section_path: Etymology
section_name: Etymology
paragraph_text: Etymology
  
  The name of the country has been a matter of dispute and disagreement, particularly in the early 21st century, focusing mainly on the political legitimacy of those using Myanmar versus Burma. Both names derive from the earlier Burmese Mranma or Mramma, an ethnonym for the majority Burman ethnic group, of uncertain etymology. The terms are also popularly thought to derive from Sanskrit Brahma Desha, 'land of Brahma '.
  
  In 1989, the military government officially changed the English translations of many names dating back to Burma's colonial period or earlier, including that of the country itself: Burma became Myanmar. The renaming remains a contested issue. Many political and ethnic opposition groups and countries continue to use Burma because they do not recognise the legitimacy or authority of the military government.
  
  The country's official full name is "Republic of the Union of Myanmar" (Burmese: ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်, Pyihtaungsu Thamada Myanma Naingngantaw, pronounced). Countries that do not officially recognise that name use the long form "Union of Burma" instead. In English, the country is popularly known as either Burma or Myanmar. In Burmese, the pronunciation depends on the register used and is either Bama (pronounced) or Myamah (pronounced).
  
  Official United States foreign policy retains Burma as the country's name although the State Department 's website lists the country as Burma (Myanmar). The United Nations uses Myanmar, as does the ASEAN and as do Australia, Russia, Germany, China, India, Bangladesh, Norway, Japan, Switzerland, Canada and Ukraine. Most English-speaking international news media refer to the country by the name Myanmar, including the BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, Reuters, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC)/ Radio Australia. Myanmar is known by a name deriving from Burma in Spanish, Italian, Romanian, and Greek. French-language media consistently use Birmanie.
  
  There are at least nine different pronunciations of the English name Myanmar, and no single one is standard. Pronunciations with two syllables are found most often in major British and American dictionaries. Dictionaries—such as Collins —and other sources also report pronunciations with three syllables.
  
  As John Wells explains, the English spellings of both Myanmar and Burma assume a non-rhotic variety of English, in which the letter r before a consonant or finally serves merely to indicate a long vowel:. So the pronunciation of the last syllable of Myanmar as by some speakers in the UK and most speakers in North America is in fact a spelling pronunciation based on a misunderstanding of non-rhotic spelling conventions. However, Burma is pronounced by rhotic speakers of English due to a phonotactic constraint, as /ɜː/ occurs only before /r/ in those accents.