Talk:Yangon

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is supported by WikiProject Cities, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to cities, towns, and various other settlements on Wikipedia. For more information, or to get involved, visit the project page.
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the Project's quality scale.
(If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)
Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the priority scale.

Yangon is part of WikiProject Myanmar (Burma), a project to improve all Burma related articles on Wikipedia. The WikiProject is also a part of the Counteracting systemic bias group on Wikipedia aiming to provide a wider and more detailed coverage on countries and areas of the encyclopedia which are notably less developed than the rest. If you would like to help improve this and other Burmese-related articles, please join the project. All interested editors are welcome.
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.
High This article has been rated as High-importance for this Project's importance scale.
Myanmar (Burma) To-do:

Contents

[edit] Rangoon or Yangon?

Should this be listed as Rangoon or Yangon? -- Zoe

Good question. Looks like Google likes "Yangon, Myanmar" more than "Rangoon, Myanmar". However, searching for each term without "Myanmar" yields more or less a tie (these terms by themselves could be part of the names of any number of things though). --maveric149

"Rangoon, Burma" would probably be more likely than "Rangoon, Myanmar". Want me to create a Yangon page and redirect to Rangoon, or redirect Rangoon to Yangon? -- Zoe
Hum. The Burmese would have to make things difficult by renaming their country... Did they also rename their capital as well? Although official names are oftentimes secondary in importance to the most widely used (and therefore most likely to be searched for and linked) names when naming articles, it is an important thing to consider -- especially when a country has made a deliberate decision to rename their nation. --maveric149
The junta uses "Yangon" and "Myanmar." Nobody else much seems to--Burmese emigres still say Burma and Rangoon, as does the political opposition. I'd do "Rangoon, Burma" and "Yangon, Myanmar" and redirect Yangon to Rangoon. Vicki Rosenzweig
Then the question is, what do we do with the Myanmar article.... These quandaries are vexing because there are no easy answers. I would also err toward widest usage in this case (using the older names for both), but I feel a bit uneasy about not using the "Myanmar" and "Yangon" names because of the official name change and their acceptance by the United Nations. Using these names may also be viewed by outsiders as us taking a political stance on the validity of the current government (although the US doesn't recognize this government -- do other English speaking countries also not recognize the current government?). If we do this, then we might also have to revisit the Zaire vs. Democratic Republic of the Congo issue again (which is even a greater borderline case)... --maveric149
This seems like a Calcutta/Kolkata case. The concensus there was to avoid POV conflicts by using the version used by local authorities; see Talk:Kolkata. I sugjest we do the same here, i.e. move this to Yangon. - Efghij 04:04, 1 Sep 2003 (UTC)
In both cases it would make more sense to use the generally accepted English name (i.e. Calcutta and Rangoon). We don't call Germany 'Deutschland' or Moscow 'Moskva', do we? In the Burmese case you have the added factor that the regime which undertook the renaming is illegitimate, and the original names (Rangoon and Burma) are used by the opposition. Still, as usual, politically-inspired (and supposedly 'accurate') renamings win out over sensible considerations of common use. Sikandarji 08:43, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

What is the writing of Yangôn and Mandalay in Burmese?

In Unicode (try the SOASMyanmar font) Yangon is ရန္ကုန္, or spelt in Burmese letters 'ya-gauk, na-that, ka-kyi, ta-chaung-ngin, na-that'. Not all Unicode fonts will cope with the spelling of Mandalay, which is မေလး (again, in SOASMyanmar font). The Burmese spelling is 'ma, na + ta-wun-bu hna-loun-sint, thawe-hto, la, wissa hna-lone pauk'.

I don't think it should be listed as Yangon, or Myanmar. The renaming is not recognised by most countries, and is a symbol of the military dictatorship. Many local people still refer to it as Rangoon, and use this name as a symbol of non violent resistance to the military government. I need not mention of course, that the military government changed the name in the ninties. As Wikipedia is meant to be a symbol of freedom of speech and democracy, we should not recognise this name and instead have it as "Rangoon" and "Burma". Segafreak2 22:38, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
As far as Yangon vs Rangoon, this is not a name change it is simply correcting incorrect Romanization of the cities name. The cities name has always been Yangon, this was not a change by the current government to change its meaning just to give a more accurate name for foreigners. The same has been done for Peking, Pusan, and others. The actual name has not changed at it is not even written in the roman alphabet! 208.66.26.3 06:11, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
As far as Myanmar vs Burma. The country has always been called Myanmar. The British simply continuously translated the name Myanmar to Burma. The constitution even is written as Myanmar and this was written in the first half of the 1900's and has nothing to do with any military regime. While I am all for supporting these freedom movements, the name Myanmar is simply more accurate. It is also the one recognized by the U.N. 208.66.26.3 06:11, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Previous requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was I've NO idea who came up with the circumflex accent in 'Yangôn' - it simply shouldn't be there. EaungHawi 12 July 2005

I agree, and I've formally requested that the page be moved to Yangon. --Angr/tɔk tə mi 14:05, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Requested move: the article Yangôn should be moved to Yangon. Please indicate whether you support or oppose the move and sign your name with ~~~~.

  • Support since I'm the one making the request. --Angr/tɔk tə mi 21:12, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Support, sure. I don't see the circumflex appearing anywhere other than this article, so I assume EaungHawi is right. If anyone disagrees, they'll say so... GTBacchus 21:27, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. If it dosen't appear anywhere else... Does the UoM regime uses it? Is it used in linguistics, less specialized writings, etc.? If the answer to all of these is no, then the choice is obvious: Yangôn and Rangoon should redirect to it. El_C 23:25, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
I can say pretty definitely that it isn't used in linguistics. The circumflex is occasionally used in transcription of Burmese to indicate the high-falling tone, but both syllables of this word have low tone. I don't know how to Google for "Yangôn" in a way that will exclude all instances of "Yangon". --Angr/tɔk tə mi 00:02, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
Wake up! Google isn't the only search engine. [1] [2] Gene Nygaard 23:18, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
  • No vote. My own preference would be Rangoon, which is far more widely recognised in English and has been used for longer. The Guardian uses Rangoon almost exclusively, as does the BBC, most US government websites, and the UK Foreign Office. We should not ape the US press's affectations. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:40, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Support, everywhere I've seen it, including my passport stamp shows it as Yangon Dwstein 00:09, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. --*drew 00:55, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Looks like we have reached consensus here. I have, therefore, moved Yangôn (now redirects) into Yangon. El_C 01:43, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Why the hast? Could it not have waited for 5 days as the WP:RM guidelines suggest? If someone now moves it back they can argue that the WP:RM guidelines were not met and/or request another vote. Seems to me that it would have been better to wait five days because it does less harm than a precipitative move. Philip Baird Shearer 10:44, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

[edit] Burmese characters

Hello, I can't see the Burmese characters even thought I've installed several Unicode and TTF Burmese fonts in my computer's "Fonts" folder. Is there any way to make them viewable? I have a PC and am using Internet Explorer. Maybe I'm not the only one having this problem, so any help anyone can provide (posting here instead of on my "discussion" page) would be great. Badagnani 00:57, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I downloaded the font listed at the top of the Yangon article and I can now see the name of the city in Burmese characters. But in the Tofu article I can't read the Burmese characters there (on the right hand side of the page); they are showing up as small boxes. Badagnani 01:02, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

The URL shown at the top of the page no longer resolves, at least not from here. Richard W.M. Jones 10:47, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no consensus. While I recently closed the move to Burma in favor, I must say that the edge here is less clearcut, both between editors and the sources. I briefly analysed Espoo's search results below, and, while persuasive at first sight, an (admittedly not too deep) analysis also reveals that "rangoon" is indeed more common in older texts; newer ones tend to use Yangon about as equally as Rangoon (see GScholar results Rangoon 1630:Rangoon 1390 for papers published in 2000s), as Timrollpickering's news search also indicated. Duja► 09:25, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Yangon → Rangoon — Rangoon is more common in English. —Reginmund 03:29, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.
  • Support - as nominator Reginmund 03:29, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Support If you're explaining to a majority of native speakers how they're wrong, it is you who are wrong. dcandeto 15:37, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose The official name of the city is Yangon. The majority of American media call it by its official name of Yangon. The UN recognizes Yangon. Tocino 17:06, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
    • The UN is forced to use the names dictated by its members for the members and their geographical entities. This says nothing about common use in English, which is the basis of WP naming policy. Even if you'd supplied data to support your claim about US media, that would be a weak argument as shown in the RM discussion on Talk:Burma. Newspapers usually follow some guide, for example the AP's, and don't make independent decisions on names. Independent informed decisions by scholars and other experts strongly favor Rangoon. (see below for data) --Espoo 12:27, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak Oppose CNN is using Yangon, as is the BBC, and other news outlets. 132.205.44.5 21:44, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose Rangoon is neither more used (than Yangon) nor the official name of the city. There is no logical reason to move this page. This has already been discussed and decided. When is this nonsense going to end?--William Thweatt Talk | Contribs 22:55, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
    • The current name is simply a naming error. WP naming policy is not based exclusively on "official" names, see East Germany and North Korea. On the contrary, it's based on most common use in the general public and among scholars and other experts (in English-speaking countries!), all of which use Rangoon 2.5 to probably about 6 times (general public) more. See data in Discussion section below. --Espoo 12:17, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Support per same reasoning as Myanmar --> Burma. "Rangoon" is a far more common form used among English speakers. Húsönd 03:16, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose no clear evidence that Rangoon is the overwhelmingly more common form. Timrollpickering 08:30, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Support per reasoning Myanmar --> Burma. Rangoon is the most common form in English. Used, amongst others, by the BBC, ITN, UK Channel 4, ABC in Australia, The Times of London, The Independent, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Financial Times, Melbourne Herald Sun, The Age (Australia), The Australian, Sydney Morning Herald, TIME magazine, Washington Post, Boston Globe, The Scotsman etc. etc. --Folantin 11:39, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose. No evidence to support nomination. PC78 11:47, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose This is not clear cut. Many news organizations use Yangon over Rangoon including Xinhua, CNN, AP, AFP, Al Jazeera, India Times, New York Times, Daily Yomiuri, Channel News Asia, ABSCBN (Philippines), Bloomberg News, Radio Netherlands, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Wall Street Journal, International Herald Tribune, The Scotsman, Seattle Times, Independent Online (South Africa), Bangkok Post, New Straits Times (Malaysia), AGI (Italy), RTE News (Ireland), etc. Neither is dominant in current English publications. In the absence of an obvious primary name, we should defer to the standard international name, i.e. what does the ISO use? --Polaron | Talk 00:36, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Support per nom. ရန္‌ကုန္‌မ္ရုိ့ is the official name of the city, not "Yangon." Wikipedia is not bound to throw out the English name of the city and follow SLORC's weak transliteration system. —  AjaxSmack  21:57, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Support since Rangoon is far more common in English than Yangon. Chris! my talk 06:15, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose The UN recognized Yangon, The only reason for changing the name to Rangoon is to show support for pro-Democracy movements. The name Rangoon is no more accurate, and this is not the place for political agendas. 66.92.44.172 01:17, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
    • The UN is forced to use the names dictated by its members for the members and their geographical entities. The reason for the proposed move is no doubt also to show support for the legitimate and democratically elected government kept in opposition by the illegal military regime, but the name change is based on WP policies, including the principles of least astonishment, preference in reputable sources, most common use by general public, use by governments of English-speaking countries, to name just a few... --Espoo 12:10, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Support The reason for using Rangoon is that English does, and always has. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:36, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong support: Rangoon is much more common on reputable websites such as edu-pages and in Google scholar hits. (see data below) --Espoo 11:40, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Any additional comments:

Please read Names of Burma/Myanmar before deciding on the best name for this city. Also what do most reliable English language sources use? --Philip Baird Shearer 12:14, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

  • As a random start, a Google search of English for yangon -rangoon yields 2,670,000 English pages. rangoon -yangon yields 2,630,000 English pages. Can either said to be the overwhelming contemporary English usage? I'll look through news and scholar later. Timrollpickering 12:16, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Reliable websites show a very clear preference for Rangoon:

Rangoon 3.5 times more common than Yangon in running scholarly text: 462 Google Scholar hits for "and Rangoon, 131 Google Scholar hits for "and Yangon

Rangoon 2.4 times more common in all scholarly texts found by Google scholar, including those texts always using Rangoon and only once explaining this as "also called Yangon" etc.: 6,600 Google Scholar hits for Rangoon 2,730 Google Scholar hits for Yangon]

The situation on edu-pages is even more in favor of Rangoon:

Rangoon 4.7 times more common in running text on edu pages: 272 for site:edu "and Rangoon 57 for site:edu "and Yangon

Rangoon 2.4 times more common on all edu pages 38,300 for site:edu "Rangoon 16,400 for site:edu "yangon

The world's only peer-reviewed printed research journal on Burma published outside of Burma uses only or mostly Rangoon[3]

--Espoo 11:53, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

[edit] comments on closed RM

While I recently closed the move to Burma in favor, I must say that the edge here is less clearcut, both between editors and the sources. I briefly analysed Espoo's search results below (above), and, while persuasive at first sight, an (admittedly not too deep) analysis also reveals that "rangoon" is indeed more common in older texts; newer ones tend to use Yangon about as equally as Rangoon (see GScholar results Rangoon 1630:Rangoon 1390 for papers published in 2000s), as Timrollpickering's news search also indicated. Duja► 09:25, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Too bad you didn't also try my trick for finding use in running text (adding "and" or some other often used word). The results you found look as if they use Y and R equally, but include those texts using mainly or always Rangoon and only rarely or once Y, for example explaining "also called Yangon" etc. Using my trick, you can see that among those Google Scholar hits you found for the last 7 years R is still almost 2 times more common and that R is about 3 times more common than Y on edu pages up to 12 months old. All the seemingly equal use you found shows is that although scholars still use mostly R, they are required to mention Y because it's been in official Burmese and UN use for 18 years, but it's still nonsense in their opinion.

Rangoon is 1.7 times more common than Yangon in running text of articles published during the last 7 years found by Google Scholar:

118 Google Scholar hits for "and Rangoon.

69 Google Scholar hits for "and yangon.

Rangoon is 3 times more common than Yangon in running text of edu pages first found by Google during the last year:

18 over the past year for "and Rangoon" site:edu.

6 over the past year for "and Yangon" site:edu.

Rangoon is 2.2 times more common than Yangon in all edu pages first found by Google during the last year:

929 over the past year for Rangoon site:edu.

439 over the past year for Yangon site:edu.

The world's only peer-reviewed printed research journal on Burma published outside of Burma used only Rangoon in the running text of an article in 2005. (Y was used only in the name of an institute and the bibliography.)[4] --Espoo 18:19, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Why only edu? What about edu.*, ac.* etc? Nil Einne (talk) 19:10, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] City Centre Point Building in Central Yangon

Not sure if this is the right place to point this out, but the picture titled "City Centre Point Building in Central Yangon" that is part of the "Economy" section of the article is not a real picture. It's a computer rendering. There doesn't seem to be anything that explains why this computer-generated picture is present, and even on the picture's page that is linked to the article, there is no mention that the picture is computer generated. I don't know what wikipedia's policy is on this, but it seems like there should at least be a mention that this isn't a real picture, and perhaps an explanation of why a computer-rendered picture is part of the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.179.109.224 (talk) 01:35, 9 May 2008 (UTC)