The Name Game

Just to help mitigate the confusion, here is a little something we found out about the naming of this country and its people.

Myanmar has always been the written name for the country where the Bamar people live. When the British showed up, they bastardized the name Bamar to Burma and added a whole bunch of once independent kingdoms of different ethnicities to the country (many of whom disliked the Bamar) and thus Burma was born. Then all of the different ethnicities were all considered Burmese.

Bama has always been a verbal term for the country and its people (the ethnic Burmese).

After independence when the government changed again to the current government they changed the name Burma to Myanmar and changed the name of the people and the language from Burmese to Myanmar. However, colloquially one can still say Bama when speaking of the language and its people or one can say Myanma.

In general, the whole of the people of Myanmar, including the ethnic groups are considered Myanmar or Burmese and the ethnic Burmese are considered Bamar. However, I have heard disdain from some ethnicities claiming they they are not Burmese that only the ethnic Burmese are Burmese.

To make for some more confusion the different ethnicities often consider themselves different nationalities (ie Shan nationals, Pa-O nationals, Mon nationals, Bamar nationals, etc).