Update:
2016-09-10 11:31 PM -0400
TIL
Pali Grammar
vow.htm
by Narada Thera (Lanka)
Edited, with additions from other sources,
by U Kyaw Tun (UKT)
(M.S., I.P.S.T., USA) and staff of
Tun Institute of Learning (TIL) .
Not for sale. No copyright. Free for
everyone. Prepared for students and
staff of TIL Computing and
Language Center, Yangon, MYANMAR :
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NaradaLanka-indx.htm
Vowels
nuclear vowel of syllable
UKT notes :
Contents of this page
UKT 160910: We will meet two kinds of vowels - the inherent vowel (of the
akshara), and the nuclear vowel (of the syllable). We have already met the
inherent vowel in file on the akshara -
aksha.htm . In this file, we
will meet the nuclear vowel.
Vowels (sonants) are produced way down in
the throat - the voice -box. You can feel
the voice-box behind the area of Adam's
apple. The vowels come up in little puffs
of air. The ancients could never see how
these are produced in a living person. What
they could study is what they could see in
the open mouth. Of course they could have
studied the vowels by placing their fingers
over the Adam's apple and feel the vibrations
of the vocal folds. These vowels can be
modified by the articulators such as the
tongue, lips and jaw. We say the vowels are
modified by the consonants (co-sonants).
The Eastern Ancients, the rishis, who
devoted their whole lives to the study of
a particular discipline such as astronomy/
astrology, medicine, mathematics, and human
sound rightly teach their students studying
a language how to say the vowels correctly.
What they are doing is teaching
{þän-poan:kri:}. I had my first taste
of this method as a child, repeating over
and over again:
Basic vowels of Bur-Myan
{a.}
{a},
{i.}
{i},
{u.},
{u},
{é} ...
modified vowels
... ... ...
{ta.}
{ta},
{ti.}
{ti}, {tu.} {tu}, {té} ...
UKT 160906: I had thought the Burmese and Mon vowels would have the same
pronunciation because both use the same glyph and because of Theravada
religion. You can listen to the Mon-Myan vowels given below, and decide for
yourself:
- lesson02-61txt<))
The Pali Akshara Alphabet
consists of forty-one glyphs: 8 vowels
and 33 consonants.
UKT 160829: There is a world of difference
between Akshara and Alphabet. The two
words come from two separate systems of
writing:
Abugida-Akshara :
Akshara-glyphs, e.g. Myanmar
{ta.}, is pronounceable
Alphabet-Letter :
Letter-glyphs, e.g. Georgian
Consonant-Letter "Tan" თ
is mute.
The relationship between the two systems
can be illustrated with Georgian
Consonant-Letter "Tan" თ
and Myanmar-Akshara,
{ta.}. Myanmar Akshara is pronounceable
because of its inherent vowel which is
likened to the English short a .
On the other hand, the Georgian
Consonant-Letter "Tan" თ
is mute. It must be coupled with
Vowel-Letter "An" ა .
The combination თა is
pronounced similar to
{ta.}.
Pali is a phonetic language. As such each
letter has its own characteristic sound.
Since, Pali is spoken in many countries
- Lanka, Myanmarpré (BurPali & MonPali),
Thailand, etc. International Pali (Pal-Lat) is
based on Sinhala-Pal), and the pronunciation
given by Ashin Narada is also applicable is
also applicable to it (i.e. Pal-Lat).
However, because of ethnicity of the
different speakers the pronunciation
is different: primarily due to different
ethnics using different sets of muscles
to move the hyoid bone.
Yet, because of the same religion and
the phonetic nature of the script, a
Theravada Buddhist can still follow the
same Paritta recited by another speaker.
Listen the same Mora sutta recited by:
¤ Mingun Sayadaw
-
bk-cndl-Mingun<))
¤ Rev. Jandure Pagngnananda Thero
(釋明高)
-
bk-cndl-Chinese<))
The text of Mora sutta (below) by
Sao Htun Hmat Win in Eleven Holy
Discourses of Protection, Rangoon,
1981. Listen to the whole Sutta -
bk-cndl-Mingun<))
Now
concentrate on the two verses of interest: the first is to rising sun «udetayaṁ»,
and the second is to setting sun «apetayaṁ». The vowels «u» and «a» are on
the opposing sides of the vowel space, and they give opposing meanings :
"rising" and "setting".
udetayaṁ cakkhumā ekarājā /
harissavaṅṅo pathavippabhāso /
taṁ taṁ namassāmi harissavaṇṇaṁ pathavippabhāsaṁ /
tayājja guttā vīharemu divasaṁ // - Mingun Sayadaw Mora
Sutta - MingunMora1<))
... ... ...
apetayaṁ cakkhumā ekarājā /
harissavaṅṅo pathavippabhāso /
taṁ taṁ namassāmi harissavaṇṇaṁ pathavippabhāsaṁ /
tayājja guttā vīharemu rattiṁ // - Mingun Sayadaw Mora
Sutta - MingunMora2<))
Now for a change listen to Sri Lanka monk
and the laypersons reciting
the Five Precepts -
bk-cndl-LankaPali<)) (link chk 160908)
If you are a Myanmar-Buddhist you must have
heard the above in Pali-Myan.
Once a person has passed the age of 10 or 13
(onset of puberty), it is very difficult
for him or her to learn a foreign language,
an L2. He is forever stuck with his L1.
Though he thinks that he is singing the vowel
of a different ethnic, he is singing a vowel
coloured by his L1. We can know the
difference only by studying the formants. In
the pix, you can see the formant overlaps of
Danish and English /i/ and other front
vowels.
Thus we should expect the foreign
phoneticians missing the Pal-Myan
{þa.} (IPA /θ/ the non-hissing
thibilant). They think it should be
pronounced as
{Sa.} /
{S.} (IPA /s/ the hisser) as in Pal-Lanka.
Similarly they could never "hear"
our Palatal Plosive-stops, they can only
hear what they are used to - the Palatal
Affricates. Thus, their International Pali
is quite dissimilar Pal-Myan of Myanmarpré.
Yet we can still understand the Pali text,
because of the same Theravada faith, and
because our languages are based on sound
phonetic principals of the Asokan script.
Pronunciation as given by Shin Narada (Lanka)
may help the native English-speakers, but
for Bur-Myan speakers they are of little help,
if not downright misleading. That,
"it may help the native speakers"
in itself is doubtful if one realises that
there are two forms of pronunciation, the
'strong form' and the 'weak form'. According
to DJPD16, the strong form is /bʌt/
and the weak form /bət/.
To help the Bur-Myan speakers, I am giving
examples from PTS Dictionary read
together with PMDict (Compendium Pali
Dictionary) by
{lèý-ti-paN~Ði.ta.} U Maung Gyi, Rangoon,
1966, pp.524 - in Bur-Myan. e.g. <atta>
{ût~ta.}:
"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.
Vowels in Indic scripts and also in Myanmar
are written in two forms: the vowel letter
"stand-alone", and
"dependant" vowel-sign, in which
a consonant akshara has to be inserted. I
have given both forms In the above table.
Below, are the basic vowels mixed with
stand-alone vowel letters. Not all Pal-Myan
vowels have these stand-alone vowel
letters, with the possible exception of
{a.}.
Basic stand-alone vowel letters in BEPS
Pali-Myan:
{a.}
{a} ;
{I.}
{I} ;
{U.}
{U} ;
{É} 
{AU}
Pali-Deva: अ «a» आ «ā» ; इ «i» ई «ī» ; उ «u» ऊ «ū» ; ए «e» ओ «o»
Note: 1.
/ 
is traditionally given as «o»
Note: 2. Asokan (Brahmi)
script has 9 vowels: the extra being
{è:} ऐ «ai»
Note: 3. Bur-Myan script also has 9 vowels,
the extra being the same as in Asokan and
Devanagari ,
{è:} ऐ «ai».
-
BG1899-indx.htm >
BG1899-1-indx.htm
> ch01-3.htm
(link chk 160910)
Note: 4. Pali-Dev from Pali in
Various Scripts. See downloaded file
in TIL SD-Library
-
Pali-vari-script<Ô> /
bkp <Ô> (link chk 160906)
UKT 160910: It is claimed that Magadhi the language of Magadha
Mahajanapada is so simple that even the animals can understand it. If that
is so, why is Pali - invented in Lanka from Magadhi and Lanka speech - has
such a complex grammar?
The Bur-Myan language has a very simple grammar as pointed out by A. W.
Lonsdale in his Burmese Grammar and Grammatical
Analysis 1899 . In Part 1, Orthoepy 'pronunciation', and Orthography
'spelling', Chapter 01,
Preface and original TOC :
-
BG1899-indx.htm >
BG1899-1-indx.htm
>
ch00.htm (link chk 160910)
"• The Burmese language is constructed on
scientific principles, and there is no
reason why its grammar should not be dealt
with also from a scientific standpoint. But
it may be safely said that Burmese grammar
as a science has not received that
attention it deserves.
"• With regard to the grammatical treatises
by native writers, it is no exaggeration
to say that there is not one which can be
properly called a Burmese grammar. These
writers, not content with merely borrowing
the grammatical nomenclature of the Pali
language, also attempted to assimilate the
grammatical principles of the uninflected
Burmese to those of the inflected
Pali; so that they produced, not
Burmese grammars, but modified Pali grammars
in Burmese dress. The servile veneration
in which they held Pali, the language they
had adopted as the classic, is, no doubt,
directly responsible for the composition of
such works. In their endeavour to conform
strictly to Pali methods, they often
introduced unnecessary terms and misapplied
them, ignoring those grammatical points in
Burmese for which they could find no parallel
in Pali. How futile their attempts were may
be judged by the numerous difficulties and
anomalies they created, from some of which
even now teachers of the language have not
quite extricated themselves - take, for
instance, the case-inflexions."
• Additions to the above 8 vowels found
in section on pronunciation:
ē pronounced as a
in <fate>
ō pronounced as o
in <note>
The author Ashin Narada (Lanka) gives
unsuitable examples by giving English
words that end in e - the silent
e . To add more sense to the examples,
I am giving the IPA spellings:
<fate> /feɪt/
<note> /nəʊt/
The vowels "e" and "o"
are always long, except when followed by a
double consonant; e.g.
ettha, oṭṭha.
UKT 160829: The idea of a double consonant
originated with the Westerners who first
came in touch with Pali in Sri Lanka. The
so-called "double consonants" are
found in works transcribed into the Eng-Lat
Alphabet-Letter system. There is no such
thing in Pal-Myan or in Bur-Myan. Notice
that these words have two syllables and
the boundary is right in the middle of
the "double". Thus, you can write:
«et-tha» & «aut-tha». Remember
<tha.> is Pal-Myan r4c2
{hta.}.
Thus, if you transcribe according to
Bur-Myan transcription, «et-tha» &
«aut-tha» become {et~hta.} & {aut~hta.},
and the "double-consonant" disappears.
Because of my limited knowledge of Pali,
pronunciation of words that begin
with o always gives me trouble. For
example, <ojā̄>
{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>.
Contents of this page
In addition to inherent vowel, you will
come across another type of vowel present in
syllables: the nuclear vowel of a
syllable of canonical form CVÇ. Since Pali syllables and words always end in
vowels, the canonical form is CV, and by nuclear vowel we mean the V of CV. This will be
given in Syllable --
syllable.htm .
Contents of this page
Contents of this page
End of TIL file