'Pali' (
IAST: ) is a Middle
Indo-Aryan dialect or
prakrit. It is best known as the language of the earliest extant Buddhist canon, the
PÄḷi Canon (PÄḷi:
Tipitaka), and as the
liturgical language of
Theravada Buddhism. PÄli has since been written in a variety of
scripts, from the
Brahmic family scripts through to a
romanised form devised by
T. W. Rhys Davids of the
Pali Text Society.
Language origins and development
The word PÄli itself signifies "line" or "(canonical) text", and this name for the language seems to have its origins in commentarial traditions, wherein the "" (in the sense of the line of original text quoted) was distinguished from the commentary or the vernacular following after it on the Manuscript page. As such, the name of the language has caused some debate among scholars of all ages; the spelling of the name also varies, being found with both long "Ä" and short "a" [a], and also with either a
retroflex or non-
retroflex [l] "l" sound. To this day, there is no single, standard spelling of the term; all four spellings can be found in textbooks.
PÄli is a
literary language of the
Prakrit language family; it is not now (and never was) an informal, spoken language, in the sense of a
mother tongue. Despite excellent scholarship on this problem, there is persistent confusion as to the inter-relation of to the vernacular spoken in the ancient kingdom of Magadha (now modern-day BihÄr).
PÄli was considered by early
Buddhists to be linguistically similar to Old
Magadhi or even a direct continuation of that language. Many
Theravada sources refer to the PÄli language as “Magadhan†or the “language of Magadhaâ€. However,
Magadhi of Asoka's inscriptions is an Eastern Indian language whereas PÄli most closely resembles Western Indian inscriptions.
There are many remarkable analogies between Pali and an old form of Magadhi, -
Ardhamagadhi (Half Magadhi), which is preserved in ancient
Jain texts.
Ardhamagadhi differs from Magadhi proper on similar points as Pali. For example,
Ardhamagadhi too does not change ''r''
into ''l'', and in the noun inflexion it shows the ending ''-o'' instead of Magadhic ''-e'' at least in many metrical places. This similarity is not accidental, since the founder of Jain religion
Mahavira preached in the same area (
Magadha) as
Buddha Gotama.
T.W. Rhys Davids in his book
Buddhist India, and Wilhelm Geiger in his book "Pali Literature and Language" suggested that PÄli may have originated as a form of
lingua franca or common language of cultured laity, used at the time of
Buddha. However, most modern scholars consider that Pali evolved over a period of centuries, becoming fairly fixed when the PÄli Canon was written down in
Sri Lanka. It continued to be preserved entirely in PÄli, while the commentarial tradition that accompanied it (according to the information provided by
Buddhaghosa) was translated into
Sinhalese and preserved in local languages for several generations.
However it was ultimately supplanted in
India by
Sanskrit as a literary and religious language following the formulation of Classical Sanskrit by the scholar
Panini. In
Sri Lanka, PÄli is thought to have entered into a period of decline ending around the 4th or 5th Century (as Sanskrit rose in prominence), but ultimately survived. The work of
Buddhaghosa was largely responsible for its reemergence as an important scholarly language in
Buddhist thought. The
Visuddhimagga and the other commentaries that
Buddhaghosa compiled codified and condensed the
Sinhalese commentarial tradition that had been preserved and expanded in
Sri Lanka since the 3rd Century BCE.
Today PÄli is studied mainly to gain access to
Buddhist scriptures, and is frequently chanted in a ritual context. The secular literature of PÄli historical chronicals, medical texts, and inscriptions, is also of great historical importance. The great centers of PÄli learning remain in the
Theravada nations of
South-East Asia:
Myanmar,
Sri Lanka,
Thailand,
Laos, and
Cambodia. Since the 19th century, various societies for the revival of PÄli studies in
India have promoted awareness of the language and its literature, perhaps most notably the
Maha Bodhi Society founded by
Anagarika Dhammapala.
In
Europe, the
Pali Text Society has been a major force in promoting the study of PÄli by Western scholars since its founding in
1881. Based in the
United Kingdom, the society publishes romanized PÄli editions, along with many
English translations of these sources. The
Pali Text Society was in part founded to compensate for the very low level of funds allocated to
Indology in late 19th century
England; incongruously, the English were not nearly so robust in Sanskrit and
Prakrit language studies as
Germany,
Russia and even
Denmark—a situation that many would say continues to this day. Without the inspiration of colonial holdings such as the former
British occupation of
Sri Lanka and
Burma, institutions such as the
Danish Royal Library have built up major collections of PÄli manuscripts, and major traditions of PÄli studies.
Lexicon
Virtually every word in has
cognates in the other Prakritic "
Middle Indo-Aryan languages", e.g., the
Jain Prakrits. The relationship to earlier Sanskrit (e.g.,
Vedic language) is less direct and more complicated. Historically, influence between PÄli and Sanskrit has been felt in both directions. The PÄli language's resemblance to Sanskrit is often exaggerated by comparing it to later Sanskrit compositions -- which were written centuries after Sanskrit ceased to be a living language, and are influenced by developments in Middle Indic, including the direct borrowing of a portion of the Middle Indic lexicon; whereas, a good deal of later PÄli technical terminology has been borrowed from the vocabulary of equivalent disciplines in Sanskrit, either directly or with certain phonological adaptations.
Post-Canonical PÄli also possesses a few loan-words from local languages where PÄli was used (e.g. Sri Lankans adding Sinhalese words to PÄli). These usages differentiate the PÄli found in the
from later compositions such as the PÄli commentaries on the canon and folklore (e.g., the stories of the
JÄtaka commentaries), and comparative study (and dating) of texts on the basis of such loan-words is now a specialized trade unto itself.
PÄli was not exclusively used to convey the teachings of the
Buddha, as can be deduced from the existence of a number of secular texts, such as books of medical science/instruction, in PÄli. However, scholarly interest in the language has been focused upon religious and philosophical literature, because of the unique window it opens on one phase in the development of
Buddhism.
===
Emic views of PÄli===
Although Sanskrit was said, in
brahmanical tradition, to be the unchanging language spoken by the gods, in which each word had an inherent significance, this view of language was not shared in the early
Buddhist tradition, in which words were only conventional and mutable signs. Neither the
Buddha nor his early followers shared the brahmans' reverence for the
Vedic language or its
sacred texts. This view of language naturally extended to PÄli, and may have contributed to its usage (as an approximation or standardization of local Middle Indic dialects) in place of Sanskrit.
In popular thought, however, PÄli recitations were often thought to have a supernatural power (which could be attributed to their meaning, the character of the reciter, or the qualities of the language itself), and in the early strata of Buddhist literature we can already see PÄli '
's used as charms, e.g. against the bite of snakes. Many people in
Theravada cultures still believe that taking a vow in PÄli has a special significance, and, as one example of the supernatural power assigned to chanting in the language, the recitation of the vows of
are believed to alleviate the pain of childbirth in
Sri Lanka. In
Thailand, the chanting of a portion of the
is believed to be beneficial to the recently departed, and this ceremony routinely occupies as much as seven working days. Interestingly, there is nothing in the latter text that relates to this subject, and the origins of the custom are unclear.
Also, according to the Pali commentaries, Pali (Magadhi as they call it) is the language of reality (sabhÄvanirutti) and is spoken by gods, ghosts, demons, talking animals and wolf-children.
Phonology
Vowels
| Height | Backness |
|---|
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | 'i' [i]'Ä«' [iË] | | 'u' [u]'Å«' [uË] |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mid | 'e' [e], [eË] | 'a' | 'o' [o], [oË] |
|---|
| Low | | 'Ä' [aË] | |
|---|
Long and short vowels are only contrastive in open syllables; in closed syllables, all vowels are always short. Short and long 'e' and 'o' are in complementary distribution: the short variants occur only in closed syllables, the long variants occur only in open syllables. Short and long 'e' and 'o' are therefore not distinct phonemes.
Consonants
The table below lists the consonants of PÄli. In bold is the letter in traditional romanisation, in brackets is its
IPA pronunciation.
The sounds listed above, except for , and are distinct phonemes in PÄli. only occurs before velar stops. and are allophones of and when they occur singly between vowels.
Example of PÄli with English translation
:;
:,
:.
'Element for element gloss'
:=Ä dhamm=Ä, =Ä mano-may=Ä;
:Mind-before-going=''m.pl.nom.''
dharma=''m.pl.nom.'', mind-foremost=''m.nom.pl.'' mind-made=''m.nom.pl.''
:Manas=Ä ce =ena, bhÄsa=ti vÄ karo=ti vÄ,
:Mind=''n.sg.inst.'' if corrupted=''n.sg.inst.'' speak=''3.sg.pr.'' either act=''3.sg.pr.'' or,
:Ta=to anv-e=ti, 'va vahat=o pad=.
:That=from him suffering after-go=''3.sg.pr.'', wheel as carrying(beast)=m.sg.gen. foot=n.sg.acc.
The three compounds in the first line literally mean:
: "whose precursor is mind", "having mind as a fore-goer or leader"
: "whose foremost member is mind", "having mind as chief"
:manomaya "consisting of mind" or "made by mind"
The literal meaning is therefore: "The
dharmas have mind as their leader, mind as their chief, are made of/by mind. If [someone] either speaks or acts with a corrupted mind, from that [cause] suffering goes after him, as the wheel [of a cart follows] the foot of a draught animal."
A slightly freer translation by Acharya Buddharakkhita
:Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought.
:If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts suffering follows him
:like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox.
PÄli and Sanskrit
Although PÄli cannot be considered a direct descendant of either Classical Sanskrit or of the older
Vedic dialect, the languages are obviously very closely related and the common characteristics of PÄli and Sanskrit were always easily recognized by those in India who were familiar with both. Indeed, a very large proportion of PÄli and Sanskrit word-stems are identical in form, differing only in details of inflection.
The connections were sufficiently well-known that technical terms from Sanskrit were easily converted into PÄli by a set of conventional phonological transformations. These transformations mimicked a subset of the phonological developments that had occurred in Proto-PÄli. Because of the prevalence of these transformations, it is not always possible to tell whether a given PÄli word is a part of the old
Prakrit lexicon, or a transformed borrowing from Sanskrit. The existence of a Sanskrit word regularly corresponding to a PÄli word is not always secure evidence of the PÄli etymology, since, in some cases, artificial Sanskrit words were created by back-formation from Prakrit words.
The following phonological processes are not intended as an exhaustive description of the historical changes which produced PÄli from its Old Indic ancestor, but rather are a summary of the most common phonological equations between Sanskrit and PÄli, with no claim to completeness.
Vowels and diphthongs
★ Sanskrit 'ai' and 'au' always monophthongize to PÄli 'e' and 'o', respectively
::Examples: 'maitrÄ«' → 'mettÄ', → 'osadha'
★ Sanskrit 'aya' and 'ava' likewise often reduce to PÄli 'e' and 'o'
::Examples: 'dhÄrayati' → 'dhÄreti', 'avatÄra' → 'otÄra', 'bhavati' → 'hoti'
★ Sanskrit 'avi' becomes PÄli 'e' (i.e. 'avi' → 'ai' → 'e')
::Example: 'sthavira' → 'thera'
★
::Examples:
★ Sanskrit long vowels are shortened before a sequence of two following consonants.
::Examples:
Consonants
Sound changes
★ The Sanskrit sibilants 'Å›', , and 's' merge together as PÄli 's'
::Examples: → , → 'dosa'
★ The Sanskrit stops and become and between vowels (as in Vedic)
::Example: → , →
Assimilations
General rules
★ Many
assimilations of one consonant to a neighboring consonant occurred in the development of PÄli, producing a large number of
geminate (double) consonants. Since
aspiration of a geminate consonant is only phonetically detectable on the last consonant of a cluster, geminate
★ When assimilation would produce a geminate consonant (or a sequence of unaspirated stop+aspirated stop) at the beginning of a word, the initial geminate is simplified to a single consonant.
::Examples: (not ''tthera''), 'dhyÄna' → 'jhÄna' (not ''jjhÄna''), 'jñÄti' → 'ñÄti' (not ''ññÄti'')
★ When assimilation would produce a sequence of three consonants in the middle of a word, geminates are simplified until there are only two consonants in sequence.
::Examples: 'uttrÄsa' → 'uttÄsa' (not ''utttÄsa''), 'mantra' → 'manta' (not ''mantta''), 'indra' → 'inda' (not ''indda''), 'vandhya' → 'vañjha' (not ''vañjjha'')
★ The sequence 'vv' resulting from assimilation changes to 'bb'
::Example: 'sarva' → savva → 'sabba', 'pravrajati' → pavvajati → 'pabbajati', 'divya' → divva → 'dibba'
Total assimilation
Total assimilation, where one sound becomes identical to a neighboring sound, is of two types: progressive, where the assimilated sound becomes identical to the following sound; and regressive, where it becomes identical to the preceding sound.
Progressive assimilations
★ Internal
visarga assimilates to a following voiceless stop or sibilant
::Examples: (=) → 'nikkodha', (=) → 'nippakka', → 'nissatta'
★ In a sequence of two dissimilar Sanskrit stops, the first stop assimilates to the second stop
::Examples: 'vimukti' → 'vimutti', 'dugdha' → 'duddha', 'utpÄda' → 'uppÄda', 'pudgala' → 'puggala', 'udghoá¹£a' → 'ugghosa', 'adbhuta' → 'abbhuta', 'Å›abda' → 'sadda'
★ In a sequence of two dissimilar nasals, the first nasal assimilates to the second nasal
::Example: 'unmatta' → 'ummatta', 'pradyumna' → 'pajjunna'
★ 'j' assimilates to a following 'ñ' (i.e., 'jñ' becomes 'ññ')
::Examples: 'prajñÄ' → 'paññÄ', 'jñÄti' → 'ñÄti'
★ The Sanskrit liquid consonants 'r' and 'l' assimilate to a following stop, nasal, sibilant, or 'v'
::Examples: 'mÄrga' → 'magga', 'karma' → 'kamma', → 'vassa', 'kalpa' → 'kappa', 'sarva' → savva → 'sabba'
★ 'r' assimilates to a following 'l'
::Examples: 'durlabha' → 'dullabha', 'nirlopa' → 'nillopa'
★ 'd' sometimes assimilates to a following 'v', producing vv → 'bb'
::Examples: 'udvigna' → uvvigga → 'ubbigga', 'dvÄdaÅ›a' → 'bÄrasa' (beside 'dvÄdasa')
★ 't' and 'd' may assimilate to a following 's' or 'y' when a morpheme boundary intervenes
::Examples: 'ut+sava' → 'ussava', 'ud+yÄna' → 'uyyÄna'
Regressive assimilations
★ Nasals sometimes assimilate to a preceding stop (in other cases epenthesis occurs; see below)
::Examples: 'agni' → 'aggi', 'Ätman' → 'atta', 'prÄpnoti' → 'pappoti', 'Å›aknoti' → 'sakkoti'
★ 'm' assimilates to an initial sibilant
::Examples: 'smarati' → 'sarati', → 'sati'
★ Nasals assimilate to a preceding stop+sibilant cluster, which then develops in the same way as such clusters without following nasals (see 'Partial assimilations' below)
::Examples:
★ The Sanskrit liquid consonants 'r' and 'l' assimilate to a preceding stop, nasal, sibilant, or 'v'
::Examples: , 'grÄma' → 'gÄma', 'Å›rÄvaka' → 'sÄvaka', 'agra' → 'agga', 'indra' → 'inda', 'pravrajati' → pavvajati → 'pabbajati', 'aÅ›ru' → 'assu'
★ 'y' assimilates to preceding non-dental/retroflex stops or nasals
::Examples:
★ 'y' assimilates to preceding non-initial 'v', producing vv → 'bb'
::Example: 'divya' → divva → 'dibba', 'veditavya' → veditavva → 'veditabba', 'bhÄvya' → bhavva → 'bhabba'
★ 'y' and 'v' assimilate to any preceding sibilant, producing 'ss'
::Examples: 'paÅ›yati' → 'passati', 'Å›yena' → 'sena', 'aÅ›va' → 'assa', 'Ä«Å›vara' → 'issara', → 'karissati', 'tasya' → 'tassa', 'svÄmin' → 'sÄmÄ«'
★ 'v' sometimes assimilates to a preceding stop
::Examples: 'pakva' → 'pakka', 'catvÄri' → 'cattÄri', 'sattva' → 'satta', 'dhvaja' → 'dhaja'
Partial and mutual assimilation
★ Sanskrit
sibilants before a stop assimilate to that stop, and if that stop is not already aspirated, it becomes aspirated; e.g.
::Examples:
★ In sibilant-stop-liquid sequences, the liquid is assimilated to the preceding consonant, and the cluster behaves like sibilant-stop sequences; e.g. 'str' and become 'tth' and
::Examples: 'Å›Ästra' → Å›asta → 'sattha', → →
★ 't' and 'p' become 'c' before 's', and the sibilant assimilates to the preceding sound as an aspirate (i.e., the sequences 'ts' and 'ps' become 'cch')
::Examples: 'vatsa' → 'vaccha', 'apsaras' → 'accharÄ'
★ A sibilant assimilates to a preceding 'k' as an aspirate (i.e., the sequence becomes 'kkh')
::Examples:
★ Any dental or retroflex stop or nasal followed by 'y' converts to the corresponding palatal sound, and the 'y' assimilates to this new consonant, i.e. 'ty, thy, dy, dhy, ny' become 'cc, cch, jj, jjh, ññ'; likewise becomes 'ññ'. Nasals preceding a stop that becomes palatal share this change.
::Examples: 'tyajati' → cyajati → 'cajati', 'satya' → sacya → 'sacca', 'mithyÄ' → michyÄ â†’ 'micchÄ', 'vidyÄ' → vijyÄ â†’ 'vijjÄ', 'madhya' → majhya → 'majjha', 'anya' → añya → 'añña', → puñya → 'puñña', 'vandhya' → vañjhya → vañjjha → 'vañjha'
★ The sequence 'mr' becomes 'mb', via the epenthesis of a stop between the nasal and liquid, followed by assimilation of the liquid to the stop and subsequent simplification of the resulting geminate.
::Examples: 'Ämra' → ambra → 'amba', 'tÄmra' → 'tamba'
Epenthesis
An
epenthetic vowel is sometimes inserted between certain consonant-sequences. As with , the vowel may be 'a', 'i', or 'u', depending on the influence of a neighboring consonant or of the vowel in the following syllable. 'i' is often found near 'i', 'y', or palatal consonants; 'u' is found near 'u', 'v', or labial consonants.
★ Sequences of stop + nasal are sometimes separated by 'a' or 'u'
::Example: 'ratna' → 'ratana', 'padma' → 'paduma' ('u' influenced by labial 'm')
★ The sequence 'sn' may become 'sin' initially
::Examples: 'snÄna' → 'sinÄna', 'sneha' → 'sineha'
★ 'i' may be inserted between a consonant and 'l'
::Examples: 'kleÅ›a' → 'kilesa', 'glÄna' → 'gilÄna', 'mlÄyati' → 'milÄyati', 'Å›lÄghati' → 'silÄghati'
★ An epenthetic vowel may be inserted between an initial sibilant and 'r'
::Example: 'śrī' → 'sirī'
★ The sequence 'ry' generally becomes 'riy' ('i' influenced by following 'y'), but is still treated as a two-consonant sequence for the purposes of vowel-shortening
::Example: 'Ärya' → arya → 'ariya', 'sÅ«rya' → surya → 'suriya', 'vÄ«rya' → virya → 'viriya'
★ 'a' or 'i' is inserted between 'r' and 'h'
::Example: 'arhati' → 'arahati', 'garhÄ' → 'garahÄ', → 'barihisa'
★ There is sporadic epenthesis between other consonant sequences
::Examples: 'caitya' → 'cetiya' (not ''cecca''), 'vajra' → 'vajira' (not ''vajja'')
Other changes
★ Any Sanskrit sibilant before a nasal becomes a sequence of nasal followed by 'h', i.e.
::Examples:
★ The sequence 'Å›n' becomes 'ñh', due to assimilation of the 'n' to the preceding palatal sibilant
::Example: 'praśna' → praśña → 'pañha'
★ The sequences 'hy' and 'hv' undergo
metathesis
::Examples: 'jihvÄ' → 'jivhÄ', → 'gayha', 'guhya' → 'guyha'
★ 'h' undergoes metathesis with a following nasal
::Example:
★ 'y' is geminated between 'e' and a vowel
::Examples: 'śreyas' → 'seyya', 'Maitreya' → 'Metteyya'
★ Voiced aspirates such as 'bh' and 'gh' on rare occasions become 'h'
::Examples: 'bhavati' → 'hoti', → '-ehi', 'laghu' → 'lahu'
★ Dental and retroflex sounds sporadically change into one another
:: Examples:
Exceptions
There are several notable exceptions to the rules above; many of them are common Prakrit words rather than borrowings from Sanskrit.
★ 'Ärya' → 'ayya' (beside 'ariya')
★ 'guru' → 'garu' (adj.) (beside 'guru' (n.))
★
★
PÄli writing
PÄli alphabet with diacritics
Historically, the first written record of the PÄli canon is believed to have been composed in
Sri Lanka, based on a prior oral tradition. As per Mahavamsa, great chronicle of Sri Lanka, due to a major famine in the country Buddhist monks wrote down the Pali canon during the time of King Vattagamini in 100 BC. The transmission of written PÄli has retained a universal system of alphabetic values, but has expressed those values in a stunning variety of actual scripts. This is confusing to many westerners, who tend to assume that one script is ineluctably tied to one set of phonemes.
In
Sri Lanka, PÄli texts were recorded in
Sinhala script. Other local scripts, most prominently
Khmer,
Burmese, and in modern times
Thai (since 1893),
DevanÄgarÄ« and
Mongolian have been used to record PÄli.
Since the 19th Century, PÄli has also been written in the Roman script. An alternate scheme devised by
Frans Velthuis allows for typing without
diacritics using
plain-ASCII methods, but is much less readable than the standard Rhys Davids system (see below).
The PÄli alphabetical order is as follows:
★
, although a single sound, is written with ligature of and 'h'.
PÄli transliteration on computers
There are several fonts to use for PÄli transliteration. However, older ASCII fonts such as Leedsbit PaliTranslit, Times_Norman, Times_CSX+, Skt Times, Vri RomanPali CN/CB etc., are not recommendable since they are not compatible with one another and technically out of date. On the contrary, fonts based on the
Unicode standard are recommended because Unicode seems to be the future for all fonts and also because they are easily portable to one another.
However, not all Unicode fonts contain the necessary characters. To properly display all the diacritic marks used for romanized PÄli (or for that matter, Sanskrit), a Unicode font must contain the following character ranges:
★ Basic Latin: U+0000 – U+007F
★ Latin-1 Supplement: U+0080 – U+00FF
★ Latin Extended-A: U+0100 – U+017F
★ Latin Extended-B: U+0180 – U+024F
★ Latin Extended Additional: U+1E00 – U+1EFF
The Pali Text Society recommends
VU-Times and
Gandhari Unicode for Windows and Linux Computers. And
The Tibetan & Himalayan Digital Library recommends
Times Ext Roman, and provides links to several of other Unicode diacritic fonts usable for typing PÄli together with ratings and installation instructions. Moreover, an English Buddhist monk titled Bhikkhu Pesala provides some PÄli Unicode fonts he has designed himself
here, and some Pali keyboards for Windows XP
here. Further,
the font section of Alanwood's Unicode Resources have links to several general purpose fonts that can be used for PÄli typing if they cover the character ranges above.
PÄli text in ASCII
The Velthuis scheme was originally developed in 1991 by Frans Velthuis for use with his "devnag" DevanÄgarÄ« font, designed for the TEX typesetting system. This system of representing PÄli diacritical marks has been used in some websites and discussion lists.
The following table compares various conventional renderings and shortcut key assignments:
| character | ASCII rendering | character name | Unicode number | key combination | HTML code |
|---|
| Ä | aa | a macron | 61580 | Alt+A | ā |
| Ä« | ii | i macron | 61620 | Alt+I | ī |
| Å« | uu | u macron | 61672 | Alt+U | ū |
| | .m | m dot-under | | | ṃ |
| | .n | n dot-under | 61686 | Alt+N | ṇ |
| ñ | ~n | n tilde | 61590 | Alt+Ctrl+N | ñ |
| | .t | t dot-under | 61642 | Alt+T | ṭ |
| | .d | d dot-under | 61622 | Alt+D | ḍ |
| | "n | n dot-over | 61626 | Ctrl+N | ṅ |
| | .l | l dot-under | 61634 | Alt+L | ḷ |
References
★ See entries for "Pali" (written by scholar K.R. Norman of the Pali Text Society) and "India--Buddhism" in ''The Concise Encyclopedia of Language and Religion'', (Sawyer ed.) ISBN 0080431674
★
Introduction to Pali, , A.K., Warder, Pali Text Society, 1991,
★
Pali Primer, , Lily, de Silva, Vipassana Research Institute Publications, 1994,
★
Simplified Grammar of the Pali Language, , Edward, Müller, Asian Educational Services, 1995,
Further reading
★ Gupta, K. M. (2006). ''Linguistic approach to meaning in Pali''. New Delhi: Sundeep Prakashan. ISBN 8175741708
★ Müller, E. (2003). ''The Pali language: a simplified grammar''. Trubner's collection of simplified grammars. London: Trubner. ISBN 1844530019
★ Oberlies, T., & Pischel, R. (2001). ''PÄli: a grammar of the language of the TheravÄda Tipiá¹aka''. Indian philology and South Asian studies, v. 3. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 3110167638
★ Hazra, K. L. (1994). ''PÄli language and literature: a systematic survey and historical study''. Emerging perceptions in Buddhist studies, no. 4-5. New Delhi: D.K. Printworld. ISBN 812460004X
★ American National Standards Institute. (1979). ''American National Standard system for the romanization of Lao, Khmer, and Pali''. New York: The Institute.
★ Soothill, W. E., & Hodous, L. (1937). ''A dictionary of Chinese Buddhist terms: with Sanskrit and English equivalents and a Sanskrit-Pali index''. London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.
See also
★
Pali literature
★
International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration
External links
★
PÄli-English dictionary
★
Buddhist India by T.W. Rhys Davids, chapter IX, Language and Literature
★
PÄli at Ethnologue
★
Pali.dk - A newly started project aimed at creating free online PÄli dictionaries and educational resources.
★
Pali Text Society
★
[1] Free searchable online database of Pali literature, including the whole Canon
★
Resources for reading & writing PÄli in indigenous scripts: Burmese, Sri Lankan, & Cambodian
★
PÄli Discussion Forum
★
Complete PÄli Canon in romanized Pali and Sinhala, mostly also in English translation
★
PÄli Canon selection
★
A guide to learning the PÄli language
★
A textbook to teach yourself Pali (by Narada Thera)
★
A reference work on the grammar of the Pali language (by G Duroiselle)
★
"Pali Primer" by Lily De Silva (requires installation of special fonts)
★
"Pali Primer" by Lily De Silva (UTF-8 encoded)
★
Free/Public-Domain Elementary PÄli Course--PDF format
★
Free/Public-Domain PÄli Course--html format
★
Free/Public-Domain PÄli Grammar (in PDF file)
★
Free/Public-Domain PÄli Buddhist Dictionary (in PDF file)
★
Yahoo discussion group on PÄli
★
E-Sangha PÄli Discussion Forum: for experts and students
★
Geocities discussion group on PÄli (homepage)
★
Comprehensive list of PÄli texts on Wikisource
★
Buddhist Dictionary of PÄli Proper Names, HTML version of the book by G.P. Malalasekera, 1937-8
★
PÄli Text Reader (software)
★
Jain Scriptures
★
Pali help at Help.com Wiki
العربية
ä¸å›½
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिनà¥à¤¦à¥€
Italiano
日本語
Português
РуÑÑкий
Español
