How to Say: Myanmar
09:37 UK time, Wednesday, 26 September 2007
An occasional guide to the words and names in the news from Martha Figueroa-Clark of the BBC Pronunciation Unit.
There is some variation in the pronunciation of Myanmar in English.
The following pronunciations are all attested in English pronouncing dictionaries:
• MYAN-mar (stress on first syllable; 'my-' in the text spelling here represents the sound at the beginning of the English word 'mute', not -y as in 'cry')
• my-uhn-MAR (-y as in 'cry'; pronounced as three syllables with main stress on final syllable)
• MEE-uhn-mar, (stress on first syllable, -ee as in 'street'; -uh as in 'the'; -ar as in 'bar')
• and mi-AN-mar (stress on second syllable)
The BBC Pronunciation Unit recommendation is myan-MAR, based on the advice of native speakers of Burmese in the BBC Burmese Section.
(For a guide to our phonetic pronunciations, click here.)
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