RE: Burma/Myanmar

From: Doug Ewell (dewell@compuserve.com)
Date: Tue Oct 05 1999 - 12:26:08 EDT


Michael Everson wrote:

> I have checked ISO 3166-2 and while "Burma" is not the name of any
> administrative unit of the Union of Myanmar, I recall the Myanmar
> delegates stating that "Burma" was a region, not the whole country.
> It's like the Finnish word for Estonia, "Viro"; in Estonian "Viru"
> is the northern part of Estonia only.

This reminds me of the distinction between "Holland" and "the
Netherlands." In the U.S. we use the terms pretty much interchangeably,
but I remember reading somewhere that "Holland" refers to a historic
region whose boundaries do not necessarily coincide with those of the
modern-day "Netherlands."

-Doug Ewell
 Placentia, California



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Tue Jul 10 2001 - 17:20:53 EDT