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by thaumasiotes 1966 days ago
> Myanman

Is there an adjectival form of Myanmar? I've been assuming we were stuck with "Burmese" regardless of whether we called it "Burma".

2 comments

Tediously complicated explanation:

Burmese is tonal, and has both the noun "Myanma" and the related but not identical adjective "Myanma". The noun has a low tone and a long "a", which reflecting British pronunciation was spelled "Myanmar". The adjectival form uses the creaky tone with a short "a", hence it's supposed to be spelled "Myanma" without the r.

In practice, though, nobody cares and everybody says "Myanmar" for both, even the official English translation of the constitution, which says "Myanmar language".

"Myanman" or "Myanmarese" are both wrong though.

Yes: it's Myanma, so it's the Myanma government.
That's the official adjectival form according to the Myanmar government. However, in practice I've never seen it used (even in Myanmar). People tend to either say Burmese or simply use Myanmar as both noun and adjective, as in, "the Burmese language" or "the Myanmar language".