Names of Myanmar Burmese pronunciation (compare with what happened in India with Calcutta/Kolkata and Calicut/Kozhikode). These renamings took the form of the "Adaptation of Expressions Law", passed on 18 June 1989. Thus, for instance, Rangoon was changed to Yangon to reflect the fact that the "r" sound is no longer used in Standard Burmese and merged with a "y" glide. As for the country's name, the commission decided to replace the English name "Burma" with "Myanmar", for three reasons. First, "Myanma" is the official name of the country in the Burmese language, and the aim of the commission was to have English place
History of the Jews in Myanmar nationalist Burmese government. One synagogue survives in Yangon, the capital, and in the 21st century, it attracts an increasing number of tourists. The first recorded Jew in the country was Solomon Gabirol, who served as a commander in the army of King Alaungpaya in the 18th century. But it was in the mid-19th century, during the British colonial period, that Jewish merchants from Iraq and India began establishing sizable communities in Rangoon and Mandalay. The Baghdadi Jews had emigrated from Iraq to escape persecution and being subject to pogroms; they comprised most of the immigrants. Cochin Jews and the Bene