Comments on: What is the pronunciation of Myanmar.

Question: What is the pronunciation of Myanmar.

xetere — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:26:38 -0800

What is the pronunciation of Myanmar?

While waiting for the day when I can go back to calling it Burma, the country is called Myanmar. I always pronounced it as MYAN-mar with two syllables. Now since the cyclone, Myanmar is in the news and it seems that overnight, newscasters are pronouncing it as MEE-yun-mar with three syllables.

I am listening to NPR right now and they are talking about delivering aid to MEE-yun-mar.

Funny thing is, I can't remember ever hearing the latter pronunciation before the cyclone. It seems like an almost overnight change. So what is the 'standard?'

Please note this is the US, so we are talking about rhotic mairkun pronunciation.

By: JaredSeth

JaredSeth — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:34:28 -0800

Not actually an answer but I've always heard it pronounced with three syllables, never the way you were pronouncing it.

By: scody

scody — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:36:49 -0800

I've always heard it as MEE-yun-mar (though perhaps a little closer to MEE'un-mar, without an emphasised "yuh" between the first and second syllable).

By: cortex

cortex — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:37:49 -0800

As far as anecdote is worth anything, I've only heard "MYAN-mar" when it's comes up in conversation in Portland, OR. (Often in proximity to "ahem, BUR-ma", for that matter.)

There was a bit of exploration of the pronunciation over on Language Log recently; note here that it's not even clear that there ought to be a rhotic pronunciation, if the concern is correctness. I wouldn't be surprised if there are distinct parallel pronunciations to be found in the wild, then, and no definitive "correct" American pronunciation.

By: desjardins

desjardins — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:38:32 -0800

The BBC has four different ways to pronounce it.

By: Bakuun

Bakuun — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:39:49 -0800

Dictionary.com's pronunciation guide shows three syllables as well - but more like my-ahn-mar, unless I'm reading it wrong in my totally sleepy haze.

By: yellowbinder

yellowbinder — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:40:13 -0800

I say mee-ANN-mar, because that's what they said on Seinfeld.

By: missmagenta

missmagenta — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:50:07 -0800

I would have pronounced it as my-ahn-mar (having not watched the news on TV for nearly a decade and therefore never heard it pronounced)

I don't understand how you are pronouncing it with only 2 syllables, whichever way I look at it, I can't see how 'myan' can be pronounced as a single sound.

By: cortex

cortex — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:55:45 -0800

I don't understand how you are pronouncing it with only 2 syllables, whichever way I look at it, I can't see how 'myan' can be pronounced as a single sound.

Look at it as maybe the result of tightly compressing a pair of syllables if you like: m'yan? With no actual vowel break from the initial nasal 'm' sound and the opening of the 'y'. It's certainly not as long or discretely divided as e.g. "mee-yan" would be. (Analagously, maybe, I don't pronounce "tsunami" as "tuh-soo-nah-mee", even though "tsu" as an initial cluster isn't normal in English.)

By: aramaic

aramaic — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:57:02 -0800

I concur with the BBC myan-MAR approach; it's closest to what it sounded like in Burmese speech as I recall it. Some people (up around Mandalay, I think, or slightly south of that) tended to drop the final R, but that could have just been a matter of my own misperception (slurred sounds are weirdly tricky for me).

By: xetere

xetere — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:59:02 -0800

missmagenta, I guess I use that little offglide. Sort of like how people pronounce mute. I don't think anyone says Mee-yute with two syllables. to me mee-yan for Myanmar is like pronouncing mute as mee-yute. But apparently I am pronouncing it wrong so I'll just say Burma.

By: cortex

cortex — Fri, 23 May 2008 13:01:20 -0800

Sort of like how people pronounce mute.

Ah, that's a much better and less hand-wavy way of communicating the idea, xetere.

By: rhapsodie

rhapsodie — Fri, 23 May 2008 13:07:01 -0800

I've always said my-ahn-mar.

By: missmagenta

missmagenta — Fri, 23 May 2008 13:35:57 -0800

So you're pronouncing it Mean-mar?

By: garfy3

garfy3 — Fri, 23 May 2008 13:46:52 -0800

three syllables, like so many upthread say: mee-ahn-mar.

[and in case you're curious, "myitkyina" up north in kachin state: mitch-EEN-ah; "shinbwyiang": sheen-bwEE-ang.]

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Fri, 23 May 2008 14:30:52 -0800

[pls stop with burma comments, thank you]

By: frosty_hut

frosty_hut — Fri, 23 May 2008 14:56:16 -0800

FWIW, Ben Stiller does a commercial for UNICEF about it, and pronounces it:

MAI (rhymes with "eye") uhn mar. Emphasis on the first syllable.

By: theiconoclast31

theiconoclast31 — Fri, 23 May 2008 16:44:17 -0800

My-ahn-mar, and it rhymes with unrar or untar or Myanmar.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Fri, 23 May 2008 17:15:59 -0800

I don't understand how you are pronouncing it with only 2 syllables, whichever way I look at it, I can't see how 'myan' can be pronounced as a single sound.

That's exactly why the (incorrect but easy-to-say) three-syllable pronunciation exists (though it is odd that it's only started getting widely used since the cyclone). The poster and cortex have explained how to say it in two syllables. The closest recommendation is this:

The BBC Pronunciation Unit recommendation is myan-MAR, based on the advice of native speakers of Burmese in the BBC Burmese Section.

Except that THERE IS NO -R IN MYANMAR. Excuse me, it's a topic that annoys me supremely. (See this LH post for more.) So it's really myan-mah (which is of course what the BBC transcription implies, aimed as it is at speakers of non-rhotic dialects). And as I say in the linked post, "the country's postal service is called Myanma Posts and Communications, for Pete's sake."

By: crinklebat

crinklebat — Fri, 23 May 2008 21:30:35 -0800

MEE-an-mar is how the chief pronounced it on the Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego TV show.

It would be very difficult for me to believe she could be wrong about a matter pertaining to geography. So I'm not going to try. I suspect it's one of those things it's just hard for native English speakers to pronounce correctly so we make up our own way that is intelligible to other native English speakers.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Sat, 24 May 2008 07:24:10 -0800

It would be very difficult for me to believe she could be wrong

And yet she was. Seriously, you're taking a kids' TV show as your reference bible?