Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 23:11, 14 July 2005

Should Burma really re-direct to Myanmar? Burma was a distinct country for a long time and a lot of people went and did things in *Burma*, not *Myanmar* (e.g. the hippie trail, the British Empire etc). charlieF 10:12 Mar 28, 2003 (UTC)

The consensus is, Burma should have the redirect to Myanmar. Although I'm not totally in agreement with this, for now, it is for the best. I'm glad someone asked this question since it is worthy of discussion since many issues need resolve.
The unwritten rule has always been to use a term that is most commonly understood. Sri Lanka (formally Ceylon) would remain modern Sri Lanka out of convenience, despite its lavish history, so that those researching using Misplaced Pages will not get lost. Also, out of respect for the current nation and government.
Perhaps we should just work more on the Burma section at Myanmar? Usedbook 16:15 Mar 28, 2003 (UTC)

The article on East Germany is stored there (and not at 'German Democratic Republic') on the grounds that supposedly Misplaced Pages goes with the most commonly used English name, not necessarily the official one. You imply that Myanmar is the most commonly understood English name. However, Burma is the more common name in the UK (where it is used by the BBC and most other media). Possibly Myanmar is better understood in the US. But this is by no means certain, since the US government prefers the name Burma. The New York Times seems to prefer the name Myanmar. What about other media? Canadian, Australian, NZ? If you google for Burma vs Myanmar, and then restrict the search to English-language websites only, Myanmar is marginally ahead - but what if foreign embassies etc were excluded from the search? 81.154.252.230 22:36, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think "Burma" is more commonly understood than "Myanmar" in the US. —Casey J. Morris

What this discussion misses is that Myanmar has always been the name for Burma in the Burmese language. But Misplaced Pages is an English-language encyclopaedia and should use the English name for the country, which is Burma. We do not call Germany Deutschland or India Bharat. It is not as if the country has actually changed its name, as happened when Upper Volta became Burkina Faso, for example.

This might be a different matter if a democratically elected government asked foreign countries to use a different name. This happened when Ivory Coast asked to be called Cote d'Ivoire, a change which has been generally adopted. But the Burmese military regime has no moral right to rule at all, let alone make decisions about what the country should be called. Aung San Suu Kyi, the democratically elected leader of the country, continues to call it Burma.

"Respect for the current nation and government" does not apply in this case since the government deserves no respect and the "nation" was not consulted. Dr Adam Carr 03:23, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I don't like the current government of Myanmar either, but deciding one way for "a democratically elected government" and another for a régime that we don't like is not NPOV. Democracy is not universally accepted as a touchstone of what is good; some people even consider its majoritarian bias evil. In addition, whether the government of Côte d'Ivoire is democratic in any meaningful way is certainly debatable.

Redirection from "Burma" to "Myanmar", together with a discussion of the onomastic controversy, is entirely appropriate and should be preserved. Shorne 21:02, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Just my own two pence (worth very little, since I knew nothing of the controversy in general until a couple of weeks ago), but I think it would be unnecessarily confusing to have duplicate pages where issues like this arise - Burma and Myanmar have never (as far as I understand) both existed seperately, at the same time, so the information only constitutes one topic. The argument about who has the right to change a name is a complex one, I agree, but if you agree that there is not a whole topic to be had on each, I can think of 3 options:

1. have a short entry for Myanmar explaining that this is the new name for Burma as decreed by a military government (which has power, but arguably no mandate) - a kind of manual redirect, if you like.
2. have an automatic redirection , which many people won't notice happening, and thus makes the page essentially have two names (the current situation)
3. have both entries redirect to one called "Burma / Myanmar"; this would seem to solve the problem, but which would go first? It also probably breaks any number of Misplaced Pages naming conventions...

Personally, I'd go with number 2, with as much prominent drawing of attention to the controversy as you like, but with the information easily available under both names. - IMSoP 04:04, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Though most of us must agree that those who named the country Myanmar are a bunch of thugs, this gives us no right to supersede their decision because they do exercise authority over that country. Whatever is de jure is always very debateable, but whatever is de facto is easily agreed upon. Aung San Suu Kyi does not rule Burma - this gives her no right to decide on the name. The government of a country has every right to call their country whatever they want. Otherwise, Cyprus should be moved to Greek Cypriot Administration of Southern Cyprus. --Jiang 22:04, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I'm not going to revert Jiang's change because I know he will just re-revert to spite me, and he will eventually get his way, as he always does. However for the record I reiterate my basic point, which is that the name of the country in the Burmese language has always been Myanmar, and its name in English has always been Burma. What the government of Burma wants or doesn't want makes no difference to that. On Jiang's logic we should call Germany Deutschland and India Bharat. That is quite apart from the fact that accepting the whims of the Burmese regime is a calculated insult to the long-suffering people of Burma. However I know there is no point in arguing with Jiang, so I will say no more. Adam 00:05, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

No, the German Embassy calls the country Germany in English . The UN calls Burma Myanmar in its English texts . The U.S. not only calls the Union of Myanmar "Burma", but likes to translate the conventional short form into "Myanma" (no r at the end). --Jiang 00:51, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The UN is obliged to follow the wishes of member governments. We are not. Adam 00:54, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Adam, if we don't go by UN's standard, which is by far the most accepted and legitimate in the international arena, what are we to go by? Fuzheado 01:03, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

By what we believe to be right. Adam 01:04, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

My kind suggestion would be to fight the right fights -- expose the truth in the history section, in the politics section. Agonizing over the label used on the international arena is not the best focus of our energies. Fuzheado 01:35, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Adam, doesn't that rather beg the question of who gets to be "we", since there doesn't seem to be complete consensus on this. Insisting on using Burma would in some ways be like calling the Republic of China Taiwan - what gives us the right to say which governments are "morally" correct? Furthermore, using an accepted standard, such as the current usage of the UN, is surely far more consistent with an aim of neutrality than trying to decide what is "right". As, incidentally, is Fuzheado's suggestion that you put energy into detailing the historical and political facts at the heart of the debate. - IMSoP 12:28, 16 Jan 2004 (UTC)

i have some questions related to Burma myth.

• At Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, there's this birdy, beasty, and godly gargoyles:

http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/las_vegas/mandalayluxor.html

is this based on some Burma lore, or just some random design? if lore, who or what are they? (reference appreciated)

thanks.

Xah P0lyglut 16:38, 2004 May 3 (UTC)

Politcs: Edit by 128.135.103.151 on 11 January 2005

This edit included a number of changes. I have reverted the addition of two instances of '(???)'. This has set me wondering about he following additions:

US sanctions against the military government have been largely ineffective, due to loopholes(???) in the sanctions and the willingness of mainly Asian business to continue investing in Burma and to initiate new investments, particularly in natural resource extraction

and

although Total (formerly Total-Elf-Fina) is now facing a lawsuit in French courts for alleged connections to human rights abuses along the gas pipeline jointly owned by Total, the American company Unocal, and the Burmese military.

I will do some digging to verify these claims and add citations. --Etimbo | Talk 18:55, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

That's done. --Etimbo | Talk 19:18, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Non-working characters

The following characters seem to be an attempt to write "Union of Myanmar" in a non-Latin alphabet. They were in the article until now but invisible because they don't quite work. I've moved them to here until they can be fixed because I think they'll confuse new editors.

ဴပည္ေထာင္စုဴမန္မာနုိင္ငံေတာ္

Iota 03:10, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Go and Install Burmese or unicode fonts. Ask me if in doubt.

Tan 11:37, 6 June 2005 (UTC)

"Burmese"? A quick question.

Even though the country is official "Myanmar", is the adjective still "Burmese"? This puzzled me the other day.

Thanks to whoever responds.--ZayZayEM 06:31, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

No, the adjective is Myanmarese

Russavia 10 June 2005

Myanmarese has been used in English, but it doesn't really work as an adjective. One of the problems with using the term 'Myanmar' in English is that is *doesn't* yield a well-formed English adjective. (Though it does in other languages, if people want to make such adjectives: eg Hungarian 'myanmari', German 'myanmarisch', Russian 'm'ianmarskij', Japanese 'myanmaa-no' - or 'myanmaa-go' for the language, and many others, European and otherwise). As a teacher of the Burmese/Myanmar(ese) language, this is an ongoing problem for me!

Population?

What is current population estimate? The article gives two numbers differing by 10 millions. I remember there was vandalism some time ago and maybe this is leftover. Could someone add link to reliable source?

Meaning of "Myanmar"

The article says: 'Myanmar derives from the Burmese name Myanma naingandaw, which literally translates as "country of Myanmar".' That makes no sense a all! A word with a recursive meaning?

I think it's a case of sloppy wording saying Myanmar is short for Myanma Naingandaw, and Naingandaw is the "The Country of..." part. —Casey J. Morris

I didn't notice that before. I tried to fix it, though I don't speak Burmese, so please look it over. El_C 12:11, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Internet Control?

Craziness, but anyone know more about the internet control of Myanmar, I did a quick search and came up with...

"Computers, Internet, and E-mail: The military government carefully controls and monitors all Internet use in Burma. The government has made available a censored version of the Internet and has allowed several cyber cafes to open. However, access to the Internet is very expensive, and the government prohibits access to most “free” international e-mail services. It is illegal to own an unregistered modem in Burma. Tourists may bring in one laptop computer per person and must declare it upon arrival. Limited e-mail service is available at some large hotels. All e-mails are read by military intelligence. It is very expensive to send photographs via e-mail. One foreign visitor was presented a bill for 2,000.00 U.S. dollars after transmitting one photograph via a major hotel's e-mail system." Source:USgov travel site

I think it deserves mention, anyone have any arguments or more information about it? I wonder if they get wikipedia?