Burma
UK /ˈbɜː.mə/ · US /ˈbɝmə/ proper noun
Forms Birma Birmah Burmah
- proper noun A country in Southeast Asia. Official name: Republic of the Union of Myanmar. Capital: Naypyidaw. Officially known as Myanmar.
Synonyms
Etymology
Borrowed, initially into British English, from Burmese ဗမာ (ba.ma), colloquial form of မြန်မာ (mranma); see Myanmar for more. The r in Burma was not originally pronounced (and is not present in the Burmese term), the -ur- (alternatively also -ir-, though the spelling Birma is obsolete in English) is a device used by non-rhotic dialects to represent the schwa found in the pronunciation of the Burmese colloquial form.
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 — from the Wiktionary entry “Burma”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details