Originally Posted by
MrHalliday
OK, I'll bite...what is the original name?
My opinion is simply based on what a friend in RGN told me last November.
I didn't research it.
edit: now I did, a bit....seems complex, but doesn't sound like "Burma".
The etymology of Mranma remains unclear.[3] The Burmans who entered the central Irrawaddy river valley in the 9th century founded the Pagan Kingdom in 849,[4] and called themselves Mranma.[5] The earliest record discovered of the word 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.[3] 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 by a "y" glide, so although the name is spelled "Mranma", it is actually pronounced Myanma. In Chinese, the name appeared for the first time in 1273 and was recorded as 緬 (pronounced "Miǎn" in Mandarin).[3] This is still the name used by other East Asians, such as the Vietnamese (Miến Điện) and Japanese today. The current name in Chinese is 緬甸 (pronounced Miǎndiàn).
Scholarly. I was scratching my head thinking how I was going to try to explain the Burmese phoenetic alphabet, which is its own beast entirely. I don't think either "Burma" or "Myanmar" is a perfect Anglicization. In either case, that wasn't my point. The point is that the use is somewhat frowned upon for the stated political reasons, nothing to do with phonetics.