Burma Versus Myanmar

With Myanmar a topic of discussion in the news because of the recent protests there, a lot of people are having the debate about whether to call the country "Burma" or "Myanmar".

"Burma" is the name chosen by the British to call this place back when it was a colony of theirs. It came from a colloquial name for the country; in other words, an informal nickname. (It's kind of like saying the official name for Australia is "Down Under".)

"Myanmar" is a close approximation in Western script to what the country is officially called, and has been called continuously for 1,000 years by the Burmese (actually... "the Myanma"... though I'm not that much of a stickler) and by all the other people in Asia. The name of the country has never changed inside Burma, or for that matter in many other countries... the name has changed only in Western script.

So anyway, for the time being, some people can use Burma (although they use that name mostly as a thumb in the eye to the invalid military government who changed it, than for any linguistic reason), I go with Myanmar.

Now you know.