have you tried doing the searches you posted in the previous Move discussion for whether "China" is commonly used to refer to only the PRC? Too bad you don't apply your principles universally. --Polaron | Talk 20:06, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Every page with Burma in the name should also mention Myanmar, but until the last few days on iseveral pages with Myanmar in the name Burma was not mentioned. Sometimes presumably because some editors argued that "Burma is the old name for the country" which I think has now been shown not to be true. --Philip Baird Shearer 08:52, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

It is a convention that if a page has been moved via a WP:RM then a new WP:RM to move it back should not be made for six months. Here are two examples from the archives which come to mind but I can find more if someone asks. The reason for this is that if the debate has been thorough then little more can be said and there is a general Wikipedia convention that one does not make multiple requests just to get the result one desires because most editors have more constructive things to do with the time they spend editing Wikipedia. However this convention is not set in stone and there may be cases were due to circumstances it is necessary to have a requested move in under six months but I have not read any reasons in this section which seem to me reasonable reasons for another WP:RM. For anyone who puts in such a request in under six months should consider that it may well be counter productive for them because some editors will express the opinion that a move back should not take place just because the WP:RM is too soon. --Philip Baird Shearer 08:52, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Just a quick question here, does anyone talk about the Myanmarise opposition, the Myanmarise government, the Myanmarise junta? I think it is telling how truly accepted a name is when people do not really use it in adjective form. Gustav von Humpelschmumpel 10:55, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Not necessarily. The adjective for United States is American, United Kingdom British, the Philippines Filipino, the Netherlands Dutch, etc. Sometimes the adjective arrives in English via a different route than the noun. --SigPig |^{SEND - OVER} 11:17, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, I suppose you are right on that point. I do think though that we usually use the most common term in the English speaking world for something and I think there is little doubt that in the English speaking world Burma is a lot more common than Myanmar. Gustav von Humpelschmumpel 11:22, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

And I agree with you on that latter principle; that the naming of the article should conform to the naming conventions (WP:UE, WP:COMMONNAME, etc) that we have. I just disagree with some of the arguments that are being used, i.e. that it has to do with politics and the (non-)recognition of the current regime, that the old name is too colonial, etc. Unfortunately, many of those who are arguing based on English usage are merely saying "Everyone says..." or "No one uses..." or "X is more common by far" without any sort of backup other than their own personal say-so. I personally lean slightly toward Burma, but only because I don't think Myanmar has sufficiently established itself in common usage to supplant Burma (as opposed to, say, Belarus vs Byelorussia). I am, however, willing to be convinced one way or the other. --SigPig |^{SEND - OVER} 11:44, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

As someone who doesn't have this article on my watchlist and who doesn't regularly follow this topic, I must admit I was surprised to discover that this article was moved. I had thought that "Burma" had fallen out of use, akin to "Peking" or "Bombay". My main area of interest is sports, and I note that the International Olympic Committee uses "Myanmar" [40], as does FIFA [41]. And by utter coincidence, my local newspaper had a top headline today of Myanmar regime launches roundups. There was no mention in the entire article of "Burma" as a former name etc. I scratch my head at any claim that "there is little doubt that in the English speaking world Burma is a lot more common than Myanmar", since Burma is a name from the past in my part of the English speaking world. Andrwsc 16:08, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

In North America especially, under-30s are more familiar with Myanmar and over-30s with Burma. (in the UK, "Burma" predominates among all ages). As WP is disproportionally edited by younger contriburtors (<30's) then the current decision falling to Burma is undoubtedly the correct one, as WP:NAME and WP:COMMONNAME both refer to "English Speakers" in general and not "English Speaking WP editors". Also remarkable is that despite the swell in awareness generated by the protests and crackdown, the arguments for "Burma" were quite apolitical; accusations of "politics" were conspicuously ill-founded, and too shrill by half. (and insisting on "Myanmar" is *potentially* just as political). As such, the decision is taken, should stand, and any move to rename it back should be opposed as per WP:POINT. István 16:34, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I suspect you're right about over-30s and under-30s. I'm 30, and I feel that Myanmar has been the dominant term for most of my education and adult life. Perhaps older speakers don't realize just how predominant Myanmar is for younger speakers, and vice-versa. -GTBacchus^(talk) 16:59, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure that you are implying my age, but rest assured I am well over 30. Your statement strikes me as a personal opinion only, unless you have a source for that. My single person observation is that I haven't seen "Burma" used in a current context in years, and I've lived in multiple English-speaking countries during that time. Andrwsc 17:00, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes Andrwsc, you are right it is a personal opinion and WP:OR (note I never used this argument during the debate) unless we can segregate google hits by age group (don't laugh...) we will never be able to (dis)prove the point. But it is more a question of Wikipedians deciding on common usage among "all English Speakers" (not just amongst themselves) and since it is quite likely that WP is overrepresented by younger (<30) editors AND (I forgot to mention) (must be my age) 3-digit I.Q.'s (i.e. people who paid more attention in school, to the news, etc.) then this bias might be material to the present discussion. BTW, I'm NOT implying that >30 is "old" ;-) István 17:55, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok, apology accepted. ;) And yeah, I'm not young, but I am smart.  ;) Like I said above, I'm not hugely passionate about this issue, but I do find it odd that Wikipedia appears (to my eyes) to be clinging to a historical name. I would wonder about the reaction of a "normal" person who picked up today's local newspaper, and looked up "Myanmar" here after reading the headline article. I would speculate that reaction would include a certain amount of puzzlement at the redirect to "Burma". The principle of least astonishment ought to apply here. Andrwsc 18:15, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I presume Andrwsc that you are living in North America, because this is in part an English speaking national issue. Would you assume that most of the people who know the country as Myanmar would also know it is called Burma? In the UK this is not so because Myanmar is seen as a political sop to a brutal military regime. Using Google on parliament.uk returns

• 5,690 English pages from parliament.uk for -Myanmar Burma
• 252 English pages from parliament.uk for Myanmar -Burma
• 482 English pages from parliament.uk for Myanmar Burma.

The two major British TV news outlets, the BBC, and ITV, both us Burma as do many other news orgnisations in the UK, so it is quite possible for Brits (who do watch news bulletins) not to know that the country is also called Myanmar. --Philip Baird Shearer 19:03, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I'm currently in North America, but I have lived in Europe too. I don't want to presume that I can speak for anybody other than myself, so I'm just stating my own personal observations. I perceive the current name as Myanmar, and the historical name as Burma, and that is probably reinforced by a) what I see in the newspapers (including references to Yangon, which I know was previously known as Rangoon), and b) what I see in my frequent work on sport-related topics, such as the aforementioned use by the IOC and FIFA of Myanmar. That is all. To be honest, I'm surprised to hear that the BBC still use Burma. Andrwsc 19:22, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

This is certainly a) true for many people, but not most; b)original research (as is the same argument pro-"Burma"); and c) a summary of most of the preceding debate, and the difficulty of settling the crux of the issue: i.e. which is more commonly used in English. All reasonable editors can accept that both names have many users, and neither choice is 100% correct. What is *un*reasonable are "unreferenced opinions that one name is "obviously" more used than the other, and that the exact opposite argument is invalid b/c it's merely "unreferenced opinion". Time to pack away the brickbats, the horse is dead now. István 20:01, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

There appears to be a divide between the news agencies on who uses the "new" names of Myanmar and Yangon and who doesn't. Reuters and AP use the new names, whereas the BBC and the PA do not. Gustav von Humpelschmumpel 23:15, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, just disproved that as this Reuters article uses Burma. Live Search news gives 32,304 results for Rangoon and slightly more, 36,357 for Yangon. It gives 163,114 results for Burma but more than double, 404,250 for Myanmar. Gustav von Humpelschmumpel 23:25, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

One swallow does not make a summer, Most Reuters articles use Myanmar. --Philip Baird Shearer 08:02, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment: As I've said before, I don't see any reason why we should prioritise any group over another. Therefore the fact that Burma is more popular with over 30 year olds and Myanmar with under 30 year olds doesn't imply we should choose Burma. (Nor does it imply we should choose Myanmar obviously). Also again it's disappointing IMHO that most people continue to ignore the usage in Asia. While I admit having briefly read the evidence the situation in Asia may not be as clear cut as I had thought (although I note that one big problems we have in all situations is that all the evidence we have is mostly media usage which is influenced by numerous factors and doesn't necessarily tell us what name is most recognised and/or considered most correct by the English speaking populance). My main point here is I agree with the later point István that the issue is not very clear cut. Definitely not as clear cut as those who keep claiming Burma is the most common is. (Note that I and most supports of Myanmar never argued that Myanmar was clear cut common usage although I did perhaps believe it was more common in Asia then it perhaps is outside Malaysia and Singaore.) My opinion remains mostly the same. Common usage is not clear cut, there is insufficient evidence to say which one is the more common. In the absence of a clear common usage then we have to consider other issues. Given that Myanmar is the official name (even if the government that made the change is dubious) then Myanmar is the clear choice. Regardless, moving the page was improper given the lack of a consensus (we don't go with the majority in the absence of a consensus). However it's too late now, while the move may have been improper and against process, it was made and fighting it will simply be too disruptive and counter-productive. Sadly, this whole sorry mess is IMHO indicative of the sorry state wikipedia is in Nil Einne 06:44, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) In my own experience (which may not mirror yours --I'm an American who has been living in the Philippines for over a decade), Myanmar (ex-Burma) is equally common-usage with Mumbai (ex-Bombay), Beijing (ex-Peking, as in Peking Duck), Guanzhou (ex-Canton, as in Cantonese), Ho Chi Minh City (ex-Saigon), Sri Lanka (ex-Ceylon), and probably several other such examples which don't come immediately to mind. -- Boracay Bill 07:06, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Nil, I dont think its quite that bad, I believe the decision fell according to the standards WP:NAME which is summarised as:

As commonality could not be clearly settled, the second criteria (ambiguity) more clearly favoured Burma. It should be noted that the list of less relevant arguments include official names, politics (recent or past, democratic or authoritarian), colonial legacy, and geography-weighting of votes. I believe the point was made that "English speakers" did not refer only to "native" English speakers, and I dont recall anyone discounting the view of any particular country (which would be difficult to do here anyway). This debate was particularly intruiging as there were a core of editors from both viewpoints who genuinely tried to get to the bottom of the main point (commonality) without regressing to undisciplined chaos and although challenged, this time the core held. István 15:59, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

There's only one problem. It's never been proven that English usage of Burma is wide spread while English usage of Myanmar is not. Despite it not being proven the article was moved anyway. I requested the move back to correct this mistake, but it was blocked by an editor with a very strong pro-Burma POV. --Tocino 16:22, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

The BBC says that "It's general practice at the BBC to refer to the country as Burma, and the BBC News website says this is because most of its audience is familiar with that name rather than Myanmar. The same goes for Rangoon, people in general are more familiar with this name than Yangon."(my emphasis)[42]. Not sure if they mean the BBC domestic audience or the BBC World Service as well.--Philip Baird Shearer 00:45, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

The BBC does not hold authority over WP. Espoo is using the same defense. The BBC is funded by the British government, so its slightly skewed on this subject. Also I would be willing to bet that the vast majority of the BBC audience are British people. As has been stated above, for every BBC that still uses "Burma" it seems there a five other media outlets that use Myanmar instead. Do you seriously believe that all of these media outlets who use Myanmar don't consider what their readers/viewers/listeners are familar with? If English usage of Myanmar wasn't wide spread then you wouldn't have over 70,000,000 Google hits for Myanmar. --Tocino 01:36, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Tocino, English usage of "Myanmar" is widespread. So is English usage of "Burma". Many people are familiar with both names. It's not overwhelmingly clear which is more familiar to more people. -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:13, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

The BBC is funded by the British government, so its slightly skewed on this subject. Also I would be willing to bet that the vast majority of the BBC audience are British people. - Please inform yourself better before claiming things that are incorrect and make you look badly informed. The BBC is set up in a way to ensure equal representation of views critical of the government. It is also known to be much more critical of the government, and more often, than most, even major, US news outlets. The BBC has a worldwide audience although it is not as popular in the USA as elsewhere. For that very reason, the BBC's language decisions are no doubt based on usage in Commonwealth countries, not just the UK. It's quite obvious that the BBC would not be using language and names exclusively British in broadcasting in so many other countries with a strong or even official use of English. --Espoo 07:23, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Tocino don't place that bet as according the the Wikipedia page on the BBC World Service 44 million people (predominately/all?) outside the UK tune into the BBC English language world service broadcasts each week and most of the BBC-WS'd output is news current affairs programmes. In comparison the UK population is about 60 million but of course not all of them listen to the BBC in any given week. As I said I do not know if the above comment by Auntie was just for the domestic service broadcast or not. All it was meant to show is that at least one major English television broadcaster gives the reason why it uses Burma and has presumably done the research to back up its statement. Has any other major English language publisher given the reasons why they uses either Burma or Myanmar? If so it would be interesting to read and would shed some authoritative light on regional differences in usage.--Philip Baird Shearer 08:02, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

---

Just a comment. This dispute is understandable, when you consider that International news medias' themselves can't make up their minds. GoodDay 16:43, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Another comment: FWIW -- Google search results (hl=en): Burma 16,400,000 hits, Myanmar 29,800,000 hits. (your mileage may vary) -- Boracay Bill 00:01, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

NPOV

It is really bad form to renmove a POV tag without resolving the dispute. There clearly was no consensus to change the name of the article and the only reason it cant be changed back is because a vandal messesd up the myanmar page, SqueakBox 19:25, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

75% of people supported the move to Burma. Sounds like consensus to me. --Hemlock Martinis 20:39, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Consensus doesn't mean majority, nor does it mean super-majority. It means that all concerns have been addressed, and that everyone agrees that we're going with the best solution available. It's an ideal we strive for, and it has not been achieved on this page. -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:08, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

What is your major concern? --Philip Baird Shearer 00:23, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

My major concern? Did I say I had one? I was just pointing out that 75% isn't a consensus. I might add (lest I seem to pick on only one side) that SqueakBox also erred above when he suggested that whoever edited the Myanmar page, preventing a quick move back, is a "vandal". That's a totally out of line accusation against a good-faith editor. Duja added a redirect category to the page, which was entirely appropriate, and that's what made a quick move back impossible. Calling that vandalism is inaccurate and uncivil. -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:11, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Ha! Where did you get 75% from? It was much closer to 50/50. Now that Myanmar isn't in the news as much as it was a week ago, it seems more and more users are commenting in favor of Myanmar. I think this is because a lot of the people who supported "Burma" were anons and/or politically motivated people who don't actually care about the quality of WP or what's in the article. --Tocino 23:39, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

It's quite simple. I counted up the comments (60), then counted up the supports (46), then divided the supports by the total number of comments.--Hemlock Martinis 00:21, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Tocino, you may be right about "a lot of the people" who supported the name change, but this round is over. It's best to let it be for a while, and in a few months, it could be appropriate to reopen the discussion. -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:11, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Subpages

I've moved most of the subpages. Someone else might want to check and make sure there are none that have been missed Nil Einne 06:54, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

External links

The following need to be deleted:

• http://www.myanma.net
• http://www.myanmar.org.uk/shwe/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.72.96.2 (talk) 11:50, 5 October 2007 (UTC)