Burma/Myanmar

“Burma” has been renamed “Myanmar” in June 1989 by the new military regime that took power in September 1988. The Burmese democratic opposition as well as few Western powers (United States, United Kingdom) refused the new denomination while the United Nations and most of the regional powers did accept it. For ease of linguistic simplicity and without any political connotation, the English terms “Burma” and “Rangoon” will be hereafter preferred to the vernacular terms of “Myanmar” and “Yangon”, noting that in Burmese language, “Myanma’r” is the literary term for “Bama’r”. Distinction will also be made between the adjectives “Burman” (related to the “Bama’r” dominant ethnic group) and the more inclusive “Burmese” (nationality, language…).