Talk:Ananda Pyissi

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A fact from Ananda Pyissi appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 31 March 2015 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Minister-General Ananda Pyissi and his Royal Burmese Army twice failed to stop the first two Mongol invasions of Burma?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2015/March. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Ananda Pyissi.

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Spelling[edit]

I couldn't find the spelling "Ananda Pyissi" in any online sources. Looking through Google Books Anantapyissi seems to be the far more common spelling. Any reason the latter shouldn't be the article title? --Paul_012 (talk) 11:14, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the question, Paul. The short answer is that Ananda Pyissi is closer to modern Burmese pronunciation than Anantapyissi, which is *one* of the British colonial era Romanizations. And not all colonial era historians spelled it that way. For example (Taw, Forchhammer 1899: 131) [1] spell it as Ananda Pyitsi. And given that neither is well known, I've chosen to use one that is closer to modern Burmese pronunciation.

The long answer: There is still is no standard Romanization (or Anglicization) system for Burmese (outside of highly obscure, academic ones used by the Library of Congress and historians); and several competing Romanization systems existed even during the British era. And differences weren't just about how to transfer Burmese sounds; they differed even with things like when to insert spaces!

A lot of the colonial period scholars--e.g., Harvey, Luce, Hall--used no spaces when they Romanized (more accurately, Anglicized) historical Burmese names--presumably because Burmese names didn't [and still don't] have first and last names and spaces weren't [aren't] used when Burmese names are written down. So you have transliterated names like Mingyinyo (instead of Mingyi Nyo), Tabinshwehti (instead of Ta-bin Shwe-Hti), Bayinnanung (Bayin Naung), Minyekyawswa (Min Ye Kyaw Swa), Alaungpaya (Alaung Hpaya), etc, etc. If it were up to them, they would have spelled Aung San Suu Kyi, Aungsansuukyi; Ne Win, Newin; Thein Sein, Theinsein; and so on. Of course, not all colonial scholars followed their lead. There are colonial era books that use names like Bayin Naung and Tabin Shwe Hti.

More recent Burma historians use Anglicized names with spaces in them (for the most part) unless the names are really well known like Bayinnaung or Alaungpaya. Even there, some are trying to change the bad legacy: Victor Lieberman for example uses Bayin-naung, Alaung-hpaya among other things. But I'm not optimistic that we'll get away from Bayinnaung or Alaungpaya from general (popular) usage anytime soon.

Lack of proper spacing isn't the only thing wrong with Anantapyissi. The translators apparently couldn't decide whether to stay with Pali or Burmese. If you go with the Burmese pronunciation for both words, it's Ananda Pyissi. If you stay with Pali, it would be Ananta Paccaya.

Of course, if Anantapyissi were a well known spelling of a well known figure, I would have stayed with a bad but a more common spelling. But he's not a well known figure, and at least one rival spelling (Ananda Pyitsi) exists. (Btw, Pyissi is a better spelling than Pyitsi.) So I've chosen to use Ananda Pyissi, and redirect Anantapyissi. Anyway, thanks for the interest. Best regards, Hybernator (talk) 22:13, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]