Talk:Pali

Pali: Dead language.

There is an extensive literature in Pali that is "living". How can it be called dead? I propose that relevant defintion be modified.

The facts: There are words in Pali literature that are attributed to "Buddho Bhagava". Those words should be considered as the origin of the language. Of course, like any other languge, it changed over the course of 2500 years. We now have an extensive literature. For example see Hinuber.Dgdcw (talk) 12:17, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Please follow the link (also given in the lede) to the WP article on dead languages. A dead language, by definition, is a language that no longer has any native speakers. Pali fits this definition (i.e. there are currently no people on Earth whose first language is Pali). For comparison, Latin also has an extensive literature and is still widely studied, yet is considered a dead language.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 17:26, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

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Reasons for Buddhist use of Pali

I'm not sure that the motivations for this are very clearly explained in the article as it stands today (you have to read very far down in the article and fill in some gaps). Originally, Buddhists wanted to use a language that was much closer to what people spoke in their daily lives in order to make doctrines accessible to all (as opposed to the Brahmins' use of archaic Sanskrit, only taught to a relative few). However, as the spoken languages kept evolving down the centuries, Pali itself eventually became increasingly remote from everyday speech, and some Pali writings became subjected to Sanskritizing influences... AnonMoos (talk) 14:13, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

That is not the case. Pali has an overlap over 90% grammatically and lexically with Sanskrit. Those who claim that the similarity is because of Pali being Sanskritized later likely dont know either Sanskrit or Pali. I study both languages for many years. Therefore the contrast between Pali and Sanskrit is not that Pali would have been better understood than Sanskrit - in fact as Pali and Sanskrit translators know, Pali is not more easy to understand than Sanskrit, it is in fact more difficult. Srkris (talk) 11:27, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

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threvada buddhism's Pali and mahayana's BHS

im not sure why buddhist texts are dated so late when we clearly know that pali and BHS are older languages, even wikipedia acknowledges that pali and BHS are earlier than middle indo aryan like prakrits which are dated to third cen BC. SO i dont understand why there is so much issue regarding dating pali and BHS texts from the late buddhist period, i dont know why western scholars are so interested in dating indian stuff late. i was listening to Mr. Richard Salomon and he also dates the buddhist texts from the period actual buddhist manuscripts have been discovered knowing fully well that buddhist manuscripts may have not survived indian environment and thus only north india/ central asian regions manuscripts have been found. The amaravathi and buddhist centers there which produced loads of buddhist texts date back pre mauryan times. Pali and BHS have been declared as mixed languages even though its clearly a misnomer, these languages are more archaic and perhaps were preserved solely because of the religions like jainism, buddhism and other sramanic religions who didn't like sanskrit or liturgical language of the brahmins. First of all the entire buddhist hybrid notion is a misnomer, which is aimed at reducing the importance of these pre prakritic languages, secondly these languages who's texts have survived not being acknowledged as earlier period than prakrits and thirdly not being categorized as an earlier middle indo aryan languages. i think the sole reason for their classification is that if these texts are dated earlier, they will force the scholarship to date brahmic alphabets earlier and with that chances of connecting the brahmi with aramaic, attempts of which have already partially failed become almost zero since it is likely to coincide with achaemenid pre aramaic adoption period of pure cuneiform. I wont even mention the complications which arise with categorizing mitanni indo aryan language. Linguists want to keep a gap of least more than a thousand years before the middle indo aryans arise after the aryan migration 115.135.130.182 (talk) 03:13, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Lineage of Pali

The article itself states that Pali is a middle Indo Aryan language and yet there are those who vandalise the language family section, writing that Pali is descended from Sanskrit Which Sanskrit exactly , Vedic or classical ? Bodhiupasaka (talk) 07:34, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

The descent chart does appear to be wrong- it currently implies incorrectly that Pali is descended from Sanskrit. I think having Indo-Aryan - Middle Indo-Aryan languages/Middle Indic - Pali would better illustrate things, since Pali is part of the Middle Indic language family. Gotitbro, the current chart shows Pali descended from Sanskrit and Prakrit, neither of which are correct. Would you put it directly under Indo-Aryan instead? An unambiguous source would be helpful. --Spasemunki (talk) 07:43, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

@Spasemunki: Prakrit and Pali being descended from Sanskrit is the main feature of these langs, I have removed the clearly incorrect Prakrit from the tree. Removing Sanskrit from the infobox here would be like removing Aramaic from the Syriac language infobox. The user above is just trying to remove any mention of Sanskrit from Pali related articles. Gotitbro (talk) 07:48, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

I had thought I read that Pali and some of the Prakrits were thought to descend from parallel varieties of Old Indic, rather than being directly derived from Vedic Sanskrit but I can't locate the reference. In that case, it seems like we ought to specify Vedic Sanskrit since Classical is usually what unqualified Sanskrit refers to. --Spasemunki (talk) 08:05, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Actually, what I recalled is already in the article under Pali#Classification: "A number of its morphological and lexical features show that it is not a direct continuation of Ṛgvedic Vedic Sanskrit. Instead it descends from one or more dialects that were, despite many similarities, different from Ṛgvedic." The scholar cited in that section as regarding it as descended from Vedic died in 1936, so I would tend to regard the more recent publication as carrying greater weight. --Spasemunki (talk) 08:08, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

@Spasemunki: I see, I have removed that from the infobox. The confusion in classification occurs as a lot of words in either corrupted or borrowed forms from Sanskrit are in both Pali and some early Prakrit languages. Gotitbro (talk) 08:23, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Great. I've added Middle Indo-Aryan back to the box as well- that is the language family that Pali is most directly part of. The box is for classification/family, rather than descent, so the fact that Pali is a MIE language rather than descended from one shouldn't be significant. --Spasemunki (talk) 08:28, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Spasemunki, thank you. Atleast someone has a good understanding of linguistic history. Bodhiupasaka (talk) 14:12, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Controversial Images

What does an image venerating Lord Vishnu, that too, written in Sanskrit language have to do with the Pali Language article ? Bodhiupasaka (talk) 07:36, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Sanskrit and Pali comparisons are replete in scholarly sources which the image was specifically created to illustrate. Your replacement with a singular script is unconstructive. And do not harass users by hounding them with the same question everywhere. Gotitbro (talk) 07:42, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

That is a nonsensical excuse. Every language is compared with every other language by scholars and non-scholars alike. By your spurious logic, why not add images of Homer's poem and the pages of the Latin Bible to the Sanskrit article in wikipedia, since Classical Sanskrit is often compared with Ancient Greek and Classical Latin ? That Image(venerating Vishnu in Sanskrit) has to be removed. And you know that very well.

Bodhiupasaka (talk) 14:16, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

It is quite amusing that you accuse me of 'harassment'. Unlike a 'certain someone', I don't harass or bully others by threatening to edit block them. Bodhiupasaka (talk) 14:17, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

And how exactly Am I 'hounding' you with the same question everywhere, when this talk section is intended for everyone ? You are not the only one on Wikipedia. Bodhiupasaka (talk) 05:39, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

It seems you do not want Pali to be written in Burmese or Sinhalese script but you allow images that have written Sanskrit and Pali in Devanagari and ironically in the Burmese script respectfully. This is sheer hypocrisy on your part. Bodhiupasaka (talk) 05:41, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree that the first image in the article should be an image of a Pali document, rather than a comparative one. If the article itself was drawing a comparison between scripts or languages, it would make sense to include a comparison image. In terms of the state of the article, it would be more beneficial to add images of Pali texts in other scripts than to add Sanskrit texts that don't directly inform the content of the article. Bodhiupasaka if you have an issue with another user, it would be better to take it to their talk page rather than repeating it here. I would also encourage you to remember that WP:AGF is a policy that everyone has to abide by. --Spasemunki (talk) 06:11, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Spasemunki, Thank you for concurring with my position. I don't really have a problem with any user. However undoing my edits and contributions, even when they are backed by scholarly publications(Nalanda article), is quite unfounded. And with all due respect, I am not the one who blankly accuses others of 'harassment'. That distinction belongs to another user on this thread. It is him/her who is dragging personal issues on to this talk page.

Bodhiupasaka (talk) 06:27, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Orthography

I notice that the Phonology:Consonants section shows the Thai letters used to represent Pali. This seems both arbitrary & a little out of place. Anyone object to my:

1. removing the Thai script from the Consonants Table; &,
2. creating a separate orthography section that presents the major scripts used for representation of Pali today (Thai, Khmer, Sinhalese, Burmese)?

Pathawi (talk) 20:59, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

It's not arbitrary. I did some raw google hit counting (so original research) to determine what the most common writing systems for Pali was on the Internet. The top three, in order, were: (1) Thai script (alphabet), (2) Thai script (abugida), (3) Roman script. However, this is the English language Wikipedia, so I think it would be in order to replace Thai with Roman. It's not altogether surprising, as Thailand is the country with the most Theravada Buddhists. I'm thinking I need to do a similar table at wikt:Wiktionary:About Pali. Addressing the needs of the vernaculars has made Pali spelling surprisingly complicated when one takes Unicode into account. --RichardW57m (talk) 17:22, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Sanskrit-Pali contrast

Could anyone help to translate the Sanskrit words in the sections with saṃskṛta → pālī format? As in:

saṃskṛta (well-organized) → pālī

——170.64.197.129 (talk) 13:29, 21 March 2024 (UTC)