Rakhine State
![](http://178.128.105.246/cars-http-upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fd/Flag_of_Rakhine.svg/220px-Flag_of_Rakhine.svg.png)
Arakan is a Burmese state on the western coast of Myanmar. It is next to Bangladesh.
Etymology
[change | change source]![](http://178.128.105.246/cars-http-upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/84/Burma_Rakhine_locator_map.png/220px-Burma_Rakhine_locator_map.png)
The term Rakhine may have come from the Pali word "Rakkhapura" from "Rakkhita" meaning the land of the people of Rakhasa (Rakhasa > Rakkha > Rakkhaing > Rakhaing) who were given this name in honor of their preservation of their national heritage and ethics or morality. The word Rakhine means, "one who maintains his own race."[1] In the Rakhine language, the land is called Rakhinepray, the ethnic Rakhine are called Rakhinetha.
Arakan, used in British colonial times, is believed to be a Portuguese corruption of the word Rakhine that is still popularly used in English. Many English language users[note 1] no not use the name changes made by the military government.
Notes
[change | change source]- ↑ For example, see Staff (2009) "An Introduction To The Toponymy Of Burma" Archived 2008-10-31 at the Wayback Machine The Permanent Committee of Geographic Names (PCGN), United Kingdom
References
[change | change source]- ↑ စန္ဒမာလာလင်္ကာရ။ ရခိုင်ရာဇဝင်သစ် ရခိုင်သမိုင်း ၊ ၁၅ ၊ ၁၈ ရာစု။