Update: 2004-09-16 06:00 PM -0400

TIL

Pali Characters
Pronunciation of letters

by U Kyaw Tun, M.S. (I.P.S.T., U.S.A.). Not for sale. Prepared for students of TIL Computing and Language Center, Yangon, MYANMAR.

UKT: This file corresponds to pages 10, 11 and 12 in the downloaded pdf file:
p10 p11 p12, An Elementary Pali Course, by Ven. Narada Thera.

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Akshara or alpha-syllabic characters

The technical distinction between Alphabet and Abugida is not commonly recognized:
• English language is written in an alphabet, whereas
• Pali (and also Burmese) is written in an abugida.
• E-Pali (Pali in English alphabet) is written in the English-alphabet (more accurately Latin-alphabet)

The Pali Akshara or more accurately abugida consists of forty-one letters,
• eight  sara {tha-ra.} , and
• thirty-three consonants vyañjana {byi:~}
UKT: The E-Pali spelling of is misleading to a Myanmar. Here the E-Pali v represents the akshara {ba} and not the usual {wa.}.

UKT: In stead of giving the pronunciations in a separate section as in the original by Ven. Narada Thera, I have incorporated them into the table below. Since the English pronunciations given by him is somewhat misleading for a Myanmar (my own personal experience), I have decided not to give them.

Pali is a phonetic language. As such each character has its own characteristic sound.

E-Pali	a	ā	i	ī	̄u	ū̄	e	o
M-Pali/Myanmar			/	/	/	/	/	/
Romabama	{a.}	{a}	{i.}	{i}	{u.}	{u}	{e}	{au}
Examples from PTS Dictionary	<agati> p002	<ɑ̄kɑ̄sa> p093	<iti> p118	<īsɑ> p124	<utu> p130			<ojā̄> p165
	<atta> p022		<itthi> p120

UKT:

atta -- PTS p022
"The Arahant has neither atta nor niratta, neither assumption nor rejection, he keeps an open mind on all speculative theories." -- reminds me what all scientists should aim for.

According to Ven. Narada, the  "e" and "o" are always long, except when followed by a double consonant; e.g. ettha, oṭṭha. My advise to Myanmars is, to be guided by the Burmese pronunciation, especially with regards to the vowels. With my limited knowledge of Pali, pronunciation of words that involves o always give me trouble. For example, <ojā̄> (meaning: nutrient> is spelled in M-Pali as . In Romabama it would be {au-za}. Notice that the vowel o has now become {au}. Please refer to PTS Dictionary p165 and you will see that this word has the same root as Latin <Augustus>.

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Consonants

vyañjana {byi:~}

A Comparison of Systems

Which is more important in the study of languages: the spoken form or the written form? It seems that in the West the spoken form is more important than the written form. In Myanmar, we have a saying that "what we write is correct and how we say is just sound". With this motto in mind I will make a comparison between Myanmar system of writing and the English system.

Though the objective is the study of Pali consonants, it is advisable to look into:
• IPA (International Phonetic Association) consonants, and
• English consonants

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Consonants (Pulmonic)
-- IPA (International Phonetics Association)

IPA (revised to 1993, corrected 1996). See table given by IPA.
Note: the characters in the following table are phonetic characters, and are represented in text within / /, e.g. /p/.

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English consonants
-- DJPD16

(Daniel Jones English Pronouncing Dictionary, 16th ed.)

Note: the characters in the following table are phonetic characters, and are represented in text within / /, e.g. /b/.

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E-Pali and M-Pali consonants

based on:
1. An Elementary Pali Course, Ven. Narada Thera, http://www.vipassana.info/pali%20contents.htm
2. Module a.ra.111ka.  Distance-teaching University , Ministry of Education (Higher Education Directorate), Myanmar (publication date: October 1999) -- in Myanmar script

Pali language written in Myanmar and all the countries where the respective scripts are based on the ancient Brahmi script (e.g. India and Sri Lanka). Brahmi script (found on the inscription pillars of King Asoka) and scripts derived from it are almost phonemic, and use an alphasyllabary or abugida instead of an alphabet. The usual method of presentation is in a matrix of rows and columns -- along phonemic lines.

The M-Pali (Myanmar) script is made up of 41 characters: 8 vowels and 33 consonants. The 33 consonants are written in 7 rows and 5 columns -- the 7th row has only 3 members. The first 5 rows are known as "group-able" consonants and the last two rows are known as "non-groupable" consonants. The group-able consonants are made up of regular consonants. The non-groupable consonants are made up of semi-vowels and other hard-to-handle consonants. Sometimes, the 6th and the 7th rows are presented as a single group.

The first row or ka-group is made up of consonants with sounds close to /ka/, /ga/ and /ŋa/. This row is known as the "Gutturals", a phonetic term, frowned on by Western linguists. Ka-group is followed by "Palatals", "Cerebrals", "Dentals", and "Labials". The rest (i.e. the non-groupable) are presented as a mixed group.

Note that the characters in the following table correspond to the letters of Pali alphasyllabary or abugida where all the consonant characters have inherent  sometimes described as English short-a. For example, the consonant ka already contains an inherent short-a and should be written in Romabama as {ka.}. However to retain conformity with regular English, the inherent vowel has been left out. E-Pali characters will be represented in the text as bold or within [ ], e.g. [k], [kh].

E-Pali	M-Pali
c1 c2 c3 c4 c5   Gutteral velar-plosive velar-nasal ka- group k kh g gh ṅ Palatal alveolar-fricative palatal-nasal ca- {sa-} group c ch j jh ñ Cerebral retroflex-plosive retroflex-nasal ṭa- group ṭ ṭh ḍ ḍh ṇ Dental alveolar-plosive alveolar-nasal ta- group t th d dh n Labial bilabial-plosive bilabial-nasal pa- group p ph b bh m
Semivowels Dental Aspirate Cerebral Niggahita   Mixed y r l v s h ḷ ṃ

The characters in Mixed group are described as:
y -- Semivowel Palatal
r -- Semivowel Cerebral
l -- Semivowel Dental
v -- Semivowel Dental and Labial

The E-Pali word Niggahita shows that a character has been nasalised. The Myanmar notation is a dot above the character, and is known in Burmese as {thé: thé: tin}.

There is no difference between the pronunciation of "ṅ" and "ṃ". The former never stands at the end, but is always followed by a consonant of its group.

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Medial Consonants or Conjuncts

(note to myself: the section to the end is yet to be rewritten)

Unlike English which uses an alphabet, M-Pali and Myanmar write in a alphasyllabary commonly known as abugida where all the consonant characters have inherent  sometimes described as English short-a. Thus, the character {ka.} already has a sound and is a true syllable. The 32 consonantal aksharas (33 minus niggahita) can be extended by combining with {ya.}, {ra.}, {wa} and {ha} . The resulting consonants, which  are also aksharas, are known as medial consonants or conjuncts. An example of such a conjunct is to be found in vyañjana {byi:~}. Here the consonant, {ba.} is made into a ligature with {ya.}:

      +             —>            
{ba.} + {ya.} —> {{baya}} —> {bya.}

During the process of conjunct formation the inherent vowel of {ba.} has been "killed". Killing of the inherent vowel is usually done by the use of a  virama {a-thut}, and is marked by a "flag". However, in conjuncts, the flag is never shown. Notice also that in Myanmar script, {ya.} undergoes a change in shape.

It is to be noted that for conjuncts of this type to be formed, the resulting akshara must be pronounceable.

Consonants in c2 (column 2) and c5 (column) in rows 1 to 5 are not present in English alphabet. They are said be aspirates, and the h is added to the preceding character to show the aspiration. In the transliterations of Indic scripts the h is added after the English base character, e.g. r1c1 k —> r1c2 kh. I have not used this practice in Romabama, because the position(s) after the base character is reserved for conjunct forming characters: {yapin}, {raris}, {wahswè:} and {ha.hto:}, e.g.:

{ka.} + {ya.} —> {ka.} + {yapin} —> {kya.}
{kya.} + {wa.} —> {kya.} + {wahswè:} —> {kywa.}

Before proceeding further, we should familiarise ourselves with some phonetics -- in particular the so-called POA (Place of Articulation) in Online Phonetics Course, Department of Linguistics, University of Lausanne, Switzerland.
http://www.unil.ch/ling/english/phonetique/table-eng.html
http://www.unil.ch/ling/english/index.html.

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{ka.}-group
By virtue of position this group corresponds to the term Gutterals of E-Pali.

row1	c1	c2	c3	c4	c5
M-Pali/Myanmar						group
Romabama	{ka.}	{hka.}	{ga.}	{Ga.}	{nga.}

The term Gutteral is not used by Western linguists: the term "velar plosive" is used, see IPA Pulmonic Consonants. I have not used the terms given in E-Pali because of the possible confusion of terms. The fifth consonant (r1c5) is the velar nasal /ŋ/. It is present in English syllables: e.g. see DJPD16 p365 pronouncing letters NG.

<sing>  /sɪŋ/
<ringing>  /ˈrɪŋ.ɪŋ/

/ŋ/ is only present in the coda and not in the onset of the English syllables. See DJPD16 for explanations of the terms coda and onset. Romabama which uses only the English characters that can be inputted directly from the keyboard represents this character as the digraph ng in {nga.}.

The POA of {hka.} is between that of {ka.} and {ga.}. To me, {hka.} is a consonant in its own right, not just a aspirate of {ka.}. {Ga.} sounds exactly like {ga.}, though U Kawwida of Toronto Myanmar-Buddhist monastery insisted that there is an h sound involved.

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{sa.}-group
By virtue of position this group corresponds to the Palatals of E-Pali.

row2	c1	c2	c3	c4	c5
M-Pali/Myanmar						group
Romabama	{sa.}	{hsa.}	{za.}	{Za.}	{ña.}

This is the most confusing group because of the M-Pali/Myanmar {s} and {z} are best described as alveolar fricatives not as palatals. Note the absence of palatals in English. See English Consonants.
• The Western phonetic term "palatal" can be applied only to one English phoneme /j/ which is the English letter y. The E-Pali letter j is not the phoneme /j/. See pronouncing the letter J and letter Y in DJPD16.
• The English consonant letter c has four pronunciations: /s, k, ʃ/ and /ʧ/. See pronouncing the letter C. The IPA phoneme /ʧ/ is represented by some American authors as /č/.

• Before the vowel letters [ i ], [e] or [y] (when functioning as vowel letter), c is pronounced as /s/, e.g.: <specific> /spəˈsɪf.ɪk/; <cell> /sel/; <cycle> /ˈsaɪ.kļ/.
<cell> is close to
• In suffixes -cial, -cious, -ciate, -cient and their derivatives, c is realised as /ʃ/ , e.g.: <social> /ˈsəʊ.ʃ^əl (US) ˈsoʊ-/; <vicious> /ˈvɪʃ.əs/.
<social> is close to
• In most other situations, c is pronounced as /k/ , e.g.: <cat> /kæt/; <critic> /ˈkrɪt.ɪk (US) ˈkrɪt̬-/
<cat> is close to
• c can be silent. There are two occasions when this can occur: the combination ct in some words, and in British place names such as Leicester, e.g.: <Leicester> /ˈles.təʳ (US) -tɚ/; <indict> /ɪnˈdaɪt/
• An exceptional pronunciation for c is /ʧ/ in some words borrowed from Italian, e.g.: <cello> /ˈʧel.əʊ (US) -oʊ/; <Cinquecento> /ˌʧɪŋ.kweɪˈʧen.təʊ (US) -oʊ/.
<cello> is close to
• A final exception: <Caesar> /ˈsɪː.zəʳ (US) -zɚ/
<Caesar> is close to

UKT: In English words the letter c never has the Bama sound.

• c is not present in English phonetics. See English Consonants. However c is present in some other languages. The following is part of the IPA table of Consonants (Pulmonic) to which M-Pali/Myanmar characters have been added. Of course, the rows with Myanmar characters are my additions. I am giving this table to show what c sounds like.

	Bilabial	Labio-dental	Dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyn-geal	Glottal
Plosive	p b		t d			ʈ ɖ	c ɟ	k g	q ɢ		ʔ
Nasal	m	ɱ	n			ɳ	ɲ	ŋ	ɴ
Plosive
	{pa.}		{ta.} {da.}					{ka.} {ga.}
Nasal
	{ma.}		{na.}					{nga.}

If you are a Myanmar you will notice that:
• {pa.} {ba.} pair is produced in the very front part of the mouth ("bilabial" refers to both lips or labia).
• {ta.} {da.} pair is produced just behind the upper front teeth with the tip of tongue touching the alveolar ridge (the bony part with alveoli or teeth sockets).
• {ka.}  {ga.} pair is produced still towards the interior (soft palate or velum).

The left member of each pair is voiceless and the right member is voiced (i.e. with vibration of vocal cords.). You might feel that the POA of voiceless member is in front of the POA of the voiced member. Notice that palatal sound is produced in the palate (hard palate) region, velar sound in the soft palate region, and uvular sound in the uvular region.

Test for voicing: Voicing simply means vibration of vocal cords. Place your finger lightly on the area of Adam's apple. You can feel the vocal cords vibrating while you are saying the word aloud. Even if you are a woman, you can do this test. Remember that some consonant sounds seem voiceless to some observers but voiced to others.

• /c/ (U0063) is voiceless palatal plosive (or stop) and it is produced with the tongue tip directed down towards the lower teeth, while the tongue body makes contact with the hard palate.
• /ɟ/ (U025F) is voiced palatal plosive (or stop) and is the same as /c/, but with vibration of the vocal cords. The corresponding palatal nasal /ɲ/ (U0272) is usually voiced as well. (UNIL)

• Myanmars can now imagine that /c/ would be very close to {ka.}. I will be using the same argument to show that /q/ is also very near {ka.}. In fact the holy book of Muslims, the Koran is now spelled with a q instead of k -- Qu'ran.

The matrix-position occupied by E-Pali c is occupied by Bama {sa.} resulting in different pronunciations: Example:
• canda (meaning: Moon) = {sanda}
If we were to go along pronunciation of c (as ch in rich), the problem becomes worse, because the ch pronunciation in Myanmar is given by a conjoined consonant {hka.+ya. –> ch.} .

The matrix-position occupied by ch is occupied by Bama {hsa.} resulting in different pronunciations: Example:
• chanda (meaning: intention) = {hsanda.}

The fifth consonant (r2c5) is a "nasal".

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{cha.}-group
Though there is no {cha.} -group in M-Pali/Myanmar, I am presenting this to bring M-Pali in line with E-Pali.

row2	c1	c2	c3	c4	c5
E-Pali	[c]	[ch]	[j]	[jh]	[ñ]	[c]-group	[Palatals]
M-Pali = E-Pali
M-Pali/Myanmar						group	{sa.}-group
Romabama	{sa.}	{hsa.}	{za.}	{Za.}	{ña.}

The following table shows how some of the Myanmar words are rendered in phonetics.
from email of 2004 Jan 27.

Myanmar word	Romabama	Dr. Ko Lay (IPA symbols)	U Tun Myint (non-IPA, used in Japan)
	{kyun}	/tɕũ/	/cun/
	{kyut}	/tɕuʡ/	/cu'/
	{kyin}	/tɕĩ/	/cin/
	{kyis}	/tɕiʡ/	/ci'/
	{chan}	/tɕhã/	/chan/
	{chwun}	/tɕhũ/	/chun/
	{chak}	/tɕɛʡ/	/chɛ'/
	{kywak}	/tɕwɛʡ/	/cwɛ'/

U Tun Myint's system seems to indicate: ':
[y] =
[ j ] =
[ch] =
[c] =
 ' =

 

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{Ta.}-group
By virtue of position this group corresponds to the Cerebrals of E-Pali.

row3	c1	c2	c3	c4	c5
M-Pali/Myanmar						group
Romabama	{Ta}	{Ht}	{Ð}	{Ðd}	{N}

The Bama pronunciation of this group is the same as that of the next group the ta.-group. The fifth consonant (r3c5) is a "nasal".

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{ta.}-group
By virtue of position this group corresponds to the Dentals of E-Pali.

row4	c1	c2	c3	c4	c5
M-Pāḷi / Myanmar						group
Romabama	{ta.}	{hta.}	{da.}	{Da.}	{na.}

The dentals "t" and "d" are pronounced with the tip of the tongue placed against the front upper teeth. The fifth consonant (r4c5) is a "nasal".

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{pa.}-group
By virtue of position this group corresponds to the Labials of E-Pali.

row 5	c1	c2	c3	c4	c5
M-Pali/ Myanmar						group
Romabama	{p}	{hp}	{b}	{B}	{m}

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Nasals and Aspirates

-- UKT

The discussion in these paragraphs involve the characters in rows 1 to 5. In Myanmar and Indic scripts the characters are arranged in a way to bring out the nasalities and aspirations of the consonants. Thus column 5 characters (rows 1 to 5) are nasals.

The column 2 and column 4 characters (rows 1 to 5) are described as "aspirates". In E-Pali and Indic scripts an h is added following an English letter. For example in E-Pali, r4c2 is th and r4c4 is dh. In Romabama form of M-Pali, the position after the first letter(s) is reserved for {ya.pin.}, {ra.ris}, {wa.hswè:} and {ha.hto:}. Thus, the (r4c2) in Romabama is ht {hta.}. Instead of writing (r4c4) with an h, Romabama uses another symbol D {Da.}.

Bama speaking Myanmars would notice that when you pronounce in sequence, the tongue is touching the alveolar ridge for and then the position of contact moves towards the interior of the mouth -- to the alveolar and then velar regions. Thus, I hesitate to call as the aspirate form of , and the aspirate form of . and are distinct consonants. However, there are some who maintain that {Ga.} should be pronounced with an h in M-Pali. -- personal communication with U Kawwida of Toronto Burmese-Buddhist monastery.

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Mixed group

The terms used for the members of this group (individually and collectively) are:
• approximant (bilabial- , postalveolar- , palatal-)
• dental fricative
• semivowel
• sibilant
• trill
The links given above will lead you to the explanations and definitions in DJPD16, UNIL, and AHTD. The reader is advised to look up for explanations in other sources.

According to Dr. Ko Lay, {ya.} and {wa.} are the only semi, and {tha.} which has both /θ/ (as in English <thin>) /ð/ (as in English <that>) is a dental fricative, but represented by sa in Sri Lanka and Thailand. (e-mail communication dated 2004Mar23).

	c1	c2	c3	c4	c5
row 6
M-Pali/Myanmar
Romabama	{ya.}	{ra.}	{la.}	{wa.}	{tha.}
row 7
M-Pali / Myanmar
		{ha.}	{La.}	{a.}

• The position occupied by Myanmar {wa.} is occupied by v in E-Pali.
• The position occupied by Myanmar {tha.} is occupied by s in E-Pali.
Though this results in different pronunciations, the meanings remain the same. Example:
   {wa sa} = vācā (meaning: word, voice)
   {tha'ra.} = sara (meaning: sound, voice, intonation, accent)

Myanmar {ha.} is best described as a glottal fricative. For the pronunciation of English h see letter h.

The E-Pāḷi word Niggahita shows that a character with vertical ligature is involved. Examples of words with vertical ligature from PTS:
• niggahīta (meaning: restrained, checked, rebuked, reproved) =
• nicca (meaning: permanent) =
• magga (meaning: road) =

There is no difference between the pronunciation of "ṅ" and "ṃ". The former never stands at the end, but is always followed by a consonant of its group.

UKT note