Talk:Burma/Myanmar

***Please read what has already been said before leaping to express at length your own opinion!***

Title

The official name of the country, as decided a few years ago by the unpopular, undemocratic, brutal Military Junta who have control at the moment, is 'Myanmar.' This name has also been recognised by the United Nations, but not by many countries, including the US and the UK, who do not recognise the Military Junta's unilateral decision to rename an entire country without consulting the people. The name used by the ordinary people is 'Burma.' The question is, do you go with the name used by the Military dictatorship, or by the Burmese people?81.208.106.64 (talk) 22:59, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

That's a funny thing to say because the article, references sources saying that the popular name there is something that transliterates to myanmar. It claims that that name has been in use since the 13th century. Robbiemuffin (talk) 17:24, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The American media obviously believes it to be called Myanmar. Since Wikipedia is American then I say this is how the article should be titled. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mozkill (talk • contribs) 23:33, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

You are right, both names have a history, but "Burma" has always been the name used by the ordinary people when talking about their country. Here is a quote from an interesting BBC article on the topic: They have both been used within Burma for a long time, says anthropologist Gustaaf Houtman, who has written extensively about Burmese politics. "There's a formal term which is Myanmar and the informal, everyday term which is Burma. Myanmar is the literary form, which is ceremonial and official and reeks of government. [The name change] is a form of censorship."[1] Angstriddenyouth (talk) 14:10, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the name should stay Burma, just like how the article about Japan is Japan, not Nihon (日本). Burma is essentially an English word used to represent the country, just like Japan is an English word used to represent Japan. The way the pages are set up now is probably the best way to have it set up for the English Wikipedia. 58.6.47.105 (talk) 13:29, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Really doesn't matter what English speaking nations recognize or not. The official name of the country is Myanmar. It is what the country refers itself with and is recognized by the United Nations and most countries of the world. Politics of the moment should have nothing to do with a name of a nation. If at a future date a future government of Myanmar decide to change their country's name to "Burma" we will refer to it as "Burma." As of now, I strongly favor the name to be "Myanmar." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.124.81.70 (talk) 03:09, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I think that the article should definitely be renamed to "Myanmar" or possible "Union of Myanamar" with a redirect from "Myanmar." It is no longer Burma, people have to get this into their minds. The best way to do this is to clearly point it out by the article name, then in the first heading have a little (Formerly known as Burma) bit. It is about the proper name of a place, and educating people about this. Many people I know still think it is just Burma, therefore cannot even look it in an Atlas. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 163S (talk • contribs) 10:55, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

That is an intersting claim so I decided to check into it. worldatlas.com lists under both names in their indices, and on their maps the title is "Myanmar (Burma)". MSN Encarta also lists both names in their index, though their map says only "Myanmar". Maps.com indexes burma as well, but all their modern-time maps only say Myanmar. Basically, I think that, even though you can't read the word "Burma" on most maps, you're not going to have trouble in the digital age, with finding the place. It is afterall the historic name. :) Robbiemuffin (talk) 17:33, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

How about "Malomar" Most everyone likes Malomars, delicious. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.162.160.223 (talk) 23:33, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree. There shouldn't really be a dispute about this - this country is actually called Myanmar, not Burma. Country names change, somewhere in the world, on a reasonably regular basis. It doesn't make sense for an encyclopedia to refer to a country by a defunct name or a "commonly refered to name". It is supposed to simply state the facts, surely? When I consult my atlas I do not see Ceylon or Zaire for example anywhere on any page! Yet I know one or two people who do think of these countries by their older names. That doesn't mean they are suitable for an encyclopedia article title. Dazza79 (talk) 22:59, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

While you both make a very good point, there is still the issue that English speaking nations do not recognise the name "Myanmar" as the official name, so technically in English (and this being the English version of Wikipedia) "Burma" is the currently recognised name of the country. Any textbooks, maps, official documents and such produced in nations such as the US, Canada, the UK or Australia will use the name Burma, not Myanmar, so English Wikipedia should reflect this usage. The article, as it stands, is a fair representation of the situation. More in-depth information on the name of Burma/Myanmar can be found at Names of Burma. Also, the usage of Burma and Myanmar has been discussed extensively in the past. Please read the archived talk pages, starting from number 2, so see past discussion. Ka-ru (talk) 00:26, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

That issue, about what nations refer to one another as, is not important, or even influential really, in the (as you say) "technical english name". There is only two places to look for the official name of something; in their authoritative bodies (in this case those are the UN, and the country itself), and the general usage in reference and culture throughout a period of time. Of those four (reference, popular usage, external and internal sources), they almost all agree that the name is Myanmar: The UN, and for that matter individually almost every country on earth, recognizes Myanmar as Myanmar; Myanmar recognizes Myanmar as Myanmar; pop culture recognizes Myanmar as Myanmar (over 100% more references (32 million more) to Myanmar than to Burma, in google). Aung San Suu Kyi herself in her book (reference #2 in the article) concedes that both the official and widespread use is Myanmar, not Burma. Only reference sources could possibly have a different view. A few years ago, I went through all the references in our article and searched their indices. All the reference sources excepting the nytimes referenced Myanmar substantially mroe, but NY Times by itself printed the word burma enough to turn the odds. I don't know the current state of the references list in the article. Robbiemuffin (talk) 17:47, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I gave up after my last move proposal. The persistence on Burma is beyond my understanding, but there's not much to do. Another move request is out of the question, at least for some months. --   Avg    02:40, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

The name of the country is Burma in English. The whole "Myanmar" thing was just a misunderstanding :) Kaldari (talk) 20:42, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

IMO, the name should be "Myanmar," given that that's its official name. Josh (talk) 21:45, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

"Myanmar" is the country's official English name in Burma. "Burma" is the country's official English name in the US, Canada, UK, etc. Kaldari (talk) 20:59, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

- Failure to recognize a government does not equate to non-existence of said government. Like it or not, Myanmar is ruled by a military dictatorship and the name was officially changed by that government almost 30 years ago. (This in incorrect. The name was only changed in 1989, against the wishes of the Burmese people.81.208.106.64 (talk) 23:12, 9 May 2008 (UTC)) The "protest" argument for Burma has no place in an Encyclopedia. Furthermore, with respect to the "this is the English Language version of Wikipedia", I'd argue that Encyclopedias should reflect reality, rather than the political fancies of governments that happen to use the same language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.130.227.8 (talk) 18:57, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

- I agree; politics has no place in Wikipedia and I think there should be one -neutral- standard for naming countries. Neutral would be: 1. The name recognized by the United Nations or; 2. The name the current government of that country says it is. (in which the 'current government' should mean the government that is actually in charge of the state apparatus, whatever the nature of its power or of its legitimacy. Otherwise, since powerless 'governments' can rise up anywhere, each with their own names, legitimacy etc., there would still be disputes, which is what needs to be prevented)

In fact, ANY standard would be neutral, as long as its applied for every country named in Wikipedia. One final comment: The name dispute should be described (in a neutral way) in a seperate section of the 'Myanmar' article and not be influencing the making of the article itself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.97.212.214 (talk) 17:14, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

The standard is "If you are talking about a country, use the most commonly used English version of the name for the article... Some cases are less clear cut... One should use judgment in such cases as to what would be the least surprising to a user finding the article." That is the standard that gives us "East Timor" instead of "Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste". In the case of Burma, the English-speaking world seems pretty much evenly split between using "Myanmar" and using "Burma" so there is no mandate according to Wikipedia policies to change the name of the article. Nor is there any kind of consensus among Wikipedia editors to change it (see all the past polls). Saying that one name is "official" and the other one isn't has no weight in Wikipedia-world. Kaldari (talk) 18:44, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

In regards to your final comment, the name dispute seems to be well-described and contained within the country's article, and it also has its own separate article at Names of Burma. -BaronGrackle (talk) 19:13, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

The country's name is Myanmar. It doesn't matter what the english conversion of the word is, the country is called Myanmar. Myanmar can be said in English, therefore, it is good enough. ^{-GuffasBorgz7-} 11:28, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Ahem. It can be argued that Japan's real name is "Nippon"; however, the English conversion is Japan. Even though Nippon is easily said in English, the article's name is still Japan. Why can't that reasoning hold here? Mouse is back 20:27, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Well the big difference is that there has never been a drive to use "Nippon" in English (and so there hasn't been any success in getting the name in use), and "Japan" is even what the country's government uses in English. That's a very different situation from this country where there has been a drive to use "Myanmar" in English and it has been taken up quite widely. Timrollpickering (talk) 21:23, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah. My bad. Mouse is back 01:00, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

In response to the first poster I'd like to direct you to the issue of Macedonia. In this case there is a single neighbouring country which challenged the name of the country and it has become a significant controversy within the European sphere. Quite a few nations dispute the renaming of Burma as Myanmar. Burma is the appropriate name. 64.201.173.189 (talk) 13:51, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

There are some ninja editors who continually change the etymology section to say "countries such as X, Y, Z.. do not recognize the military government and call the country Burma." But the references used to build that section make no such claims of many countries. To the best of my knoweldge, those are the _only_ countries. The wording is misleading. Robbiemuffin (talk) 18:08, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Not to mention that in Japan you can use both Nippon (used by the conservatives mostly) and Nihon (which is the more common term nowadays). So I don't think that will fly. Also, given the movement in the English language of Peking to Beijing, Bombai to Mumbai and more of such linguistic changes, a change from Burma to Myanmar follows a similar pattern. asmodai (talk) 08:52, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Those changes all reflect changes in the country's official name for those places. Burma to Myanmar isn't such a change. All it is is a change from the common English name to the official name. Please stop posting unnecessary comments that show untrue relationships between different situations. I direct you to Google where you can learn the difference between Cantonese and Mandarin. 58.6.47.105 (talk) 13:34, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

If we call this country Myanmar when the ordinary English name is Burma, why isn't there the same clamour for us to talk about Deutschland, Norge, Italia, España instead of Germany, Norway, Italy, Spain? The truth is that countries are sometimes known by different names, or different versions of the same name, in different languages. So are cities (the French have Londres, Edimbourg Douvres instead of London, Edinburgh, Dover, and we don't worry about that. We have Munich and Rome instead of München and Roma... 6 May 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.157.85.147 (talk) 08:51, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

It is not true that there is a preference for Burma anywhere outside of possible newspapers and reference sources. Overall, google has 32 million more references to Myanmar than to Burma, for example. Personally, and I don't expect this to be a very popular idea, but in any case where there is no name endorsed by the namee as the english language name, then I think we should revert to the actual name of the place in question. I would have no trouble accepting "Roma", (except they have an official english language name) because, to me, it is less confusing and makes it easier when searching: I don't have to write Rome OR Roma in my google searches, for example. Robbiemuffin (talk) 18:28, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

In English it's know as Burma, and as this is the English page of Wikipedia it should remain Burma. Otherwise we would have to go to the French wikipedia page and remname Australie to Australia, because that's what Australia calles itself, right? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.9.182.39 (talk) 02:08, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean? In what sense is it known as Burma? So far as I know, it is known as Myanmar, except to a handful of governments and perhaps some english-language reference sources. Robbiemuffin (talk) 18:17, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I just did a search for "The Democratic People's Republic of Korea" and was redirected to "North Korea," despite the fact "The Democratic People's Republic of Korea" is the official name of that country. (No compass points in there.) We refer to it as "North Korea" for two reasons; firstly because it is shorter, and secondly, because a lot of people have problems with the official name (the democratic part for one..) I suggest we use the name "Burma" for the same reasons. 81.208.106.64 (talk) 22:43, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, we refer it is by a longer name. Both North Korea and south Korea go by "Korea" as their english language name. North is an adjective added for clarity. Robbiemuffin (talk) 18:30, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

It is not an issue of an English name vs. a local name. The country previously had the name Burma, but switched it to Myanmar, therefore Burma is not an English name. This is different than the use of Germany to refer Deutschland, as that is just an anglicized version of the name. A similar name was not in place for Burma, implying that we stuck with the county's local name back then, so we should do the same now. Calling Myanmar Burma is akin to referring to modern day Russia as the Soviet Union75.152.155.135 (talk) 04:53, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I must say that the most common English name today is "Myanmar." On the news, in the press, everyone seems to be using "Myanmar" now, however some say both names. Also on most maps shown, it is Myanmar. The use of Burma, was logical, when it was "The Union of Burma," however now it is officially "The Union of Myanmar" therefore, wikipedia must change accordingly. Reference should definately be made to Burma and a redirect from Burma. But we must keep current.--Coffeegirlyme (talk) 19:41, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

The most compelling argument I heard for not using the Junta's imposed name was from a Burmese Human Rights activist who said "no-one who supports democracy here uses the name 'Myanmar.'" Well, I, for one, support democracy.81.208.106.64 (talk) 22:48, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

And yet the day Miley Cyrus's name change became legal - it was up there on Wikipedia. Time for a priority check. 72.92.4.157 (talk) 13:53, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

You "guess" wrong. No one doubts that there is a dispute about the name which leads some sources to use Myanmar and others to use Burma. The New York Times may use Myanmar but Time magazine (US), The Times (UK) and The Age (Australia), all very authoritative sources, use Burma. CNN may use Myanmar but the BBC uses Burma. Not one of them is right or wrong. The name of the Wikipedia article should be based on common English usage (as per Wikipedia guidelines) and this seems split between Burma and Myanmar so there's no compelling reason to change the article's name to Myanmar. Keep it how it is. Suitsyou (talk) 18:03, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

American sources will end up being followed by the ones lagging behind.72.92.4.157 (talk) 20:03, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Another thing to say about the english/burmese version of the name is that both Burma and Myanmar are English forms of Bama and Mranma75.152.155.135 (talk) 14:09, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't follow the logic of the arguments about what the 'official' name is. The 'official' name of England is "England". That doesn't stop the French calling it "Angleterre". The French wikipedia article about England is entitled "Angleterre" (look it up). The 'official' name for Germany is "Deutschland". The English wikipedia article is still entitled "Germany" though. Who knows what the capitol of Thailand is? Anyone? bzzzt. No - if you said Bangkok deduct ten points. That city's 'official' name is "Krung Thep Maha Nakhon". Ever hear anyone in English make use of that name? Ever book a flight there? Or did you book it to Bangkok? The word in the English language is 'Burma', just like the name for Deutschland is "Germany", the name for Polska is "Poland" and the name for Kalaallit Nunaat is "Greenland". It doesn't really matter what the native language word is - this article is written in English and read in English. It should use English words. If there's a Burmese language eddition of wikipedia then that should have an entry entitled 'Myanmar'. --62.173.76.218 (talk) 08:12, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

If you read the above paragraph you would see that Myanmar IS an english word, it is the anglicized version of Mranma, just as Burma is for Bama, and Bangkok is for Krung Thep Maha Nakhon.75.152.155.135 (talk) 22:38, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Textbooks, atlases, and encyclopedias

"Any textbooks, maps, official documents and such produced in nations such as the US, Canada, the UK or Australia will use the name Burma, not Myanmar".
At least part of that is inaccurate. "Myanmar" downright kills "Burma" in terms of online English encyclopedias. Even Britannica, the English one. As I posted at the very end of the most recent archived discussion, "Myanmar" also beats "Burma" in several American atlases and textbooks. I can't speak for whether it has the majority, either in the U.S. or elsewhere, but it might be interesting for anyone who has access to a modern encyclopedia, atlas, or textbook to look it up. I'll bet the majority have "Myanmar (formerly Burma)" or just "Myanmar". Prove me wrong—because I really don't know for a fact! :-) -BaronGrackle (talk) 02:33, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. Let's see. Closest to a textbook on Burmese history I can find is the recent history of Burma/Myanmar. Thant Myint-U. The River of Lost Footsteps: Histories of Burma. Farrar Straus 2006. I'm not saying don't call it Myanmar but you must recognize that Burma is the more recognizable English name. Neither of the two Burmese restaurants in New York, for example, use Myanmar in their name. As I've said before, even in Burma, most people use Burma when speaking in English. Personally, I switch between the two often enough that either is fine by me though Myanmar will almost certainly go the way of Kampuchea in a few years. For a historical discussion on the Myanma identity, I refer you to "The Making of Modern Burma" also by Thant Myint-U, specifically pages 83-90. --RegentsPark (talk) 03:09, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

RE: restaurants: Peking Duck will always be Peking Duck. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.92.4.157 (talk) 13:57, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll acknowledge that "Burma" creams "Myanmar" on books about the country itself, as it does on Google Scholar. Burma wins among academics. But few students in English-dominant countries will study those books. What about generic textbooks, like the world history or world geography books that a student will use? From the ones I looked through recently, it was called "Burma" up until the regime change, when it was called "Myanmar", and the latter was the one listed in the indexes. -BaronGrackle (talk) 03:28, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

That might be the case. Google maps, which were pure Burma about an year ago, has switched to Myanmar (Burma) recently. (Though, oddly enough, it sticks to Rangoon rather than Yangon.) However, I'm willing to bet my bottom dollar that a poll of 18-24 year olds will find a higher name recognition for Burma than for Myanmar. I do recommend reading the pages referenced above (if you haven't already). You'll see why my Kampuchea analogy makes sense. In the meantime, the confusion goes on ..... --RegentsPark (talk) 03:39, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I think it is interesting about google scholar. The number is 2:1 in favor of burma. In google in general it is 2:1 in favor of myanmar, so I went in and excluded articles prior to 1989 (the date of the name change to myanmar), and still a 1.5:1 in favor of burma. To get results that are in favor of myanmar, I had to excluded social sciences results (which are about one quarter or so of all papers with either name), because they could reasonably make use of "burma" for completeness in political topic coverage. Still, that is almost a tie in numbers, what was I missing? I looked at some of the sample burma papers, what was matching? Burma, it turns out, is a common last name! So, to limit those results I did a title search. Now the results are more to expectations: burma: 373, myanmar: 1310 Robbiemuffin (talk) 18:46, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Well I just looked it up in my world atlas printed in 2006. It lists Myanmar on all the main maps and in the index. The name Burma appears in parentheses and in smaller font underneath Myanmar on the maps. Furthermore my atlas was printed in Slovakia and seems to have a German version, from which mine is a direct translation it seems. So the name Myanmar, at least from this sole indicator, seems to have found favour on the European continent. 62.31.183.230 (talk) 12:11, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Myanmar is recognised by most countries around the world, including many European countries, so it's no surprise your map says Myanmar. Unfortunately all major English speaking countries, and by that I mean those country's governments, do not recognise the name Myanmar, but instead recognise the name Burma. I think I agree with most people that Myanmar is probably the more correct name, but while no major English speaking nation officially recognises the name, the English article on this country should be named "Burma" while stressing the Myanmar name in the article. Perhaps "Burma (Myanmar)" would be a more appropriate name? Ka-ru (talk) 15:52, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I think the most compelling evidence for usage is HERE. That is the official United Nations member states list, and lists the country name as Myanmar (19 April 1948). For anyone else to ignore this fact and continue this nonsensical insistence on using the name "Burma" would be to insist upon using the name "USSR", "East Germany", "North Vietnam/South Vietnam" and many others that have been cast into history. The title "Burma" deserves a HISTORICAL article. The title Myanmar deserves the proper, official usage for the article on the COUNTRY. Period. (similar to the article on "China" historically and the actual country of "People's Republic of China") Rarelibra (talk) 17:17, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Rarelibra, The UN recognises the name "Myanmar". That is not in dispute. Many nations recognise that name. The issue here is that this is the English-language version of Wikipedia, and the guidelines for Wikipedia clearly state that we should follow "common usage". Though the UN recognises the name "Myanmar", the US, the UK, Canada and Australia do not, and they are the main English-speaking nations. These nations recognise the name "Burma". By this fact alone the "common usage" name is most definitely Burma. It is not "nonsensical" but, whether you like it not, fact. Media outlets like the BBC use the name Burma for that reason. These nations do not recognise the names "USSR", "East Germany" or "North Vietnam/South Vietnam", so your argument is invalid. The name Myanmar, while in the majority usage internationally, is in the minority usage in English speaking countries. You may consider this a backward attitude by these nations, but it doesn't change the fact that that is how it is. Over time I, like you, hope that these nations will adopt the name Myanmar, but until then Wikipedia should reflect common usage in English speaking nations, which is Burma. If you have issues with this attitude, write to the governments of the US, UK, Canada and Australia imploring them to recognise the name "Myanmar". Until they do, "Burma" will continue to be used and issues like the one being discussed here will continue to surface. Personally, I think the article name "Burma (Myanmar)" is more appropriate than "Burma", but that is just my personal opinion. Ka-ru (talk) 17:47, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I will provide another critical reference HERE. Even this states

• ... official UK policy for state titles is to reflect the will of the authorities in the country of origin, which in this instance means using “Union of Myanmar” as the state title in official UK usage. Rarelibra (talk) 17:59, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

• Rarelibra points out something significant: the major English-speaking governments may not "recognize" Myanmar in the sense of using its term informally, but they "recognize" Myanmar in the sense that they publically address the name and officially reject it (except in the case of the above U.K. release linked above, apparently, which states they DO use it officially). Even though the governments of these countries do not officially use Myanmar, their people identify the name; disapproval of a regime and public usage/knowledge of it are two completely different things. BBC may use Burma, but many other English media outlets do not. That has been established in the archival discussions. Nearly all the official sources who use Burma use it because they reject Myanmar's politics; not because Burma is "more English". This section, however, was specifically to call into question encyclopedic and reference material. It's not something that makes or breaks the case for Myanmar, and I don't pretend it is, but I do still think there are many people here who just don't believe that Myanmar dominates this area. -BaronGrackle (talk) 18:39, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Just a quick note - that is from the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use, from the UK government. Rarelibra (talk) 20:40, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

A quick point: I'm from the UK and have always heard people (the general public) say Burma when discussing it, never heard Myanmar. Also, BBC News uses Burma. --Joowwww (talk) 14:49, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Rarelibra you have been very selective with your quote if you had quoted the whole paragraph other conclusions can be drawn: "(para 14) Official practice in the United Kingdom is to use as country names those names which are in common informal usage in British English. In this instance, that name is “Burma”, and hence “Burma” is the country name in official UK usage. But official UK policy for state titles is to reflect the will of the authorities in the country of origin, which in this instance means using “Union of Myanmar” as the state title in official UK usage." Wikipedia policy is to use as country the country names those names which are in common informal usage in British English. Further if you had included the 2 paragraphs before para 14, it might have shed some light on the situation inside Burma "(para 12) Politics have entered this debate very forcefully. To the SLORC/SPDC, use of the word bama may be indicative of subversion. Conversely, the National League for Democracy have largely eschewed all reference to “Myanmar” and have continued to use “Burma” and its derivatives. Indeed, it can be argued that it is difficult to make a choice of country name without, in so doing, delivering a political judgement on the current authorities. The NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi has certainly delivered her verdict: No-one should be allowed to change the name of the country without referring to the will of the people. They [the SLORC/SPDC] say that “Myanmar” refers to all the Burmese ethnic groups, whereas “Burma” only refers to the Burmese ethnic group, but that is not true. “Myanmar” is literary word for “Burma” and it refers only to the Burmese ethnic group. Of course I prefer the word “Burma”. (para 13) Thus the seductive argument of inclusiveness, employed by the authorities to promote the use of “Myanmar” at the expense of “Burma”, and to demonstrate their patriotic goodwill for the entire country, is in reality a false argument. “Myanmar” is not a neutral and all- inclusive term. If anything, it is less inclusive than “Burma”, since in the minds of all non- Burmans “Myanmar” is a word inextricably linked to the majority Burman ethnic group." --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 10:49, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

To be clear, the excerpt says that the UK government policy is to call them Myanmar, but the normal practice in the UK, in the English language, should officially use Burma. (Because of a "common usage" that is neither sited nor backed with original research. It is stated axiomatically.) Aung San Suu Kyi herself in her book, refernce #2 in the article, concedes that Myanmar is both the offical name of the government and the de facto widespread name in use: (from Chapter 2, under section "Mynamar or Burma" (emphasis mine):

...citizens speaking in Burmese, who continue to refer to both Myanma as well as Bama (this not unlike formal reference in the English language to The Netherlands while informally using Holland). ... In 1988 it briefly went back to Union of Burma, and now we must refer to the Union of Myanmar, or Pyidaungsu Myanmar Naingngandaw.

Though taking place without referendum, this was officially endorsed by the United Nations five days after the regime's declaration. Because of the UN endorsal it has entered into widespread use, so that it is currently even used by human rights organizations such as Amnesty International.

Robbiemuffin (talk) 19:08, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

For me, I am for the use of Myanmar. Not being Burmese, I do not feel that my country is my home when its called "Burma". The name Burma and Myanmar are both politicized. Burma, btw, came from our dialect group, the Arakanese. Its like calling the whole of UK as England - you leave out Wales, Scotland, N. Ireland and the Channel islands. Its like saying Edinburgh is an English town, etc. There were many ethnic rebels, who wanted autonomy, and one of their claims was that "Burma" was for the "Burmese", not them, so they had the reason to revolt. The military junta changed the name, so that the rebels will have one less reason for taking up arms, and now, people ignore the name change. Its either balkanization or international rejection - I think the Serbs would know a great deal on this subject.

Many people will go around in circles trying to justify Burma over Myanmar - some say because the body which made the name change was illegal - but the UN accepts it - but they say because Wiki is in English, we use what the UK uses, and if some people want the name "Myanmar", they are wrong because Aung San Suu Kyi favours the name Burma. The best thing is to ask ALL the people, not just the political activists - just because they fight for democracy does not mean they are representing 100% of the people's desires.

The whole article was great a year ago. Some immature people thought they'd do something when they saw the monks protesting for the people - rather, they have vandalized a nice piece of work, making it into a piece of politics. I appreciate their concerns, but that act of rabid name changing did bad than any good - like most of the sanctions being imposed. Just like smart sanctions, people who want Myanmar to be democratic must also use smart means, not that of a 3 year-old. This is an encyclopedia, not your scrabble pad, nor your webpage - the only intent is to give the article as it is officially named, and to give the best picture there is, not to spread one's ideas and thoughts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Uthantofburma (talk • contribs) 14:09, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

A Piece of Logic...

We call Deutschland Germany
We call Zhongguo China
We call Nippon Japan
We call Bharat India
We call Ellada Greece
We call Österreich Austria

But for some reason, because Myanmar is their official name, we should use that term despite hundreds of years of using Burma. Why don't we change all of the article names above too? Or can someone explain why Burma should be an exception? Obviously some have taken to using the name Myanmar, but this usage is far from 100%. Until that time, I believe the status quo should be kept, especially considering the relative instability in the country. DJLayton4 (talk) 08:09, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Its different - this topic is being reportedly raised by many people - read the whole arguement section - they do not insist on being called those names, and in Myanmar, the name change effected the English change too - like Cote d'Ivore, Timore Leste, Siam. What about them? What makes them so special that we call them that, but not other countries when they officially change their name. Do you want to be called Baby Joe or Joe when you are working in your office? The Burmese, btw, use Burma when we refer to our country because most people are too damn ignorant to know where countries are around the world. It is like when you talk to a Brit, and have to refer to the United States as "The Colonies".

Erm pretty much everyone here in Britain knows where the US is, no-one requires you to refer to the US as the Colonies, since we refer to it as the US. Deamon138 (talk) 23:49, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Aung San Suu Kyi's opinion is another matter. What I am trying to address is the Deutschland - Germany thing.

Bloody junta's illegitimate, but the UN isn't. And if you're going to over step the UN, like some nations do, well, go ahead, leave the UN. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Uthantofburma (talk • contribs) 09:47, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

• Both sides can play logic games:

We call Deutschland Germany
We call France France
We called the CCCP the Soviet Union, when its government asked us to
We call Tâi-oân China, because its government asks us to
We call Iran Iran, because its government asks us to
We call Côte d'Ivoire Côte d'Ivoire, because its government asks us to
We call Prathet Thai Thailand, because its government asks us to
We call Myanma Myanmar, because its government asks us to

Note that Iran is an English word as well as a Persian one.
Note that Thailand is an English word and arguably not a Thai one.
Note that Myanmar is an English word and arguably not a Burmese one.
Note that, earlier, I said "Persian" when I referred to something involving Iran, yet I still use Iran when referring to the country.
Note that all of these countries' names are noted by the U.N. and can be found to refer to their countries in English news sources, books, atlases, etc. -BaronGrackle (talk) 16:35, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

We call Timór-Lorosae East Timor, even though its government asks us to call it Timor-Leste.

Wikipedia is not dictated by government order. It is dictated by the usage of the English language. Kaldari (talk) 19:30, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

• In that case, I'd refer you to an English-speaking map, major news source, or international organization. -BaronGrackle (talk) 20:52, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Do you mean a map published by the United Nations such as this?: http://www.un.org/Depts/Cartographic/map/profile/myanmar.pdf

This body was designed to recognize the legitimacy of nations and create a standard for communication between nations (among other things). People have the right to self-author themselves. If this is what the government has asked, that the ENGLISH name change from Burma to Myanmar, then it is imperialism to insist otherwise. I strongly recommend doing as this country's government has asked, and as the United nations has officially recognized. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mmercede (talk • contribs) 06:02, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

It's imperialism not to obey the orders of a military dictatorship? That's a new one!

• • OK: "However it was not recognized by many western governments such as the United States, Australia, Canada or the United Kingdom, which continue to use "Burma," while the European Union uses "Burma/Myanmar" as an alternative." 137.22.25.155 (talk) 03:33, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

It strikes me as the action of an insecure and dictatorial government that tries to dictate what foreigners call a country in their own languages. Imagine if the German government insisted we speak of Deutschland in English conversation or Spain started insisting on España - we would consider that absurd. Wikipedia does not and should not reflect the whims of governments but rather actual English usage. Thailand is now almost universally used in English and Siam is only known historically, but in my opinion Burma still has a much wider usage than Myanmar - probably because the English-speaking world's knowledge of and interest in Burma has declined in post-colonial times as Burma's government has shut the country off from the outside world and impoverished it. It is probably simply the case that we have less reason mention Burma as the country's significance to us has declined, and therefore the opportunity to use the name Myanmar arises more rarely. The issue has also been politicised as while the Burmese government insists on Myanmar, others in the Burmese opposition prefer Burma. Booshank (talk) 17:00, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry but...

I know we shouldn't get involved in political disputes, but the country in question doesn't even let its citizens access this website or the internet for that matter! Moreover, the name change didn't involve the very people who live in the country (many Burmese still say use Burma). It was done by a completely undemocratic and non-traditional government. Imagine, if one day a bunch of crazies took over England against the will of the people for 50 years and called it Cooterland and against the traditional head of state, the Crown (therefore having lacking legitimacy), would we all have to assume England was now Cooterland? Nope. It's still England. The name of a country and a place reflects more than just what the heads of government want to call it. It is its history, its people, its culture. England the land of Angles and India can be traced to the people of the Indis River, China can be traced to a ruling dynasty, even Istanbul is just a bastardization of its prior name. Kinshasa's name reflects (some would argue) the will of the people not to name their capital after a guy that cut off people's legs. Yeah sometimes names are screwy and nonsensical in other languages but it's too late to change them half the time, so forget those! Now that we're focusing on endonyms to be PC, maybe we should use the name the Burmese people want not the one the people oppressing them have created. I oppose the name Myanmar. Arthurian Legend (talk) 17:58, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I think you've a great point, if only you wouldn't glorify it. They suffer from very restricted access to the internet. Possibly in line with Korea, Iran, and other such countries. But they have full representation on Wikipedia (my.wikipedia.org), it is not like they cannot acces this site. Most of the traffic blocking is of the form of file formats (specifically, video, audio). Robbiemuffin (talk) 19:22, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

• Two things regarding your example of England vs. Cooterland:
  
  1. If you change "England" to "Russia" and "Cooterland" to "Soviet Union", you'll find your conclusion from the exercise to be innacurate. Pretending a totalitarian regime doesn't exist is not the answer. And,
  2. I notice you used the word "England". Indeed, England is often what people hear in everyday conversation; one might say that it's common usage (especially among those more ignorant here in the U.S.) not only for the country/province but also for the state/nation itself. In fact, I bet that—though it would be close—the name "England" is more recognizable to a majority of English speakers than "United Kingdom" is. Anyone who recognizes United Kingdom would also recognize England; the same cannot be said of the opposite. Still, we do not call the nation's page England; sometimes fact should trump common usage.
  The few people who can identify Burma but cannot identify Myanmar are, let's face it, ignorant of that country's history since the '60s. The vast majority of people/nations who choose to use Burma do so because they prefer Burma for political/human rights reasons, not because they don't know what Myanmar is. "Recognition" in terms of legitimacy is not the same as "recognition" in terms of being able to identify a place. Every English-speaking nation in the world realizes the country calls itself Myanmar, and every English-speaker who watches the news or skims a reference source knows that the country is called Myanmar (in contrast, show me an English news source that uses "Deutschland" for Germany). This name is easily recognizable, AND it's accurate. "Burma" only has one of those two. -BaronGrackle (talk) 18:22, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Your recognition argument is interesting though still some what irrelevant since so many people don't even know what Myanmar or Burma is (unless you say it's where Crab Rangoon is from, but I jest) Language has power. When people learn about Burma (which is why someone may be researching it here) they should know that this is NOT the name of the country according to the legitimate opposition government, which was elected and is legitimate and it is not the name of the country in the people use.

As for England, yeah probably many people outside of the UK use England synonymously with the UK for Britain. To quote Dick Cheney, "So?" They are wrong. TEACH THEM. This relates to my earlier point. Reference materials such an encyclopedias, teach people, and the England article does that, it shows that England is a country but it's part of a larger nation, the UK. The same applies for the Soviet Union and Russia, Russia was just a part of the USSR, and yeah, by far the most important and powerful part, but it was not Russia. (Stalin was Georgian, not a Russian.) If people don't know the difference, they should. They can find that info here. Wikipedia should teach people, if they're looking for Myanmar, it's actually called Burma but despots took it over and changed the name and now you're smarter (and therefore better) for knowing that. Arthurian Legend (talk) 22:48, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• Your comment is sensible and noble, but it is not Wikipedia. You want this page to be called Burma not because of common usage in the English language, but because: "When people learn about Burma (which is why someone may be researching it here) they should know that this is NOT the name of the country according to the legitimate opposition government". When this page was moved to Burma, the "winning" argument said it was because Myanmar was less known in the English language. That was not the real reason; the real reason was because the majority of people believed what you have so clearly stated. Myanmar is the name of the article if we want Wikipedia to reflect reality; Burma is the name of the article if we want Wikipedia to "teach" people how reality should be. And, despite what our policies might say, Wikipedia is a democracy—which is sometimes good. In this case, though, I believe "Burma" won the bulk of the original vote and tied the second vote only because the majority of its supporters (not all of you, of course) purposely or unknowingly voted contrary to Wikipedia "policies". If you disagree, then glance through the different votes. Read why each person voted, and see how many voted for each name because they felt it was common use... and how many voted because Burma was the "legitimate opposition government". -BaronGrackle (talk) 17:54, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I think like most controversies in Wikipedia, this reveals the problem with Wikipedia, it attempts to democratize truth through opinion. Truth and Opinion don't necessarily go hand in hand. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.191.211.54 (talk) 17:24, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Example against the Wikipedia notion of naming articles according to the most common nomenclature. See Brown vs Board of Education, most people know this case as Brown vs. THE Board of Ed, yet the "THE" is omitted in the title because legal cases do not include articles. Here Wikipedia uses the OFFICIAL name which is not the name used by most people. So... there.

I've always heard Brown versus Board of Education, without any "the." BirdValiant (talk) 22:56, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Same here. Brown v. Board of Education.--Alt175 (talk) 20:28, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

It isn't all about politics!

Burma captures the name of the country throughout its history. The Myanmar name is restricted to recent events. If the page is only about recent history, then Myanmar is better, but it is about the whole country, including its long history and culture, so Burma is better. The top of the page tells all readers that the official name is The Union of Myanmar, so I don't see what is wrong with the page - about the country's geography, history, demographics &c. - being called Burma. Mjb1981 (talk) 10:12, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Add a section about the naming dispute, that will inform readers about the different opinions a lot more than re-naming the page...(talk) 10:15, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

But this is really not true. It's name to the people of the area is something that transliterates to myanmar. It is a formal, literary name of the Burmese people and has been the de facto name of those people since the 13th century, around the time the west "discovered" the east! If anything the brief usage of Burma in recent history can be well-associated with Brittish occupation. If the rest of the english-speaking world continued to call the USA "the Colonies" you can bet we'd fight a war of the words too. Robbiemuffin (talk) 19:15, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Amen. 64.191.211.54 (talk) 17:23, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree completely with the above: the Burma article covers Burma throughout time, and so the vast majority of what is covered is about a country called 'Burma'. If you want to write an article covering Burma/Myanmar only in the past 19 years, only then is there a controversy. 87.194.217.99 (talk) 13:34, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Common names vs official names

I stumbled onto the Burma page and am surprised to note this disagreement. Wikipedia clearly uses the common name of countries as the title of their article pages. The official name of the country should simply be inserted in brackets after the common name as is the case for Hungary, Slovenia, Austria, Slovakia, Germany, Russia, Indonesia, France, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, India and many others. We do not use Kingdom of Saudia Arabia, the Swiss Confederation or Federal Republic of Germany even though these are the official names of those countries. Even the United Kingdom page goes by its popular or common name rather than the eight words that its official name constitute. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is referred to on wikipedia as Soviet Union. Need I go on? China is a notable exception since there's more than one entity known by that same name. If we change this article page from Burma to Myanmar, why then should we not change Switzerland to the Swiss Confederation, Germany to the Federal Republic of Germany, Iran to the Islamic Republic of Iran, Saudi Arabia to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and so on and so forth? We use the common name here on wikipedia because this is a popular encyclopedia and not a guidebook on international diplomacy. --Bardin (talk) 15:26, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

This is yet another red herring. You're confusing the issue of long and short names with common names. "Germany" is that country's official "short" name in English so there's no issue there. Ditto "Switzerland" etc... The issue is whether the common name is the short official form "Myanmar" or the old and politicised term "Burma". Timrollpickering (talk) 15:41, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I do not believe what I wrote is another red herring. Where exactly in the Switzerland article is it indicated that Switzerland is the "official short" name in English? Ditto Germany and the others. This discussion clearly would not even be taking place if Myanmar is the common name for Burma. --Bardin (talk) 01:31, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

The big difference is that those other names (Germany, Switzerland, etc) are what the authorities in those countries would use if they were speaking in English in an ordinary conversation. There's no dispute with those, any more than when I say Angleterre when I (try to) speak French. FWIW I don't see how the Burmese government has any authority to say what other people call their country, and I wonder how many of the pro-Myanmar supporters would've agreed with the USA if (entirely hypothetically) they'd decided to rename Irag to Georgebushland after the invasion... -Riedquat (talk) 22:10, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I do not see what relevance authorities have in this discussion but you hit it on the nail when you note that they would be using those terms when speaking English in an ordinary conversation. They would also use the word Burma in ordinary conversation because that's the common English name despite whatever the authorities in that country might otherwise prefer. --Bardin (talk) 07:21, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

No if they were speaking English in an ordinary conversation they would use Myanmar. The authorities issue is relevant because the name change has been driven from the top down - this is not unusual. The name "United States" is also one chosen by authorities and usage following that. As for the common English name, if this epic discussion has shown anything it is that there is no single common name for the country and usage varies wildly across different English speaking countries. Hence the looking to the official name as a means of a "tie-breaker". Timrollpickering (talk) 11:34, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

It's been a long time since wikipedia did that with country names. Take a look at the links you referenced, there is no (in parenthesis) listing any more. Robbiemuffin (talk) 19:29, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Both Politically Incorrect

either choice will offend someone. Both are considered correct, why can't we use both? Often name changes with the change of government. Myanmar is still Burma, but the government calls itself Myanmar. The reason for the change is often given to be more inclusive of non Burmans. Rds865 (talk) 18:44, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

But "Myanmar" is a politicized term, implying an endorsement of the illegitimate regime, whereas "Burma" has been used for centuries. 137.22.15.103 (talk) 18:10, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

An indefensible statement. I do not support the current illegitimate regime in Myanmar, but I support using the name "Myanmar" because it describes that current regime. The same goes for almost all editors here who use or support Wikipedia using Myanmar. Conversely, most editors who support using "Burma" do not support the current regime (though that's hardly a fair accessment, since who wouldn't support democracy? :-) ). Like you said, nations like the U.S. and U.K. can use "Burma" to show they do not believe the current regime is legitimate. They hope tactics like this can change the nation's government. Bravo for them. However, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It is not a medium that tries to bring change to reality; it is meant to describe what is reality. Look at the infobox on the Burma article. Is Senior General Than Shwe really the leader of a democratic Burma? No. He leads the dictatorship government of Myanmar. -BaronGrackle (talk) 19:29, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Political leanings of editors here should have no say whatsoever on what goes on here on wikipedia. If "Myanmar" is what the ruling regime calls it in English, then "Myanmar" it is. Whether the ruling regime is a democracy or a dictatorship or a tribal outfit is inconsequential. We are not here to fight for democracy in Burma or China. We are here just to report facts. Sarvagnya 21:35, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

We ARE reporting facts. The FACT in question is: In the English language, how is the state in question referred to? And the study of English uses a DESCRIPTIVIST, not a prescriptivist convention. That means, it doesn't matter if the country had a democratic revolution, established a beautiful utopian society, and issued a directive to the whole world that the official new English name of their country is New Myanmar. Neither the government of that country (nor, for that matter, the United Nations) is the arbiter of the English language. Perhaps over time, as the English media use "Myanmar" more often and if (this is a big if) enough public attention is focused on the nation to cause those references to displace people's common usage of the term, then people will start saying Myanmar. When that happens, change the title. ---65.33.130.49 (talk) 20:58, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Descriptivist, huh? If Myanmar is so obscure, why does every other online encyclopedia call it that? Why do other Wikis such as wikitravel and uncyclopedia (not an authority on information, sure, but it says a bit on cultural perception) still use it? When I type "Burma" in Google maps, how is it that the only thing I find is a street in Juárez? When I type "Burma" in Yahoo travel, why is it that the sponsor results keep mentioning Myanmar on the right side? Why is it that when I type "Myanmar" in the same engine, I get almost twice as many results and no mentioning of the word Burma for my clarification? Is it because Google, Yahoo, every major encylopedia except this one, and every Wiki except this one is being prescriptive instead of descriptive? This article was called "Myanmar" until the monk controversy, after which a majority vote (and no consensus) changed it... a majority vote that completely collapsed in a matter of months. The support for Burma's common usage comes from (1) English-speaking government prescriptive use, and (2) historical books and articles (in which I'm sure Persia also contends fairly well against Iran). Things may change if the government changes someday, but even I know that Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. -BaronGrackle (talk) 02:15, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I would think both names are politicized. This is the name of a country, afterall! And "Myanmar" has been used for at least 7 centuries, if not as long as "Burma". It has and continues to be, the default name of the country, to the people there. Robbiemuffin (talk) 19:31, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Saying that we can't accept "Myanmar" because we don't accept their current regime as legitimate, is probably more political a statement than any other we've seen in the course of this debate. We can argue all we want about their legitimacy, but the military regime is a reality. Who are WE to question it? Who are WE to dump democracy on unwilling nations? WP is an encyclopaedia, not a political propaganda machine. Here we go by accuracy and practicality.

On Google, the most popular search engine beyond any reasonable doubt, Myanmar returns twice as many results (79,100,000) as does Burma. So, there is our basis (common usage in the English world). Now, what happens when the hits get close? We stick with what's more accurate today. Let's not forget that we do have redirect facilities. So, even if people search Burma, they'll find the right article under Myanmar.

For people questioning the authorities' rights to change the name, imagine my name is John Doe. Then I change it to David Doe. What kind of insane person will continue to call me John once I tell her/him of the name change. In the case of a country, this authority of naming belongs to the current government - irrespective of our feelings for that government. Moreover, Burma --> Myanmar is not a name change in the purest sense. It's a transliteration correction keeping in mind English pronunciation guidelines. Apparently the "r" in Burma is causing trouble given that the usage of rhotic English now as opposed to when the name was first transliterated by the English. People calling "Myanmar" political need to realise that Burma is a LOT more political (given how the only reason to keep that is US and UK's pro-democracy bias). Myanmar, on the other hand, is just a matter of fact. 132.206.35.197 (talk) 16:50, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Burma

This is the English Wikipedia, so I think it should be Burma since thats the official name in English (plus no one knows what Myanmar is, since all media {including video games} refer to it as Burma.) If the Burmese want to name it Myanmar on the Burmese Wikipedia, they can do that, but plz dont change it to Myanmar just because 1 or 2 English speaking Burmese natives say they want it like that.--4.244.36.56 (talk) 01:06, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry where does it say Burma is official in English? English has no equivalent of the Académie française to hand down rulings on high and it's not the name the country's government uses in English, which is the only thing that qualifies as an official name. Timrollpickering (talk) 07:15, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

There's no consensus to move the article to Myanmar (regretfully). Therefore, it stays Burma. GoodDay (talk) 17:18, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

When was there ever consensus to move it from there in the first place? Timrollpickering (talk) 19:32, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

No see, that's the funny thing. The official name of the country, in the country, is something we can't really say very well in english at all. For that reason, they submit a version of their name to be used when speaking in English. That 'official' name is Myanmar. Burma is not the official name of anything except some people's families (its a popular family name). Robbiemuffin (talk) 19:45, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

If you want to observe the common usage of the name Myanmar, just go to google news and search for "cyclone". The vast majority of english language media outlets are reporting this tragedy as originating from Myanmar, not Burma (although some still do use it). Panamajack (talk) 19:56, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Res to Timrollpicking: I don't know, I haven't gone back that far (Wiki archives). PS- When was there ever a consensus to fill English Wikipedia with Diacritics? There's plenty of Wiki mysteries. GoodDay (talk) 20:01, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll just add that I oppose moving the article to Myanmar for historical reasons; it is significantly less confusing to use historical terms which have been in use for centuries. Additionally, Burma is still in common usage, despite the efforts of the current regime to rename the nation (perhaps as an attempt to gain legitimacy?) While either name may perhaps be "correct", there is certainly no need to rename this article, IMO. The Jade Knight (talk) 01:43, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

My two cents worth is that we should call the article Burma. --Prince Paul of Yugoslavia (talk) 10:44, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Its not like Myanmar was an unpopular name for the country or the people of that area .. the names have been used interchangeably for centuries. Than includes that the name was "Myanmar" quite commonly in english language news sources prior to the name change (There are samples of news reports sited in "Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics", the second reference in the article, from before 1988, that use Myanmar.) Robbiemuffin (talk) 19:37, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Again, I challenge opponents to show that Burma is more commonly used across the english language press currently; a simple google news search on the tragic cyclone clearly demonstrates this. Panamajack (talk) 14:57, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

How does the United Nations recognise it? --G2bambino (talk) 15:23, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

What's even more tormenting, my 2 fav newscasts CBC news (Burma) & CNN (Myanmar) use both names. GoodDay (talk) 20:16, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

UN recognizes it as MYANMAR. I think there are a lot of illogical arguments, such as "we call Deutchland Germany", etc. There was a very logical explanation - Myanmar government asks us to call it Myanmar, period. Recognized by the UN. Pretty simple conclusion, then. Stop the semantics and realize that in some cases, such as this one, proper name is the best fit. That is why the article is "Gdansk" and not "Danzig", "Beijing" and not "Peking", "Mumbai" and not "Bombay", etc. Rarelibra (talk) 20:26, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll support moving Burma to Myanmar. Frustratingly, previous page movement requests have failed. GoodDay (talk) 20:34, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I support moving it to Myanmar too. Can the champions of "Burma" show me an ounce of evidence that Burma is "more popular" than "Myanmar". As I flipped channels in the last day or two, I heard "Myanmar" far more often than I heard "Burma". And Myanmar is, to boot, the official name. That is what they call themselves and that is what the world recognizes them as. Seriously, what is the debate here about?! Sarvagnya 22:37, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I also support. There seems to be little use of Burma, especially when it's in the focus of the English-language media. Even our front page uses Myanmar! --Jedravent (talk) 00:03, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

One could make the argument that press could refer to the country differently than the general populace, especially considering that the military junta actually runs the press. See Reporters Without Borders for their low-ranking press freedom.

I'd say that the name used here should be one that reflects what people think of the country in the particular language. In English, we refer to the political entity to the south of Denmark's land border as "Germany," not "Deutschland." If the government suddenly ordered that everybody in every language should call the entity "Deutschland" instead of their native equivalents, I seriously doubt that anybody would make any effort to abide.

Germany is obviously well engrained in the English language, but this isn't true with other countries, especially ones with little history in Western minds. For example, we don't continue to call Zimbabwe "Rhodesia" because most Westerners probably haven't even heard of its historical name (and because Rhodesia was just the name of the conqueror and not indicative of the country's heritage). "Germany" could be considered the historical name once it demanded everyone to say "Deutschland," but it would be this historical name that everybody would know and say.

"Burma" didn't come from any foreign colonization, it was just an attempt to say "Bama" in an English tongue. They could have chosen the other native name for their country "Myanma," but their choice of "Burma" stuck for decades in the Western mind. Why should we switch over to the old alternative if people aren't familiar with it? If people say Germany, then call it Germany. If people say Burma, call it Burma. If people really call it Myanmar, then call it Myanmar. Personally, I, my friends, and my family think "Burma," (if they are aware of its existence) so I would advocate this usage. BirdValiant (talk) 00:20, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

This is 2 decades out! Historically, in the long term, they've been Myanmar since the 13th century, except for very recently. But very recently, in the 80s they changed their name back to Myanmar again. Popularly, in their own country, they are Myanmar (and Burma). So, there is no time frame in which it makes more sense to call it Burma on the basis of the common name. It isn't historical, it is political. Politically, it is convenient to challenge them in every way we can, and to drum up interest by creating artificial problems like this. Robbiemuffin (talk) 19:49, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Since when do we give a shit what some undemocratically elected military Government tells us to do? It's Burma, period. --Prince Paul of Yugoslavia (talk) 22:55, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Refusing the government would be POV. --Jedravent (talk) 00:01, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

PPoY - One, despite your bluster, this is not about "giving a shit" to an "undemocratically elected" (whatever that means) govt.,. Secondly, and out of curiosity, which policy or guideline on wikipedia prevents us from "giving a shit" to an "undemocratically elected" government? Thirdly, why dont you first try to impress on the United Nations and the media, among others, not to "give a shit" to the "undemocratically elected" government. Fourthly, since when do we give a shit to empty rhetoric devoid of any semblance of both sources and intelligence? Sarvagnya 00:13, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is here to report fact. Fact says it's Myanmar. I mean Hitler wasn't voted Fuhrer (he was voted Chancellor) of Germany yet that is how history refers to him: as the Fuhrer of Germany, regardless of the fact that he was the most evil c**t ever, it's fact and still POV to do otherwise. Deamon138 (talk) 00:07, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

All Führer means is 'leader'. It is the English speaking world that has politicised the term. Secondly, I couldn't give a toss what the United Nations has to say about anything. Burma is Burma. --Prince Paul of Yugoslavia (talk) 00:45, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Regardless of whether or not you give a "toss" or a "shit" (or both) to the United Nations or anybody else, we on wikipedia do "give a shit" about what our WP:RS sources call it. And incidentally, WP:RS sources, it has been observed, treat the United Nations with a lot of respect. So would you bring your bluster down a notch and show us some evidence that "Burma" is still "Burma" and not "Myanmar"? Sarvagnya 01:06, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Also if you check your history you'll see that upon the death of President Hindenburg, Adolf merged the offices of Chancellor and President to create that of Führer. --Prince Paul of Yugoslavia (talk) 00:45, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Firstly yes Fuhrer means leader, but it was Hitler himself who politicized the term, by calling himself "Führer und Reichskanzler." I think Hitler creating this POLITICAL office is what made it political not any English people. Regardless of whether Hitler created the office from two existing offices, it was still UNDEMOCRATIC of him to do so, same as with the Government of the country formerly known as Burma renaming it Myanmar. In English, we refer to Hitler as Germany's Fuhrer despite the fact that its the name he wanted us to call him. See the article on Fuhrer which says, "It is mainly used in English and third languages as the term for Nazi Germany's totalitarian ruler Adolf Hitler." This rule should apply to naming the article Myanmar. Deamon138 (talk) 23:54, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

What does Hitler and Yugo have to do with these little Asiatic pseudo-Chinamen in Myanmar? If they choose the name Myanmar then we should call them Myanmar, right? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.74.192.210 (talk) 03:07, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

A fact, such as the name of a country, is never subject to opinion. Anyone who says it should be "Burma" or "Myanmar" based on their feelings is not contributing to an encyclopedic article. There is a name for this country, and it is not easily expressed in English, since it is in Burmese and uses a non-arabic script. This name has been translated into English, into what we call a "conventional name", which "Burma" has been since the very beginning. I don't care how it is translated, but to suggest that these same words are now translated into something else seems silly. I am bothered that the main Wiki article says the official name is Myanmar and quotes the BBC as proof, but the BBC does not state Myanmar is the official name; instead, suggests Myanmar is only an alternative. Read the BBC article and you will see. I am removing the word "official" from the Wiki article. Also, this Wiki article links to the CIA Factbook, but fails to mention the U.S. position as stated there, which is that no official legislative body has changed the name from Burma to Myanmar. Instead, the Myanmar name change seems to be a public relations campaign which the U.S. has not recognized as official. I say we stay with "Burma" until "Burma" changes their name officially. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.161.135.99 (talk) 16:29, 9 May 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.161.135.99 (talk)

Usage in English language media

Media referring to the country as Burma

1. BBC [2]
2. The Times (London) [3]
3. CBC [4]
4. Voice of America [5] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Angstriddenyouth (talk • contribs) 20:49, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
5. Yahoo New Zealand [6]
6. The Australian [7]
7. The Telegraph [8]
8. CTV.ca [9]
9. Yahoo UK [10] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.86.28.87 (talk) 04:26, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
10. Toronto Star [11]
11. Mizzima (English-language website) [12]
12. Democratic Voice Of Burma (English-language website) [13]
13. USA Today [14] Jpgs (talk)
14. Washington Post [15] Jpgs (talk) 12:38, 7 May 2008
15. The Guardian, UK [16]
16. National Post, Canada [17]
17. Bangkok Post, Thailand [18]
18. ABC, Australia [19]
19. Boston Globe [20] Jpgs (talk) 12:38, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
20. CBS [21]
21. Asia Observer [22] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Prince Paul of Yugoslavia (talk • contribs) 12:44, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
22. RTE, Ireland [23] (talk) 08:35, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
23. The Scotsman [24] (talk) 08:35, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
24. The Herald, Glasgow [25](talk) 08:35, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
25. Irish Times [26]
26. The Moderate Voice [27]
27. Sky News [28]
28. ITN [29]
29. The Press Association [30]
30. Agenzia Giornalistica Italia, Italy [31]
31. Independent Online, South Africa [32]
32. Reuters, India [33]
33. Buenos Aires Herald, Argentina [34] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Angstriddenyouth (talk)
34. Forbes, NY [35]
35. Channel 4 News, UK [36]
36. Inquirer, Phillippines [37]
37. US Department of State, DC [38]
38. Howrah News Service, India [39]
39. ABC News [40] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Angstriddenyouth (talk • contribs) 20:00, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Media referring to the country as Myanmar

1. Associated Press [41]
2. Reuters [42]
3. CNN [43]
4. MSNBC [44]
5. Fox News [45]
6. NY Times [46]
7. The Economist [47]
8. New Zealand Herald [48]
9. Times of India [49]
10. Hindustan Times [50]
11. The Hindu [51]
12. South China Morning Post [52]
13. Straits Times [53]
14. Yahoo US [54]
15. AFP [55]
16. China Daily [56]
17. Jerusalem Post [57]
18. Khaleej Times (UAE) [58]
19. NPR [59] Jpgs (talk) 12:23, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
20. ABC News (US) [60] Jpgs (talk) 12:23, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
21. CBS News [61] Jpgs (talk) 12:23, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
22. PBS News Hour [62] Jpgs (talk) 12:23, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
23. Wall Street Journal [63] Jpgs (talk) 13:19, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
24. New York Times [64] (requires subscription) Jpgs (talk) 12:33, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
25. Los Angeles Times [65] Jpgs (talk) 12:33, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
26. Chicago Tribune [66] Jpgs (talk) 12:33, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
27. New York Daily News [67] Jpgs (talk) 13:19, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
28. New York Post [68] (appears just to follow wire services; may have no policy) Jpgs (talk) 13:19, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
29. Philadelphia Inquirer [69] Jpgs (talk) 12:33, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
30. Houston Chronicle [70] Jpgs (talk) 13:19, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
31. San Francisco Chronicle [71] Jpgs (talk) 12:33, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
32. Miami Herald [72] Jpgs (talk) 12:33, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
33. Dallas Morning News [73]
34. Atlanta Journal-Constitution [74]
35. Seattle Post-Intelligencer [75]

Ratios

US Newspapers: Of the 10 top papers (in the US) by circulation[76]: 8 Myanmar, 2 Burma Jpgs (talk) 13:26, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

This only represents the US, and not other English speaking countries, such as Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand etc.. where the name "Burma" is predominantly used by all newspapers.

Google News Hits

(retrieved 6 May 2008. All instances have gone down since then)

Myanmar cyclone: 8,604
Burma cyclone: 8,184

Myanmar: 18,004
Burma: 12,497

• Realizing this is a tragedy... so far we have curious reporting in the media. When I checked Google News this late afternoon, running Myanmar cyclone against Burma cyclone, there were about 1,000 more results for Myanmar than there were for Burma. As I look tonight, results for Burma cyclone got 4,794 while Myanmar cyclone got only 4,670. If I restrict the search to just "Myanmar" or "Burma", however, Myanmar trounces with 13,549 to Burma's 9,116. I wonder what would happen if we restrict the search to media outside of the United Kingdom? -BaronGrackle (talk) 04:04, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

We call the country Burma in New Zealand. Heres a newslink from YahooXtra our main internet news provider. --210.86.28.87 (talk) 04:09, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

From a (highly unscientific) sampling of sites in various countries, this is what I got:

• Burma: UK, Australia, Canada, Thailand, New Zealand
• Myanmar: US, New Zealand, India, Singapore, Hong Kong, France, China

We use Burma in New Zealand mate. --210.86.28.87 (talk) 04:13, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Well not all of it apparently [77]. Anyway, I was referring media usage rather than common usage. Shameer (talk) 04:28, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm an ex-pat Brit living in New Zealand and have heard people use both Burma and Myanmar, but Myanmar seems to be more prevalent. I'm surprised no-one seems to have commented on how this is a generational thing - older people use the name that was common when they were younger (Burma) but most young people are familiar with Myanmar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.96.121.58 (talk) 06:00, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

'Everyone else' - care to prove that? 87.194.217.99 (talk) 13:32, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

FixedShameer (talk) 17:41, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Malaysia overwhelming uses Myanmar. Nil Einne (talk) 16:08, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

ASEAN uses Myanmar. ASEAN comprises of 10 countries, including Myanmar itself. __earth ^(Talk) 05:17, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Google hits

Burma = about 30,000,000 Myanmar = about 64,800,000

OK not very scientific but also not the answer I expected. It could just be bias by Google because the name change only just predates Google and the general availability of the Internet so electronic references outweight paper format and our memories (which probably pre-date the Internet). Based on this I would suggest that in the next 10 years the counts for Myanmar will even more outweight the counts for Burma and the "Burma" article title will become even more out of date. Like the metric system, and pounds, shilling and pence, are we just showing our age ? or is this a way of showing a political preference, a form of electronic boycott of a regime ?. A mixture of all I would guess.
But we're not here to report our opinion in the article but document reality. We have established certain organisations as reliable sources for many articles and the UN is one of them (e.g. if a reliable source says 'x' is a "terrorist" or a "disaster" then we can happily repeat that whereas if someone unreliable (e.g. any-old-politician or shock-jock) says it we edit that out. Aren't we being a bit biased by using the UN for one purpose that suits us but not accepting what else it says ? How can we judge what to use and what to drop from our reliable sources ? We use undue weight or the idea of neologism. The case for undue weight isn't clear and in fact of all references to Burma and Myanmar now in Google it is 1/3rd for Burma and 2/3rds for Myanmar. On the basis of trusting our reliable sources, on tipping our hat at undue weight it would seem Myanmar has the advantage.
I would suggest we do what the BBC does on its country page, [78] and do the following,
Redirect Burma to Myanmar and just state..."Myanmar, formerly Burma," Ttiotsw (talk) 06:02, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Union of Myanmar

Haven't looked through all the archived discussion, but haven't seen any thoughts on making the page Union of Myanmar. It would follow the same logic regarding China/People's Republic of China, Macedonia/Republic of Macedonia, to a lesser degree, Congo/Republic of Congo/Democratic Republic of Congo and Georgia/Geogria (country). While this uses the name of the State Peace and Development Council, it is the official name of the country, which is recognized by the United States, Canada, the United Nations, and other governments. Kaiser matias (talk) 06:18, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

That's the long form name and would be at odds with standard Wikipedia practice which is to use the short form. The examples you give are all deliberate exceptions because the short forms "China", "Macedonia", "Congo" and "Georgia" are all names claimed by multiple entities and thus very different situations from here. Timrollpickering (talk) 07:32, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Move article to Union of Myanmar, rewrite Burma to refer to the civilisation, incorporating the history currently within that article. Add a disambiguation to the top of the Burma article, pointing to the current political entity "Union of Myanmar". Redirect Myanmar to Union of Myanmar. This solution is modelled on how China is currently being handled. --~Cr∞nium 07:48, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

China is not a good model. The issue with China is that there are two current governments that claim all of China, and each occupy part of its geographic area. As a result, the official name for China is not unique, so trying to use the official name would not decide the question - you'd still have two names, Republic of China and People's Republic of China. The unwieldy solution there is to have three separate articles. Burma is not in the same situation, so there's no need to use an unwieldy solution here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Warren Dew (talk • contribs) 19:18, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Support 87.194.217.99 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 13:29, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

• "...it is the official name of the country, which is recognized by the United States, Canada, the United Nations, and other governments" Actually, it isn't recognized, at least by the U.S. Check out the CIA World Factbook link below: the U.S. government's official long-form name for the country is "Union of Burma". The point they're making is that this "Myanmar" government doesn't exist. Lovely, no? I notice that no one has been mad enough to seriously suggest we follow this example in our article. -BaronGrackle (talk) 15:31, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

The World Factbook also makes note that the country is known as the Union of Myanmar as well, albeit as a translation of the local name. And it would seem that this is not that different from the examples I pointed out. Burma in itself can be used to describe the entire historical context of the region, similar to China, Macednoia, and Congo. Specifically in regards to China, the more recognized state is located at it's full name to distinguish it from the historical region, as well as the lesser recognized government in Taiwan. Since most western governments have stated they don't recognize the government ruling under the name "Union of Myanmar," but rather one that uses the name "Burma," it seems very similar in my view to the China situation. The Union of Myanmar is the name of the current government controlling the country, Burma is the historical name of the region, and one would suppose that "Union of Burma" (used by the US State Department), would be the name of the democartic government that is/was involved with Aung San Suu Kyi. Kaiser matias (talk) 16:23, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

• I personally don't have much against this, but check out the most recent archive on Burma's talk page. Simultaneous to our last survey on the name, a proposal identical to yours was completely shot down by both sides. Of course, it may have just been that both sides felt we were "winning".-BaronGrackle (talk) 23:49, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

CIA World Factbook

The CIA World Factbook calls it 'Burma'. 87.194.217.99 (talk) 13:40, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

It's always been a great resource, with just a few sticking points to avoid, like economic facts, and descriptive text for communist nations and other nations we would rather didn't exist. Robbiemuffin (talk) 20:05, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Like Burma? The CIA World Factbook is obviously biased to official US policy. It is official US policy not to recognize the name change to Myanmar.--208.102.210.163 (talk) 23:16, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

A bit of an oversimplification, but...

sometimes countries change their names. It's true. Persia is now Iran, Mesopotamia is Iraq, Turkey became the Ottoman Empire then back again, likewise with Russia and the Soviet Union, England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland became the United Kingdom, the Holy Roman Empire became Germany, Ivory Coast is now Côte d'Ivoire, Siam is now Thailand, the list goes on and on. I won't even start with the Balkans and Eastern Europe, we'd be here all day.

The article should be named Myanmar. I admittedly know very little of the country and its political climate, and therefore can say with absolute certainty that I am completely neutral here. Arguing that the name should not be changed because you don't like the current administration simply holds no water - we are a neutral encyclopedia, what we think as editors doesn't matter. Yes, Burma is occasionally used colloquially to refer to the state of Myanmar, but so too is America used to refer to the United States, Russia was used to refer to the Soviet Union, Ivory Coast is used to refer to Côte d'Ivoire; again, the list is practically endless. The article needs to be moved to Myanmar.

Before decrying any specific examples I listed, bear in mind that I did say it was an oversimplification. faithless (^speak) 17:33, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I realise it is an over-simplification, but I'd just like to point out a number of the examples cited went through not just a change in name/government, but significant changes in terretorial possesions, i.e. Unions of countries, and various countries becoming independent. --210.86.28.87 (talk) 20:31, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

My suggestion

Name the article Burma (Myanmar). --Zer0~Gravity ^{(Roger - Out)} 17:39, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

What difference does the name make ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.161.215.19 (talk) 18:34, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Clearly none to you ANONYMOUS Deamon138 (talk) 23:40, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

No widely accepted name = Myanmar

This has been brought up before by someone else, but I thought I'd mention it again. From our official naming conventions: "If no name can be shown to be widely accepted in English, use the local official name." Well? Recent media coverage shows that Myanmar solidly beats Burma by the hundreds or thousands. Myanmar is in all the other encyclopedias, even Britannica. In terms of common usage, Burma ONLY wins in historical books. While it can be argued that Burma is used as frequently as Myanmar, there is absolutely no way to claim that Burma is the single, undisputed, widely accepted English name. Since Myanmar is the local official name, then it wins in the case of a draw. Can anyone show that this dispute between Burma and Myanmar is NOT a draw, that Burma is decisively used more? You can't show it through media. You can't show it through Yahoo, Google, or any encyclopedia. You can't show it through "I hear everyone use Burma", since that is original research and is disputed as a fact. So? -BaronGrackle (talk) 23:49, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

You make a very valid point here Deamon138 (talk) 23:55, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Burma was a widely accepted name before the junta. Shii (tock) 07:06, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed; it was used before the junta changed it. Our general guidelines address that too. Number 1 says:

• "The title: When a widely accepted English name, in a modern context, exists for a place, we should use it." Again, you cannot show that Burma is widely accepted over Myanmar through media, encyclopedias, and so on and so forth. "This often will be a local name, or one of them; but not always. If the place does not exist anymore, or the article deals only with a place in a period when it held a different name, the widely accepted historical English name should be used." If this article were about a country that did not exist, or if it were about former Burma (as per the proposal above), then Burma would be a fine title. "If neither of these English names exist, the modern official name, in articles dealing with the present, or the modern local historical name, in articles dealing with a specific period, should be used. All applicable names can be used in the titles of redirects." The bold is added by me. I think the case is very clear here that naming conventions recommend Myanmar. -BaronGrackle (talk) 15:38, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

This article does not deal only with the present. (I'm not sure how important that is) --87.194.217.99 (talk) 11:37, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

• No article deals ONLY in the present; everything has a history. This article does deal with a country that presently exists. -BaronGrackle (talk) 14:59, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
• This comment was recently posted above; I thought I'd replicate it here:

"No one doubts that there is a dispute about the name which leads some sources to use Myanmar and others to use Burma… The name of the Wikipedia article should be based on common English usage (as per Wikipedia guidelines) and this seems split between Burma and Myanmar so there's no compelling reason to change the article's name to Myanmar. Keep it how it is. Suitsyou (talk) 17:35, 9 May 2008 (UTC)"

And, so, I direct you back to the point highlighted in the guidelines. The compelling reason IS BECAUSE common English usage is split, so we defer to the official name. -BaronGrackle (talk) 17:41, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

X-ray scattering techniques is an example of an article that deals only in the present. Be careful when making generalisations! How this means we should interpret the guidelines I don't know: the safest bet seems to be to create one called Burma about the history and one called Union of Myanmar about the present (the latter of which takes up a large part of the article and would fill an article on it's own). 87.194.217.99 (talk) 10:18, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Wrong vs Incorrect

You people claiming that it's Burma have to realize something. Namely that right v wrong are not the same as correct v incorrect. Correctness is about FACTS which is what Wikipedia is meant to provide. Right/Wrongness is about POV e.g. it's "Murder is wrong" not "murder is incorrect." I think 99.9% of us here agree that an undemocratic system is wrong and therefore that the Myanmar government is wrong. However this is POV and should only belong in some sort of criticism section on the government and the country's name. While their government is wrong, its name change is still a fact and therefore correct. I mean since we're all so totally against this government shouldn't we then deny its existence on Wikipedia and deny that "Burma" has an undemocratic form of government? It would seem we should do that if the Burma-namers here get their way. While we're at it, since the Holocaust was wrong, we should make it incorrect too and delete all references to it anywhere on Wikipedia. Oh and for anyone who claims that Myanmar-name and the Holocaust aren't the same thing, I'm demonstrating the propositions logical fallacy by taking it to its extreme. Tell me if you still disagree that Holocaust/Myanmar aren't the same situation, when exactly does a dictatorial governments actions become extreme enough that we should document what they say rather than ignoring it like you want to? Quantitative answer please! Deamon138 (talk) 00:06, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

An illegal, undemocratic government cannot change the name of the country and have it recognised. That is why the United States and Great Britain, the two most important English speaking countries in the world, do not recognize it. --Prince Paul of Yugoslavia (talk) 00:30, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

And let's all remember this is the English Wikipedia, not the Hindu or Chinese Wikipedia. (referring to some Myanmar examples given a few sections above) --Prince Paul of Yugoslavia (talk) 00:32, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

You seem to be missing the point. Indians and Chinese use English too. The fact that the US and the UK have English as their native language doesn't given them the ultimate authority in English. Nil Einne (talk) 18:09, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

It's in English, it's not for the English or on their behalf. Why do we accept that the British / US government calls it Burma, but deny that the "Burmese" government calls it Myanmar? Their is a POV issue with what the US and UK call Myanmar, they don't call it Burma for encyclopedic reasons; they are politically motivated to call the country Burma. The BBC and CIA are as questionable sources as they are simply going along with the respective governments. There really shouldn't be a question with this. Encyclopedic sources use Myanmar. Zelphi (talk) 13:15, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Iran and Persia

This seems to be a bit like the Iran Vs Persia debates of the 1930's, 1940's, and 1950's. Iran officially asked the English world to stop calling it Persia and start calling it Iran, but it took until the 1960's before they did so. Encylopedias were also slow to make the switch-over. I'm not going to weigh in (I have an opinion but after reading the comments and responces here I really dont think there is any attempt to get a concensus, so why should I bother) but I'd just like to point out that this has happened before. 74.13.127.100 (talk) 06:52, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Good point. Wikipedia is not out to make a political statement. The name should reflect the popular consensus, that is, the name being used by English-speaking governments. For this reason the CIA World Factbook is an excellent example. Shii (tock) 07:09, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I disagree, I see no reason why English speaking government are the only consideration. The name used by other English speakers, native or not is just as important Nil Einne (talk) 19:05, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

The CIA World Factbook was an amazing resource for it's time, except for economics and for unbiased coverage of a scant few countries we have disagreements with. Even in those cases, it is usually only in descriptive text that the bias shows. Nowadays, I'm pretty sure the people who compile it gather all their data up into their articles, and then come back and compare the articles to wikipedia as a way to spot check for errors. Robbiemuffin (talk) 20:29, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

That sounds like an odd thing to be sure of. Do you work for them? 87.194.217.99 (talk) 10:21, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Yangon

If this city name has been changed on wikipedia from Rangoon to Yangon, even though the BBC and the rest of the English speaking world still refer to this as Rangoon. Even though i think this page should remain as Burma, how can there be double standards here?--Rockybiggs (talk) 09:59, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

A lot of English language sources refer to it as Yangon, same as Myanmar Nil Einne (talk) 16:06, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the point though is that the Rangoon/Yangon naming issue is largely the same as the Burma/Myanmar one. We should either have Burma and Rangoon, or Myanmar and Yangon. Having Burma and Yangon is inconsistent. Cynical (talk) 23:40, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

The reason Yangon was not changed was because there was no overwhelming vote drawn there after the monks were in the news. The swarm of people came to the Myanmar article and, though there was no consensus, their sheer number of votes allowed it to change. Yangon had neither consensus nor a voter swarm. To make the articles consistent, we'd need either consensus or an overwhelming vote to change either article. It's not likely. -BaronGrackle (talk) 23:58, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more on this one. We should use/combine either Myanmar/Yangon or Burma/Rangoon. To be more precise this "dispute" always turns around Arakanese (Rakhinese) vs. Burmese.Sovann Maccha (talk) 00:31, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Why the everyday person isn't reliable on this

I've seen lots of arguments for naming the article "Burma" because everyone in the everyday world (e.g. friends and family) know it as Burma and most people have never heard of Myanmar. So what if they've never heard of it? Most people have never heard of a Riemannian manifold yet that exists. Most would be confused that triangles don't have to have 180 degrees. Besides the consensus of the layman is irrelevant when it comes to encyclopaedic topics on politics. Here, what the experts say is what matters. If you still think what "Bob"down the street matters on this issue, then clearly you've never heard of say snopes. As an idea of how wrong Bob can be, look at this example. Most people I've ever known (including myself) have believed that urban myth, but it's not true.

Besides, our job on Wikipedia is not to tell people that an undemocratic system is wrong: if we're good enough, they should be able to work that out themselves by reading a balanced article giving the fors and againsts for the Myanmar regime. We don't go "the regime is wrong," we go "here are the arguments for this regime by some people, and here are the criticisms of this regime by other people." Then it's left up to the reader to decide is opinion on the regime. Simple as.

We should make it clear that the countries name is Myanmar, but also show in the article that the name change was controversial. Deamon138 (talk) 20:49, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

• Just like to point out that the article China is about the People's Republic of China. Just because PRC is the official name doesn't mean the article should use it. The article should use the most widely-accepted name. There are many precedents for this: spelling in the English language is based on how wide acceptance is. Same with scientific facts on Wikipedia (albeit the acceptance in that case is based on people that are scientifically trained). --24.3.21.56 (talk) 20:54, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

People's Republic of China IS the most widely accepted name as is Myanmar n00b. "Just because PRC is the official name doesn't mean the article should use it" Err no that's exactly why it SHOULD use it. Also, China has an authoritarian oft-criticized government yet the UN recognizes it as PR of C, yet it doesn't recognize Taiwan because China doesn't recognize it. That is how Wikipedia should present the facts: that Taiwan is an unrecognized country and Burma is now Myanmar. Criticisms of this belong in the criticism section of each article. I come to Wikipedia and the general internet for information about politics when I want a balanced viewpoint. We get the Daily Mail (right biased newspaper) and my family and some of my friends tend to have opposite political positions to me so this is where I come to see both sides of an argument. Don't ruin Wikipedia!

United Nations member states#Seat of China: "With the understanding of the Governor and the Chairman, I will briefly mention that membership into the UN ultimately needs to be decided by the Member States of the United Nations. Membership is given to a sovereign country. The position of the United Nations is that the People's Republic of China is representing the whole of China as the sole and legitimate representative Government of China. The decision until now about the wish of the people in Taiwan to join the United Nations has been decided on that basis. The resolution (General Assembly Resolution 2758) that you just mentioned is clearly mentioning that the Government of China is the sole and legitimate Government and the position of the United Nations is that Taiwan is part of China." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Deamon138 (talk • contribs) 21:29, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the Riemannian manifold thing, most people don't refer to it as that because they don't refer to it at all. However, lots of people do refer to Burma/Myanmar, and if the majority refer to it as Burma (which, incidentally, it seems they don't), then that defines what the English word for it is: we, as with dictionaries, are just here to record what people call it, not to decide. --87.194.217.99 (talk) 11:34, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Peeps in Thailand be referring to the place as Burma. I was all up in that place in 03'. They be like "don't call it Myanmar or you be recognizing the military junta". They like all serious and stuff when they spittin out they thoughts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.186.51.120 (talk) 15:09, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Word. 87.194.217.99 (talk) 10:23, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Reason for the renaming?

Pardon me if this is a stupid question, but when scanning the article and this discussion I didn't find an answer:

Why did the junta decide to change the name from Burma to Myanmar? Is there a particular rationale behind this?

From what I gather there is precious little difference in ethnological or ideological meaning behind it, so... what gives? --Syzygy (talk) 07:14, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Good question! Possibly an attempt to distance themselves from Colonial Oppression? --87.194.217.99 (talk) 11:35, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

The name change is briefly mentioned in the Etmology and origins section, and then discussed further in Names of Burma. To put it shortly, both Burma and Myanmar have the same origin, but through the different tones of the word, a practice common in East Asian languages, the words have become distinct. The name change happened because the government wanted to abandon the colonial spelling of the country and adopt a more Burmese spelling of the country, similar to what India has done with its cities (Calcutta/Kolkata, Bombay/Mumbai, etc.) Kaiser matias (talk) 16:16, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Can someone summarize the sides in the naming dispute?

I was surprised to find that the article title was Burma and not Myanmar. I thought the nation had officially changed its name, but what do I know. There's a lot of discussion on this page. Can someone summarize the reasons for/against renaming the article to Myanmar? Morecromulent (talk) 17:44, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry, it'l be Myanmar again as soon as the radical minority thinks the public exposure opportunity has passed. It's happened twice already that I know of at Wikipedia. It'll keep happening until that activist they have under house arrest dies of old age, I think. Robbiemuffin (talk) 20:42, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't oversimplify the issue. I'm here because I was telling people what a great-sounding word Myanmar is (yes I'm a giant geek) and none of them knew what it meant. Not just a PR stunt, a genuine linguistic issue resulting from the wonderful diversity of the English language. 87.194.217.99 (talk) 10:34, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

For Burma

• More westerner recognize the name Burma than Myanmar. (there is more asian who recognise Myanmar)
• Burma is the country's historical name.
• The country's government that changed the name was not elected and is not legitimate.
• Major English-speaking governments, including the United States and United Kingdom, officially recognize Burma over Myanmar. (but US State Dept used the term Myanmar as much as Burma.)
• Historical books and scholarly articles use Burma overwhelmingly.
• Many Western English-language media sources use Burma.
• Both the people of Burma and their language are known as Burmese, despite any name change.
• Most international aid and Human Rights organizations use Burma [79] [80] [81] [82]
• The article was previously called Myanmar but was changed after "a significant majority of editors" favored Burma (by more than 2:1). See more arguments on previous discussion here. —Preceding comment by 76.236.65.49 (talk) 07:05, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

For Myanmar

• Just as many people recognize Myanmar as Burma.
• Myanmar is the country's current name.
• Myanmar is the name used by the United Nations.
• English-speaking nations that choose to not use Myanmar do so for political reasons, not for reasons of identification.
• Online encyclopedias and other resources use Myanmar overwhelmingly.
• A large majority of English media sources use Myanmar.
• There are other examples in which the name of a people is different than the name of their country (e.g. Dutch, British, in some cases Persian).
• The article was previously called Myanmar but was changed without consensus.—Preceding unsigned comment added by BaronGrackle (talk • contribs) 17:53, 8 May, 2008 (UTC)

Some people are opposed because most English-speaking governments (US, UK, Canada, Australia) don't recognized the name change as it was done by what they consider an illegal revolution. They officialy know the country as Burma, and therefore so should Wikipedia. Others feel that since the official name of the country is indeed Myanmar, which is recognized by other nations and organizations (Russia, China, UN), and Wikipedia has no place to decide if ruling governments are legal or not and have the ability to change the name of the country. Kaiser matias (talk) 17:57, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

- Both "More" and "Just as many" can't be true in the description of how many recognize each name. YAC (talk) 18:10, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

You are correct; the answer lies in disagreement. I would say that just as many recognize Myanmar; but, I wanted to be fair to the Burma position. This is one of the primary disagreements in the article naming discussion. -BaronGrackle (talk) 18:19, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think the majority of media organisations use Myanmar, I've not seen any news outlet use Myanmar. BBC, ITN (Channel 4 and C5), Sky News (and checking on the internet) RTE, Deutche Welle, France 24, Voice Of America and Radio Australia use Burma. The only one I can find that uses Myanmar is NHK. Duke toaster (talk) 18:58, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I was basing it on the Media sources listed above and the Google News hits. -BaronGrackle (talk) 19:24, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Removed the parenthesized counter-arguments from the Burma section because there were none given on the Myanmar section.

The reason for the 'more' and 'just as many' thing is actually that more Western people use Burma but roughly the same number of English-speaking people from all places use it. Personally I don't see how where you are geographically gives you more of a right to define how language is used, so I think only the 'just as many people say one as the other' is relevant. 87.194.217.99 (talk) 10:34, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Hold off, then rename

So, according to the official naming conventions above, the lack of consensus here means we should simply use Myanmar. If you have a disagreement with that we would need to take this debate one level up, to the policy itself. Unfortunately changing the name right now would probably cause an edit war in the cyclone article, as it did last fall. The constitutional referendum is also this Saturday. How about we hold off until next week and then change the name across all Burma-related articles? Shii (tock) 22:15, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

• Suddenly changing the name of all "Burma" articles would certainly get you a warning and possibly get you banned. :-) Despite my whining, those of us pro-Myanmar folk failed to act appropriately when the article was changed without consensus (I personally thought it was meant to be an actual majority-rule vote; I learned differently later), so now the weight is on pro-Myanmar to gain consensus before the name is changed. If a constitutional referendum is coming up this Saturday, though, then perhaps the country will be in the media even more... showing off how frequently it is called Myanmar. -BaronGrackle (talk) 22:48, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Baron Grackle. You decribe yourself as being "pro-Myanmar." In God's name, why? It's like saying "I'm pro-torture, rape and oppression." In all honesty, I'd like to know why you are so keen to use the name imposed by the Military Junta??Angstriddenyouth (talk) 01:47, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Yikes! Good thing I was rereading most of these comments; I missed this one in the deluge! I am Anti-Myanmar's government. I am Pro-Using-The-Correct-Name. I'm so "keen" on using this name not because it was imposed by the military junta, but because it is the name of that country. It's used in English media and resources. Did the Soviet Union or the Third Reich crumble because civilized nations of the world pretended they didn't exist? -BaronGrackle (talk) 06:13, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Lol -- yeah good point. If you're against the government, be against the government. If you just want to free the lady over there, that's a nice, noble thing to believe in too. I think the correct vs right argument above adresses that fairly eloquently, though. With wikipedia, I want neutral material: or at least material that is as neutral as neutral can be. So: I'm pro torture, rape and oppression. At least in that, I'd rather they weren't called almost-killing, sexual conquest and tredding. Robbiemuffin (talk) 20:53, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

US State Dept just issue a statement addressing Myanmar, so if seem that Bush is only useing Burma because of his lack in vocab. :P 60.54.105.186 (talk) 07:24, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I've read this whole thing and this "hold off and rename" idea makes the most sense to me. Both sides make good points. This is still a new issue. --Npnunda (talk) 21:32, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I think it should be voted on. I also don't think your (our) interpretation of the official naming conventions is necessarily correct; perhaps they need to be clarified. 87.194.217.99 (talk) 10:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Civilization vs. Regime

Why not include the history, civilization, and cultural information under Burma, but references to the current government under Myanmar, and have both articles? This is how China is treated, and this is essentially how Gaul (a historical term) is treated (Gaul does not redirect to France), how the Holy Roman Empire is treated (it does not redirect to Germany). The Soviet Union does not redirect to Russia; the Third Reich does not redirect to Germany; Francia does not even redirect to France. (East Francia is not even the same article as Austrasia, even though the two have been used synonymously!) There seems to be every reason to split the article in two, separating the historical from the modern government. The Jade Knight (talk) 06:55, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Re: Your example of Soviet Union redirecting to Russia - They are different things, i.e. the territories are different. In Burma v Myanmar, it is the same territory, it's just a name change. Alex Holowczak (talk) 17:54, 9 May 2008 (UTC}

As was The Third Reich vs. Germany, Manchuria vs. Manchukuo, Democratic Kampuchea vs. Cambodia, the Confederate States of America vs. the Southern United States, etc. There is a good reason these articles are separated. The Jade Knight (talk) 05:20, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Also note that, not only is the USSR separate from the Russian Federation, but so is the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. The Jade Knight (talk) 05:29, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Gaul was similar to France but not the same thing. Besides the Romans conquered it, incorporating it into their empire and it wasn't until the splitting of the Carolingian Empire that France(ish) came about. The Holy Roman Empire was also not the same area as Germany: it usually contained Germany during its history but also most of the time lots more too. The Soviet Union wasn't the same as Russia> Russia was one of the states that were part of the USSR, as was the Ukraine, most of the "-stan" countries e.t.c. The Third Reich was not the name of the country under the Nazis, it is more a term to describe it relative to history. Same with "Nazi Germany." It was more called the German Empire or German Reich (same thing really). Francia came after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, so not only is Francia not the same as Gaul, its not the same as the Holy Roman Empire, nor modern day France. Francia was much larger than France. There appear to be some differences between East Francia and Austrasia, but I can see your point here that they are nearly the same.

However, two historical entities deserve their own separate articles if they are divided in history (e.g. Gaul and France) or if they are different from each other geographically. This is not the case with Burma/Myanmar as both names before and after 1989 occupied the same space. China before the revolution Mao et al was still the same place so its need for two pages isn't due to this it's due to the fact that another page can provide more detail on a contemporary subject (and China does have a lot more history, recent or otherwise, than Burma). I think you were talking about the fact there's History of China and History of the Republic of China but notice how the former has info on the latter too. The latter is just there to go into more detail than on the first one. I don't think this would be appropriate to do with Burma/Myanmar since it doesn't have a lot of history compared to China. Deamon138 (talk) 22:40, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

But notice that the Kingdom of Germany is in a different article than Germany, Austrasia, and East Francia (and the Third Reich). The Khmer Rouge are in a different article than Cambodia (which is in turn separate from Democratic Kampuchea). Manchuria and Manchukuo are in separate articles, as are the Confederate States of America and the Southern United States, the Republic of Texas and Texas, and the Kingdom of Hawaii and Hawaii. Or notice the three articles separating Hungary, the Kingdom of Hungary, and the Hungarian Soviet Republic. And you haven't addressed my mention of the Third Reich, which is probably the closest parallel (along with Kampuchea). Really, there seems to be plenty of reason to split the two. And I could probably keep adding examples to this list, it's really not that hard to find them. The Jade Knight (talk) 05:30, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Look how many articles there are dealing with different aspects of Britain:

United_kingdom (Official government-sponsored name - equivalent of 'Union of Myanmar') Dealing mostly with politics and culture.

British_Isles Dealing with geography (NB: dealing with the present) and history.

and multiple articles dealing with the history in greater detail:

History_of_the_United_Kingdom

Roman_Britain

Medieval_Britain

Early_Modern_Britain

Kingdom_of_Great_Britain

87.194.217.99 (talk) 11:06, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

The same with Ireland and Republic_of_Ireland, though they are geographically slightly different.

Most articles seem to have an accompanying 'history of... ' article, and some have a 'politics of... ', so maybe there could be 'history of Burma', 'politics of Myanmar', and the main article could be called 'Myanmar (Burma)'. 87.194.217.99 (talk) 11:12, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Constantinople

Yugoslavia

87.194.217.99 (talk) 11:38, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Article Style

The article states that it was formerly known as Burma, but is now known as Myanmar. That says that Burma was the historical name, and Myanmar is the current name. It may be unknown to the masses, but that is not the point. The article says that Myanmar is the "proper" name of the country, and only political reasons prevent use of Myanmar. So, either the article should be titled Myanmar, or the introduction (in particular) should come up with a better justification for going against the official name. Since the "Union of Myanmar" is given for the title the country would like to be known as, Myanmar ought to be the title of the page, with a redirect from Burma, and from Union of Myanmar (if one does not already exist). Alex Holowczak (talk) 18:05, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree this should be done. Surely we've reached a consensus on this by now people? Deamon138 (talk) 22:42, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Take a vote, if you like, to get a general idea. But see my suggestion above. The Jade Knight (talk) 05:11, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Unless I'm mistaken the article does not say "Myanmar is the proper name of the country and only political reasons prevent its use". And if it does, then all you are pointing out is that there is a contradiction in the article: the article says Myanmar is the proper name, but it's called Burma. There are two ways to resolve this, change the name of the article, or change where is says Myanmar is the proper name. Regarding countries having official 'given' titles, I have already pointed out that language is not dictated by a minority. 87.194.217.99 (talk) 11:18, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry

Burma-Shave v. Myanmar-Shave. Sorry, I couldn't help it ;-) --hydnjo talk 23:26, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia Policy

And this quote comes directly from Larry Sanger:

Wikipedia does not officially take a stand on what the country should be called. (diff)

-76.236.65.49 (talk) 07:30, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

That was six and a half years ago and, more importantly, Larry Sanger is no more an authority here than anyone else. Yes he played an important role in Wikipedia's founding, but he's just another editor, just like all of us (well, maybe not Jimbo :P). Don't know if anyone else has seen it, but Slate just ran an article about this very topic. Cheers, faithless (^speak) 08:00, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

As one who believes in Democracy as the most natural political system in use today, I believe the people who comprise a nation's populace control the name of their state and not necessarily the government. It has been reported that the people of Burma still refer to their country using the historical reference and not Myanmar. For this reason, and until the People of Burma decide to change the name, Burma should remain Burma. Tmurt (talk) 11:49, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

How the hell do you know what the people of Myanmar do? Most of them are too busy being beaten up by the government (who don't let them speak their minds so no one knows what they want) and don't speak English so I suspect your claims are complete nonsense. Nil Einne (talk) 23:37, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Well said Nil. 87.194.217.99 (talk) 11:19, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Zaire

There are valid arguments on both sides of the naming. But I think some people are missing the point altogether. This isn't an issue of common usage, or Deutschland vs Germany. The "fact" of the matter is that there no longer exists a country called Burma. The best analogy I can think of is to Zaire. To the extent that English speakers know anything about the country, it's Zaire, not the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But that doesn't change the fact that Zaire no longer exists. Now, if you want to contest the SPDC's legitimacy in changing the name, that's valid, and an appropriate discussion. But the name of the country, now, is The Democratic Republic of the Congo. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.101.140.240 (talk) 16:19, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I always hear "DR Congo" in the media an elsewhere now, and assume most people know Zaïre changed its name. OTOH Burma is still the widely-accepted English name, at least in the UK media, and the opposition groups oppose the name change. So retaining "Burma" seems best. --79.75.109.181 (talk) 13:29, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I didn't even know what Zaïre referred to until someone told me the other day. I always call it DR Congo. Also, see the Britain articles above: different articles for different entities. 87.194.217.99 (talk) 11:21, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Add "Myanmar" in Parantheses

The simplest solution is to title the article "Burma (Myanmar)". It's an accurate title. TobyzMama (talk) 19:07, 10 May 2008 (UTC)TobyzMama

-No, because people will want "Myanmar (Burma)" instead... :P —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.246.94.62 (talk) 19:56, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Google maps uses Myanmar (Burma) 87.194.217.99 (talk) 11:22, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Then why not call it "Bmyuanrmamar"... o.o 84.202.236.123 (talk) 11:28, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

English

English is not just what the U.S or British government says English is.

So the point that the U.S or U.K government calls it Burma is moot. The U.S and U.K government can call shoes "XXXs" but if no one uses the phrase, it doesn't matter. Governments don't hold a monopoly on language, especially not one as widespread as English. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.68.225.211 (talk) 21:37, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

However, the majority of people who read this encyclopedia are from the United States or Britain, along with many from Australia and New Zealand who also use Burma. --Prince Paul of Yugoslavia (talk) 00:07, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

And an equal amount of people also use Myanmar in those countries. Kaiser matias (talk) 01:47, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I reason, the United Nations call it Myanmar, so Wikipedia should call it Myanmar. Who cares what the English-speaking governments think? Wikipedia doesn't represent them. The UN, however, represents the world. --78.149.134.38 (talk) 05:00, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

When did that happen? 72.134.41.242 (talk) 05:51, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Lol the United Nations doesn't represent the world where the hell did that 'fact' come from?? --Prince Paul of Yugoslavia (talk) 11:49, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Good point. The UN, by the way, represents member governments. Or rather, member governments represent themselves at the UN. I reckon that most people do not feel properly represented by the UN anyway. Trom120 (talk) 16:59, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Liancourt Rocks precedent

Looking at similar issues in wikipedia, is there a neutral name that could be used for the country which can be the basis of a reasonable consensus?

Just as a point of view, "Union of Myanmar" is probably a more appropriate name than "Myanmar" if we wanted to go with "what the government wants us to call the country," but I largely WP:DGAF.Somedumbyankee (talk) 03:34, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Not really. The government calls the country Myanmar for short, or Union of Myanmar in full. They don't call the country Burma Nil Einne (talk) 23:34, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The name is Myanmar

For those who live in a very stable country like the UK it might be very difficult to understand a rapid swift change in a country name. However we should take a look WHY this particular country wore called Burma and WHY they changed to Myanmar. If the dictators rules Myanmar who rules Burma? So Burma is and invisible state? If you ask for a visa to go to this country, maybe to help then in this tragic situation, who are you going to ask for, to Burma or to Myanmar? You got my answer.

LOL. If you get in and manage to give some aid/food to the locals and the gov't grabs you and tortures you and shoots you, what country name will your family use when they talk about your death? 72.134.41.242 (talk) 05:48, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Use Parnentheses

No matter what, you are going to offend, but would the party who doesn't get the title they want really be MORE offended to see their preferred name in parenthesees? Unfortunately, a NO CONSENSUS doesn't get you too far since you HAVE to title the article something. But the parenthesees idea, whether Burma (Myanmar) or Myanmar (Burma) seems to be an incremental improvement. Balonkey (talk) 06:01, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

There is no argument whatsoever for calling this article 'Burma'

(Obviously there is. See above. Let's do without the Grand, sweeping, "I am right and you are wrong" statements please.)Angstriddenyouth (talk) 20:15, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Imagine my shock upon finding this article's name, that there isn't an article for Siam, Rhodesia, or Formosa!

I'm sorry folks, I hate the Burmese government, I really do, this week more than ever, but this is an online encyclopedia. And, like it or not, this country's name is MYANMAR. I realize the political history behind it, yada yada yada, but letting something as silly as politics get in the way of information on an INFORMATIONAL encyclopedia is petty and illogical. I would certainly however, be willing to have the name be Myanmar (Burma), but that's it. The name of that country east of Bangladesh and west of Thailand is Myanmar, and it has been for twenty years. Sure, the country's had a lot of history under the name of Burma, but names change. There is no article named Abyssinia. There is no article named Ceylon. There is no article named Persia. And where are people getting that 'Burma' is an English term for Myanmar??? 'Cause it's not. The official name is Pyidaung-su Myanma Naing-Ngan. I see something translate-able into 'Myanmar' but I see nothing resembling Burma. As for usage, it's interchangeable, and when it's interchangeable, you go with the official term.

The country is Myanmar, the article is Myanmar. End of.TheLemonOfIchabod (talk) 08:11, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Moved comment from main talk page to this dedicated page since this is where it belongs.Somedumbyankee (talk) 09:21, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The CIA World Factbook calls it Burma. And they even provide their reasoning:

note: 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, and the US Government did not adopt the name, which is a derivative of the Burmese short-form name Myanma Naingngandaw

In other words, the name "Myanmar" is a name that is only approved by their military authorities, and this is not even approved by the people through their representatives, the legislature. It is not as recognized as much as Burma, and thus many people still call it Burma.

Besides, this is the English Wikipedia, which is meant to be used by American, British, and other Western democracies. And as stated in the article, most of them still use the term 'Burma' to refer to the country, and the people as 'Burmese'. --124.107.144.45 (talk) 10:14, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

What? Only Western democracies are allowed to use wikipedia? I guess we should tell all the poor Indians et al who work so hard on FAs to bugger off then Nil Einne (talk) 23:33, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Erm, isn't the English title "Burma"? And since this is the English Wikipedia, the title would then be correct. weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 10:41, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

• The English title is Burma or Myanmar, depending on which source you look at (see discussion above; most English media sources and virtually all encyclopedias/atlases use Myanmar). The Burmese title (Burmese the language; like Persian the language) is Myanma. Since Myanmar is commonly used AND official in English, Wikipedia conventions prefer its use. -BaronGrackle (talk) 17:29, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Myanmar? No!

You will see that the article Burma is called Burma, not Myanmar. Beyond all else Wikipedia should use one name as a constant, not Both. To summarise this issue, Burma was always called Burma until the Military Junta renamed it, what power does the Junta have to rename the country in English? If Germany demanded that all english speaking countries referred to it as Deutschland, well we'd laugh at the suggestion. The BBC and CBC refer to Burma as Burma, and nearly all english speakers know the country as Burma, so based on the argument below for keeping the name 'Bangkok' Burma should be used in all places on Wikipedia.

Bangkok Article:

Surely the capital is not Bangkok? It's every pedant's pet "fact" that the capital is Krung Thep (well, at least the short name is). We're talking about the same city here, but it hasn't been called Bangkok by the Thais for over 200 years. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.9.80.254 (talk) 12:49, 10 March 2008 (UTC) Yes, it is called Krung Thep in Thailand. But this is the English language wikipedia, and almost everyone who speaks English will know the city by the name Bangkok, and not Krung Thep. Why else is the BMA uses that acronym and not KMA? The information that in Thailand it known by a different name is placed as a footnote directly after the name, that should be enough for the pedants. andy (talk) 17:11, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

• Comes up again and again. If the vast majority of media news sources, atlases, encyclopedias, and textbooks referred to the country as Deutschland... or if the U.N. recognized its English name as Deutschland, while the U.S. and U.K. released very specific instructions over why they do NOT call the country Deutschland... if the BBC published a news article called "Germany or Deutschland?"... if Wikipedia's article on "Deutschland" had been moved to "Germany" without consensus... then yes, we'd probably be having this argument there. Cross-apply to Bangkok, or any other country/city you want. -BaronGrackle (talk) 17:29, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
• I have never, EVER, heard of Bangkok referred to as Krung Thep or Germany as Deutschland in English either by Thais, Germans, at the UN, or anywhere else. On the other hand, I very often hear Burma referred to as Myanmar in ENGLISH. Clearly your argument is nonsense and Baron's explaination may help you understand why. Perhaps it helps when you consider there is a difference between an ENGLISH NAME and an English transliteration of a foreign name. The former may be the latter, but the latter is often not the former Nil Einne (talk) 23:30, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Check this out:

Check out Talk:Kiev/naming. Going by the consensus and resulting precedent set there, this article should surely remain as Burma. --Prince Paul of Yugoslavia (talk) 12:00, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

• Not much precedent. Compare the number of Google News hits of Kyiv to Kiev, and see which name takes the lead in Encyclopedia Britannica. Then, after studying Kiev's predominance, explain how Myanmar creams Burma in those very same sources. -BaronGrackle (talk) 17:29, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The French Wikipedia

The French Wikipedia call it neither Burma nor Mynamar, they call it Birmanie [83]. So surely if the French use their French name for it, surely on the English wiki we should use our English name? --Prince Paul of Yugoslavia (talk) 12:10, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

• Myanmar IS the English name of the country (or at least A English name, and the official one to boot). -BaronGrackle (talk) 17:34, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

You would be correct if it weren't for the fact you're wrong. --Prince Paul of Yugoslavia (talk) 18:11, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

And you would be taken seriously if it werent for the fact that you were filibustering. Sarvagnya 19:54, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

• I'm glad that you agree we should rename it to Myanmar finally Nil Einne (talk) 23:39, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia Standards

The criteria for NPOV demands that the decision for what to call a country does not depend on majority opinion or even what a particular government prefers. The government of...well, the country we're talking about here...is not qualified to determine what Wikipedia will call it, nor is the government of the United States, China, Mozambique, or Lichtenstein.

Nor is any person on this site. Wikipedia contributors are individuals, each with an opinion, and I'm sorry to say that when it comes to cold, hard facts, nobody's opinion matters at all. It matters not if ten thousand contributors insist that 2+2=5, it still ain't so. In fact, it matters not if they say 2+2=4; it is not a legitimate fact until it is properly sourced. When The Journal of the American Arithmetical Society says that 2+2=4, it's a fact worthy of Wikipedia.

Wikipedia standards require that only independently verifiable facts may be included in articles. Since the "correct" name of this country is a matter of opinion, like many other countries, I suggest that Wikipedia recognize an international governing body as being an authoritative source for this sort of data. Furthermore, I suggest that Wikipedians arbitrarily accept the judgement of the United Nations as a relatively neutral international governing body in matters of the proper names of sovereign nations.

If the United Nations refers to the country as Myanmar, then Wikipedia can title the related article Myanmar using the United Nations as the authoritative source. Likewise, any other name change endorsed by the UN ought to be reflected on Wikipedia without dispute.

71.110.219.107 (talk) 23:39, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually while I support the usage of Myanmar, basically the UN just uses whatever the government uses, so basically by arguing to use the UN's name, you are arguing to use what the government prefers. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with this, I support it, but it's important consideration for the discussion Nil Einne (talk) 23:45, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Use UN own convention in English

Many recent changes are adopted by all when cities or country change names. Pekin = Beijing, Bombay = Mumbay, etc.

Anyway, an easy solution for this controversy is to use the list of countries as per the United Nation´s own English language page listing its members: http://www.un.org/members/list.shtml

It would also match our own "featured" list article: United Nations member states. It would be somehow ironic that our own article is "featured" and says things that we consider wrong. The lists (as well as the UN´s list of members) says Myanmar. Anagnorisis 01:06, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Moved comment to appropriate page.Somedumbyankee (talk) 01:56, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

The UN is obligated to call a country whatever that country's leaders tell the UN to call it. If someone took over France tomorrow and renamed it: "UNcowards", then the UN would be obligated to call it that. Of course the rest of us would still continue to call it France. The article does a good job of explaining the differences in names. Also, we still call East Timor, East Timor and not Timor-Leste Roxi2 (talk) 02:06, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

The UN does not have to refer to a country by what that countries government says. Example would be Macedonia. The Macedonian government refers to themselves as Macedonia, and some other governments do as well. But Greece is opposed to this, as they have a region called Macedonia. So in all international bodies (the UN, the IOC, etc), Macedonia is referred to as the "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia." The UN does follow what local governments want; it follows what the Security Council, and to a lesser extent, the General Assembly, want. Kaiser matias (talk) 03:09, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

The UN only refers to a country in the manner that the UN-recognized government prefers. I couldn't go to the UN and demand that the United States be called "Doodooland" because the UN does not officially recognize my legitimacy. Once the recognized government settles on a name, the UN will adopt that nomenclature. I suggest Wikipedia adopt the UN as a recognized authority on national identity in the same way that the American Cancer Society is an authority on cancer, NASA is an authority on space travel, and the New York Times is an authority on current events. Not every Wikipedian will agree with the UN's judgement, but it at least establishes a somewhat neutral, external source for resolving these sorts of questions. 71.110.219.107 (talk) 03:42, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm from Singapore, one of the countries in South-East Asia where Myanmar is located. In Asia, and in ASEAN, the country is officially called "Myanmar" (by the various officials in SEA countries, by Asian media, etc.). Pure and Simple. I don't understand what is there to argue about. The Western media (that's you, BBC and US media) would like to call the country Burma because they dislike the Myanmar junta-rule, just as they are pretty much non-neutral over the Tibet situation in China. I hated the current military rule in Myanmar as well, but until the regime is changed, the official name IS "Myanmar". Atticuslai (talk) 05:42, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

ISO 3166 International Standard

The International Standard on country names calls it Myanmar - they've got some fairly smart people to think about these things, so maybe we could follow their lead Tom.kirk (talk) 10:56, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

ISO also only recognizes BC/AD dating, however on wikipedia we also encounter the ridiculous BCE/CE dating. So the ISO is hardly a widely accepted source on Wikipedia --Prince Paul of Yugoslavia (talk) 11:23, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

What is the ISO clause or number for the BC/AD? =Nichalp «Talk»= 16:34, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Let's try to streamline out some of the chaff...

This is a big discussion with lots of strong opinions; it's unlikely it'll be resolved soon. But we can probably make a lot more progress if we strive to avoid a few arguments that're important, but not entirely germane to this precise issue (I'd also recommend avoiding the constant "well the name _is_ X" statements, which add exactly nothing to the discussion--it should be clear at this point that your opponents don't accept your authority on the matter ;) ).

See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names):

Our naming policy provides that article names should be chosen for the general reader, not for specialists. By following English usage, we also avoid arguments about what a place _ought_ to be called, instead asking the less contentious question, what it _is_ called. If English usually calls a place by a given name, use it... This is the English Wikipedia; its purpose is to communicate with English-speaking readers. English does not have an Academy; English usage is determined by the consensus of its users, not by any government.

I hate the military junta too, but concerns over whether "Myanmar" endorses that government are entirely misplaced here.

I hate the lingering effects of Western imperialism too, but concerns over whether "Burma" endorses that imperialism are entirely misplaced here.

Before you respond further to this discussion, please examine your motives to see how much your personal "ought" is playing into your position. I know we're all passionate about this issue (and we should be--either way, it's about people who've been oppressed!), but we need to compartmentalize our decision making, find the "most widely accepted English name in a modern context", and use that English name despite our other feelings on the matter. I personally despise "Myanmar" for political, linguistic, and sociological reasons and think that English speakers shouldn't adopt it; but if it can be demonstrated that it has been adopted by the majority of native English speakers (and the Google results make me fear that it may have), then the name change will be appropriate for Wikipedia. The conversation here should stick to the relevant issue--determining native English usage--and not detour into politics, "respect", condemnation of dictators, or which governments and organzations prefer which names. Elmo iscariot (talk) 13:38, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I think I had a rather good solution to the issue (up at civilization vs. regime), but it seems to have been rather ignored so that people could continue to bicker over the name? The Jade Knight (talk) 07:32, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I think we should identify what the minor sub-issues are and prune them off by trying to reach a consensus on them.87.194.217.99 (talk) 12:13, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

De Jure Versus De Facto

To judge this, we must decide if Wikipedia is going to go by technical terms or commonly accepted ones. (de jure vs de facto) Wikipedia and wikipedians need to be consistent here, because if you look up China, you will not get the country. You have to look up People's Republic of China.

China = Commonly Accepted Name

PRC = Wikipedia Article Referring to China

America = Commonly Accepted Name

United States = Wikipedia Artical Referring to America

Russia = Commonly Accepted Name

Soviet Union = Wikipedia Article Referring to Communist Russia. (which has collapsed)

Wikipedia obviously tends to lean towards the de jure side, taking the side of what the Government calls a country. Be consistent. OtherAJ (talk) 16:44, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Neither "America" nor "Russia" is accurate for those entities. Wikipedia does not repeat common inaccuracies - similarly my country is at United Kingdom not "England". Both "United States" and "Soviet Union" (neither of which is/was the English language long form) are the most common accurate names for those countries.

So then how is "Myanmar" less accurate than "Burma", anyway? mike4ty4 (talk) 20:02, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

As pointed out above, the problem with China is that there are two entities claiming to be China hence the need to differentiate. It's misleading to pretend that Myanmar/Burma is in the same category. Timrollpickering (talk) 22:43, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

China and Russia are hardly models for what to name countries. PRC is the "Official name" of China, we just call it China as it's shorter. Same with Russia, the official name is the Russian Federation. Likewise with Australia, the official name of Australia is the Commonwealth of Australia. But who calls it that except in formal occassions? If we go by this convention, we have Burma as Myanmar.

Remember, a nation is little more than an idea and the people (whether a lot or a self-appointed few) call it that because they wish to have some form of identifyer against other countries and/or past events. A good example of this is the US, who went to extraordinary lengths to differntiate themselves from Britain in the 1790's. There are no lines on the world.Katana Geldar 00:28, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Straw poll

There seems to be a greater number of comments on this page by wikipedians favouring Myanmar to Burma. I want to conduct a straw poll to check who are in favour of the respective names. Please state the reason alongside your !vote. Keep it brief to a single line. This does not imply that a renaming might be carried out or not. Its just to track who is in favour of what and the reasoning behind it. We can use the other sections for debate. =Nichalp «Talk»= 19:22, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

• Just a comment... those who favor the name Myanmar are more likely to be frequenting this talk page than those who favor the name Burma. For many Burma-namers, the article name is already as it should be. -BaronGrackle (talk) 19:29, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

  Valid point. Granted. But the idea is to list the reasons for pro/opposition to the name change. =Nichalp «Talk»= 20:08, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

  I've listed it on the Community bulletin board =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:50, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

• A fair comment, BaronGrackle. By the way I wasn't trying to suggest in a previous comment that you were personally involved in torture, rape and oppression (are you?) but the "Myanmar" Government certainly is and I have no wish to legitimise them in any way.Angstriddenyouth (talk) 19:55, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

  Let's leave the discussion to another section please. =Nichalp «Talk»= 20:08, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Myanmar and Burma (Separate Articles)

See Talk:Burma/Myanmar#Civilization_vs._Regime for discussion.

1. The two are clearly separate in the minds of most people, and separating these two, as so many other articles have been separated, should appease all sides. The Jade Knight (talk) 07:37, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
2. I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to be voting or listing arguments here. Anyway, I support this. People seem to think that if someone doesn't call something the same thing that they do, then that person is "wrong". We should stop trying to mould things to fit what we believe and instead fit our beliefs around reality: the reality is that the country has two names with two slightly different connotations: Myanmar seems to indicate something more present and future, whereas Burma refers to something from the past. So let's alter Wikipedia accordingly. 87.194.217.99 (talk) 11:51, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
3. Let's use the names properly used in English sources: Burma for the historical country pre-junta, and Myanmar for the country as it is today. This is how Wikipedia generally deals with historical changes of this magnitude. --Gimme danger (talk) 14:46, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Myanmar

1. Myanmar is both commonly used and the official name. -BaronGrackle (talk) 19:29, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
2. Let's see if reason prevails this time round. --   Avg    19:31, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

   Could you please list your reasoning? =Nichalp «Talk»= 12:40, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

   Per Wikipedia:NCON#Dealing_with_self-identifying_terms. Wikipedia describes, doesn't prescribe.--   Avg    18:17, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

3. Myanmar is what they call themselves, Myanmar is what UN calls it, Myanmar is what a significant (perhaps majority) part of the media calls it. On wikipedia, we report facts and dont bother about inadvertantly "legitimizing" regimes by our actions. Sarvagnya 20:54, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
4. If this article is to be neutral, it cannot have the position that unelected governments are not "legitamate" especially since every country around the world recognizes a plethora of unelected governments. Myanmar is used by the government of the country which is in turn recognized by the majority of people in the country. The government of the country has asked that people call it Myanmar for whatever reason, and today, most international institutions recognize it's English common name as Myanmar. Myanmar is used by the country's people and also by many major English news organizations. Out of the two names, Myanmar and Burma, it is the one that is the most neutral and accurate. "Burma" has never been the official name of the country in its own language. Instead, its a leftover from the colonial era that has now been rejected by a significant amount of people.JohnWycliff (talk) 12 May 2008 (UTC)
5. Myanmar seems more prevalent in the media internationally. Timrollpickering (talk) 22:56, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
6. Used by several international agencies, including UN, IOC, etc. Also used, at least in official correspondence, by most governments. Kaiser matias (talk) 23:34, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
7. For many reasons, but for one this article was named Myanmar for the longest time until the monks incident, then without consensus it was changed to Burma. Also lately I havent heard any news source call it Burma during the cyclone incident, it was always referred to as Myanmar MethMan47 (talk) 00:22, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
8. Simply a matter of Wikipedia naming conventions: If no name can be shown to be widely accepted in English, use the local official name. In this case, that is Union of Myanmar, although I would prefer simply Myanmar for its wider usage. I would also accept Myanmar (Burma).Rundquist (talk) 04:43, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
9. I support Myanmar because the October 2007 RM (which happened right in the middle of the Monks' protests) is invalid because there was no consensus to move. Both Myanmar and Burma are used by English speakers in general (Myanmar seems to be dominate in the U.S. while Burma is popular in U.K.), so I think in a case that is not clear cut as to which name English speakers prefer, we should go with the official name, Myanmar, which is recognized by the U.N. and all but a handful of nations. --Tocino 05;55, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
10. I have previously supported the article name at "Myanmar" in previous straw polls, and if anything, I believe there is more compelling evidence now (May 2008) than before. The Associaed Press, CNN, even Google are consistenly using "Myanmar" instead of "Burma" to report cyclone news, to a higher degree than I remember from the last time the nation was in the news a few months ago. Apparently the BBC is the only major holdout, but that should not be a reason to keep the historic name. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 16:19, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
11. I have similarly always taken the view that especially where common usage cannot be used to decisively single out the best name for a country, the official name should prevail as per the naming conventions. Constant reference to "what the English world calls it" is highly contentious, because statistics continous show that there are far more numerous English speakers outside the USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada combined, and by several times over to boot. All Southeast Asian nations where Myanmar is geographically located in refers to it as Myanmar officially in English. Both China and India, with a bigger English-speaking population than all of the USA, uses Mynamar. Even as Burmese proponents say there are *some* sources within those places who use Burma (such as some Thai human rights groups), there are also *some* sources in the "anglophone" world who uses Myanmar too. It is clear the the "common usage" and "English-speaking world" arguments cannot stand in all past discussions, and will likely remain so.--Huaiwei (talk) 17:59, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

    While the government of India calls it Myanmar, almost no one on the street does. Don't know about China. While the official usage argument may or may not stand, common usage being Burma certainly does, at least wrt India.--Regents Park (Feed my swans) 16:31, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

    So are you able to provide compelling evidence on what the laymen uses in each country to be examined, India included, before concluding that "common usage being Burma certainly does"? It is clear from the extensive disucssions here that the contrary is actually true.--Huaiwei (talk) 17:42, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

    I see no discussion here about what the layman in India or China calls the country. Perhaps you have compelling evidence that the lay person in India or China or the United States refers to the country as Myanmar? --Regents Park (Feed my swans) 17:53, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

12. We can't make a political statement here. As much as I'd like to call the page Burma, there is no doubt in my mind that it should be Myanmar. We shouldn't name it what it should rightfully be called. Jared (t)  17:04, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
13. I don't see it as realistic Myanmar reverting to its precolonial name of Burma. First, because the majority of Bamars has always referred to their country as Myanmar, and to others as Myanmarese. Second, because of the Bamars who have the overwhelming majority part in ruling junta. Personally, I really coudn´t care less about how other countries call Myanmar, far more important is what the very citizens of Myanmar consider to be the appropriate name or usually call their country - be it Burma or Myanmar. Besides all afore mentioned we have the actual situation where UN and UNHCR use the name of Myanmar, and not Burma when they officially refer to Myanmar. On the other hand American, Australian and UK policies refuse to acknowledge this reality, sticking to their own "misconcepted preconceptions" and naming traditions. All in all, I´m for Myanmar. Sovann Maccha (talk) 23:45, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
14. Myanmar is what the country is officially called. Also, the article Yangon is not named Rangoon, which I think is backwards, because Yangon is an even less common name for the city of Yangon/Rangoon than Myanmar for Myanmar/Burma. Fix the inconsistency. Someone the Person (talk) 01:05, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Burma

1. Burma. It is still the name used by Burmese people, and the unelected Military leadership had no authority to change it.Angstriddenyouth (talk) 19:49, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
2. Burma, for all the reason I have previously stated. --Prince Paul of Yugoslavia (talk) 01:11, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

   Could you please briefly summarise your reason for the change? =Nichalp «Talk»= 12:34, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

3. Burma is the name i know and the name everyone i know knows. When i saw "myanmar" in the news, i thought, "where is that?". after looking it up, i realised it was Burma. Ahh i says. Anyways, the country is Burma and the people are Burmese. Masterhatch (talk) 05:00, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
4. For what it's worth, most people I know have never heard of the word 'Myanmar' (mostly people from the UK, though my girlfriend went to a school with people from all over Europe and she has never heard of Myanmar either (compelling evidence, eh?!)). 87.194.217.99 (talk) 12:00, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
5. Burma is the commonly used and English name of the country. Most Burmese I know (excepting a few from other ethnic groups who call it Burma in any language) refer to their country as Burma in English and Myanma in, um, Myanma. --Regents Park (Feed my swans) 16:35, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
6. Burma. Until it's specifically demonstrated that "Myanmar" is "the most common English name" among native English speakers, there's no WP-relevant justification for changing it.Elmo iscariot (talk) 19:38, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

   Wikipedia's naming policy is based on common usage, not common usage specifically among native English speakers.--Huaiwei (talk) 20:13, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

   I don't think that it has been demonstrated anywhere that Myanmar is the common usage amongst non-native English speakers either. Official does not make it common.--Regents Park (Feed my swans) 17:38, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

   The naming of articles on the English Wikipedia is based on common usage among English speakers - so the page for the capital of Austria is at Vienna rather than Wien, capital of Österreich. Having said that I believe that in the case of Burms / Myanmar the balance has now shifted to favour Myanmar over Burma.Filceolaire (talk) 13:29, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

   Let us not also forget that the page was once at Myanmar as well, so this isn't just about having enough "evidence" to change it from Burma, its what fits better. Jared (t)  17:07, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

   And an "English speaker" refers to any English speaker, native or non-native inclusive. Well practically all "English speakers" regardless of geography or political affiliation refer to "Wien" as "Vienna" in English, they refer to "Myanmar" as Myanmar" or "Burma" in English. This is the distinct difference here.--Huaiwei (talk) 17:32, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

7. I think this is still the most widely used name. --Howard the Duck 13:37, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
8. Being a dictatorship doesn't mean you can change reality if it pleases you, and wikipedia shouldn't play along. As above, there is no assertion that Myanmar is universally used by english or non-english speaking people. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 18:41, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
9. To what I said before I should add this in regard of certain doubts. Of course, we can stick to the name of Burma, we can even call the town Rangoon, following the old naming conventions. After all, who in the USA or UK - just an example - cares whether the name comes from Rakhinese (Arakanese) or Burmese. What matters is that it can be pronounced and related to certain country. In the past British have "absorbed" and transcribed many foreign languages and names, adopting and incorporating everything from Latin and Greek till nowadays Burmese and Rakhinese (Arakanese) - like a huge sponge. The name Burma is no excpetion to this rule.Sovann Maccha (talk) 00:06, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
10. "Burma" and "Myanmar" are still both commonly used in the English language. No need, at least not yet, to change the title of the article. Kaldari (talk) 00:24, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Comments

• Whilst Myanmar seems to be the globally more comman usage, I think we all need to acknowledge that the prevalence of media usage does change significantly between countries and not keep playing the "nearly all media outlets where I am call it this" card. However overall globally it seems that Myanmar is the more common name for this country. I agree that all the arguments about the nature of the regime, colonialism, the policies of the UN and whether or not governments can change the English language (since it's not a yes/no question - it's whether or not government usage catches on) should all be irrelevant to this discussion. Timrollpickering (talk) 22:59, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
• A popular comment seems to be that the un-elected military government has no authority, or no right to change "Burma" into "Myanmar". But still, the official name recognized and used by every major Asian countries, and many other countries in the west (regardless of what the western media likes to call it), is "Myanmar". By accepting the name change, these countries recognize the authority of the unelected military government in Myanmar.Atticuslai (talk) 02:44, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
• This straw poll has left out an important option: splitting the article. I'll go ahead and add it in. FYI: 9 votes for Myanmar and 3 for Burma were present before this option. The Jade Knight (talk) 07:34, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
• It is very hard to judge what the majority everyday (non-media, non-governmental) usage is. All we can do is say 'well this is how it seems to me'. 87.194.217.99 (talk) 11:57, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
• In regards to the proposal for separate articles, would the Myanmar article begin with the military regime (1962) or with the martial law and official name change (1989)? I'd go with the 1962 cutoff, myself. If you're discouraged that this idea isn't getting much support, keep in mind that it was attempted earlier and had virtually no supporters. I'd also imagine that, for it to gain substantial support, it would need to be voted on separately and not as a third option in the existing survey. Don't know whether policy would encourage that, though. -BaronGrackle (talk) 16:08, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Sub-Issues

If we're ever going to make a decision, we need to know what criteria we are using. Let's vote on what should, and what should not, be taken into account when deciding this. These are some of the separate factors as I have identified them, if anyone can think of any others, please put them here. After each, please say support if you think they should affect what we decide to name the article, and oppose if you don't. Please don't base your opinion on this on whether you think it will ultimately lead to your personal favourite getting used. 87.194.217.99 (talk) 12:36, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

1. Media usage

support - as a gauge of general use, but be wary of bias. 87.194.217.99 (talk) 12:36, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

2. What the Junta wants

oppose 87.194.217.99 (talk) 12:36, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

3. What English-Speaking governments want

oppose 87.194.217.99 (talk) 12:36, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

4. What the UN calls it

oppose 87.194.217.99 (talk) 12:36, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

5. Whether the history or current events of a country are more important in deciding what Wikipedia should call it.

support 87.194.217.99 (talk) 12:36, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

6. Miscellaneous others who have had to make the choice, such as CIA world factbook, ISO 3166, Encyclopaedia Britannica (perhaps this section is a bit broad)

support - if we are able to know they chose to do it how they did it. 87.194.217.99 (talk) 12:36, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I think this idea is a non-starter. The whole discussion is implicitly about which criteria to use; if we all agreed on the criteria, the name would be determined automatically. Pol098 (talk) 13:57, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia has already set a guideline, however people choose not to follow it. Please see WP:NCON.--   Avg    18:10, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually it seems we're deciding how that guideline applies to our article. Also, perhaps I should refer you to this part of the guideline: "In those unsolved cases a poll, for example via Wikipedia:Requested moves, can be conducted." 87.194.217.99 (talk) 19:29, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

That's not true, half of the discussion is about what is the most commonly used name by English speakers, there was some discussion of what the media called it, and most criteria have only been commented on by a few people so we have no idea of how much support each idea has. What's more the same things are getting suggested multiple times so we need to make it a little clearer what the issues are and what has and has not been dealt with. 87.194.217.99 (talk) 19:23, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

"Burma/Myanmar"

Regardless of all issues of politics, "official" name, diplomatically recognised name, etc., the country is widely known by both names in the English-speaking world. Which name is MOST used doesn't seem relevant, as neither usage is uncommon. Most countries are known by a single name, not necessarily the official name (Japan=Nippon). In many cases the world has agreed to drop a name, and use another exclusively (always Zimbabwe never Rhodesia, Sri Lanka not Ceylon, etc.) As this country is widely known by 2 names, then perhaps the article's title should be "Burma/Myanmar". It could be mentioned briefly in the article that the alternative names are simply in alphabetical order (to forestall this discussion restarting re "Myanmar/Burma"). Redirects from "Burma" and "Myanmar", of course. Pol098 (talk) 13:53, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

• Rundquist, I, and others have pointed out from Wikipedia naming conventions: If no name can be shown to be widely accepted in English, use the local official name. If you believe that Myanmar is at least as commonly used as Burma, the guidelines point toward using it as the name. As for the slash, I think the main problem is Wikipedia style. No other articles (that I know of) use a compromised name divided by slashes. I would personally be okay with "Burma/Myanmar", the chronological listing, but Wikipedia wouldn't. -BaronGrackle (talk) 15:37, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Call me stupid but I didn't see where you said that before. Well I retract everything I've been saying and support it being called Myanmar. Why is there a problem at all? 87.194.217.99 (talk) 19:33, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem, of course, is that if you stood on the streets of New York and asked 'Burma or Myanmar?' you'll get an overwhelming Burma response. (Even the two New York Burmese restaurants, which with good business common sense don't bother advertising themselves as Myanmar cuisine, use Burma exclusively). The 'no name can be shown to be widely accepted in English' is not really true. --Regents Park (Feed my swans) 19:40, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Burmese cuisine is no more telling than Peking duck, Siamese cats, or Persian language. I can't go to the streets of New York to ask that question, but I can look through the majority of English news media (stop me now if we decide Google News is unreliable; Myanmar takes the majority anytime you search), atlases, encyclopedias, Google, or Yahoo. I'd say that this at least places a question on Burma's common use, to the extent that the different Wikipedia policies would take effect (all of which point toward the official or self-given name). -BaronGrackle (talk) 20:04, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Burmese cuisine is hardly analogous to Peking duck. Peking duck is a well known dish with an established name and cannot be compared with a relatively unknown ethnic cuisine trying to muscle its way into New York's ethnic restaurant mix. The way to do that is, of course, to use the name that people will recognize. Thus 'Spanish Restaurant' not 'Restaurant of Espana' or 'Burmese cuisine' not 'Myanmar cuisine'. Color it anyway you like but Burma is easily a more recognizable name than Myanmar whatever google pages may say. (Though, I must admit that one consequence of the fall protests and the recent cyclone is probably an increasing awareness of Myanmar.) Still, I think this is a particularly fruitless discussion because hard statistics are hard to come by. So, que sera sera, c'est la vie and all that. --Regents Park (Feed my swans) 20:52, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Because "Myanmar cuisine" is not grammaticall correct. Duh. Note that we still say "Burmese language", in the same way we say Dutch for many things related to the Netherlands. Are you going to call that country Dutchland then?--Huaiwei (talk) 20:59, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I have always called it Holland, personally --Prince Paul of Yugoslavia (talk) 21:26, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

So have I; though I realize that Holland is not correct and that it is really only a region of the Netherlands.72.92.4.157 (talk) 13:32, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. So if so many people use the term "Holland", can you explain why it is not used in place of "The Netherlands" as the article title?--Huaiwei (talk) 17:20, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Well another example is that here in London there are a lot of restaurants serving the cuisine of Iran. And they still use "Persian cuisine" and "Persian restaurant" to describe themselves despite "Iran" being the almost universal name used for the country in question. Sometimes these adjectives survive despite the name they derive from being superseded. Timrollpickering (talk) 21:52, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Most of the people in New York have not heard of either Burma or Myanmar.talk) 13 May 2008 (UTC)

some food for thought

some food for thought: the official name of South Korea is Republic of Korea, yet the most common name and the name used on wikipedia is South Korea. The official name is not always the best title for an article and the most common name is not always the best either (take Ivory Coast for example). Masterhatch (talk) 18:08, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Or, as someone else pointed out, we call a Spain a Spain. Not an Espana! --Regents Park (Feed my swans) 19:36, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

So then there are cases obviously where neither name is "best", so you have to pick one anyway even if it's not best and settle for a less-than-best solution. Consistency is what I prefer, a consistent set of naming rules. mike4ty4 (talk) 19:59, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Countries with different names in English and their native language

I note a lot of people raise examples like "we don't call Germany Deutschland" or Japan/Nippon, Spain/Espana etc... However it's important to recognise two key points where these examples aren't really relevant:

• For most of these countries there has never been any effort to get the native language name used in English and indeed the countries' governments do not use those names in English - "Germany" appears in English language versions of, variously, official treaties, visa forms, embassy signs, the output of the country's tourist board, statements by German ministers and so forth; ditto "Japan" and "Spain".
• There are other countries where the English language name is the same as the native language - e.g. France.

Timrollpickering (talk) 22:01, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

news database search results

Hi, just to inject a little data into this discussion, I did a search of the Factiva database, which allows full-text searches of many thousands of journalistic publications in English from many countries over many years (as opposed to Google, which is probably biased towards very recent online sources).

• In the last year, "Myanmar" gets 42687 hits, while "Burma" gets 33142 hits.
• For the last 10 years, from 1/1/1998 to 1/1/2008, "Myanmar" gets 214205 hits while "Burma" gets 151504 hits.
• For the 10 years before that, from 1/1/1988 to 1/1/1998, "Myanmar" gets 30054 hits, and "Burma" gets 69899 hits.
• For the 10 years before that, from 1/1/1978 to 1/1/1988, "Burma" gets 4430 hits and "Myanmar" gets zero hits (not too surprising since the name was changed in 1989).

Various claims (above) that one term or the other is vastly more prevalent in English do not seem to hold up to scrutiny. "Myanmar" seems to have a slight edge in popularity in recent years, but the margin is small enough that popularity alone doesn't seem to be a good way to decide the name of this article.

—Steven G. Johnson (talk) 06:25, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I repeat, if we believe that neither term is "vastly more prevalent in English", then Wikipedia standards point us toward Myanmar. Two of them do:

• Wikipedia: Naming conventions states: "If no name can be shown to be widely accepted in English, use the local official name." The local official name is Myanmar.
• Wikipedia:Naming conflict states: "Where self-identifying names are in use, they should be used within articles. Wikipedia does not take any position on whether a self-identifying entity has any right to use a name; this encyclopedia merely notes the fact that they do use that name... Bear in mind that Wikipedia is descriptive, not prescriptive. We cannot declare what a name should be, only what it is." Note that, while many Burmese people may self-identify their nation as Burma, the entity that this article is over self-identifies as Myanmar. The rules do give an exception example: "Japanese" is used instead of "Nihon-jin". Our discussion here has already established that Myanmar is the official English word for Myanma, not just a foreign word, and it appears in many more English resources than Nihon or Deutschland.

Many have said that Myanmar must proof demonstrably that it is used more than Burma. I believe it has been proven to be used at least as much: the media (again, search the two on Google News), all the encyclopedias (including Britannica), Yahoo, this Factiva database that just got mentioned, and so on and so forth, any criteria for "common use" you use other than Google Books, Google Scholar, memories you had growing up, or the guy you apparently know who says "Burma". Myanmar has covered its burden of proof. The burden of proof now lies on "Burma" to show it is used overwhelmingly more than "Myanmar"; if not, we have two different Wikipedia policies that strike it down. As sections like this show; Burma cannot be proven to be the overwhelming majority use. Myanmar is the default answer. -BaronGrackle (talk) 13:08, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Since BaronGrackle brings up the naming conventions, let's take a look and see what we get. The first principle of the naming conventions is The purpose of an article's title is to enable that article to be found by interested readers, and nothing more. A simple statement. Now, let's look at the English speaking world and see what we have. It seems fair to assume that almost everyone who knows what Myanmar is, knows what Burma is. It also makes sense that there are many people out there who know Burma but do not know Myanmar. Therefore, it follows that more people in the English speaking world know what a Burma is than know what a Myanmar is. Therefore, the article should be named Burma. Unless you argue that there are enough people in the English speaking world out there who know the existence of Myanmar but not of Burma, I don't see how you can say that 'more' people know of Myanmar than of Burma. --Regents Park (Feed my swans) 14:22, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Media hits does not a widely accepted make, especially in this case. The Naming conventions deal with acceptance in English. Simple common sense tells me that almost every English speaking person who knows the name 'Myanmar', will also know the name 'Burma' while there will be many English speaking people who know the name Burma but will not know the name Myanmar. Given that, no one can possibly argue with a straight face that more English speakers recognize the name Myanmar over the name Burma. According to Wikipedia:Naming conventions, The purpose of an article's title is to enable that article to be found by interested readers, and nothing more. Since more English speakers recognize Burma, the article should be named Burma.--Regents Park (Feed my swans) 14:22, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd maintain that the number of people who recognize Burma but don't recognize Myanmar is negligible, comparable to the number who would recognize Danzig but not recognize Gdansk, which is itself cited as an example on our guidelines page, despite the fact that I bet anyone in New York (or here in Texas) would identify Danzig first, and despite the fact that I do not even know how to type an accent mark over the "n". I can say that much with a straight face. Media hits may not a widely accepted make, but they do mean that anyone who glances at the news will come into contact with Myanmar. Even the BBC notes that the country calls itself Myanmar, so anyone who reads that source will recognize the name. -BaronGrackle (talk) 15:31, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Did I actually reply twice to the same point? Senility has arrived for sure. (Or, perhaps, one for Myanmar and one for Burma!)

Support?

There doesn't seem to be many people here wanting this to be called Burma compared to those who want to call it Myanmar. I know wikipedia isn't a democracy but come on you have to draw the line somewhere! Surely we have enough consensus to change the name back to Myanmar? Deamon138 (talk) 23:21, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree, I think we have enough consensus to change it back to Myanmar, plus people can then stop bitching about the dispute tag. Let's just get this over with, for once and for all. MethMan47 (talk) 23:53, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Are you kidding?? You have a weird definition of consensus. Kaldari (talk) 00:29, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Then what would be your definition of consensus? 50 more people? 120? The majority of people that posted in the straw poll believes the name should be reverted back to Myanmar, and I do not see that changing anytime soon. What more do we truly need to decide?MethMan47 (talk) 00:36, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

After Just reading the disccusion i feel that while Myanamar has more users on there hand, Burma people make a more convincing argument for it to be burma. RoyalOrleans 02:06, 15 May 2008 (UTC)