Pāli

Resources for Learning Pali

The classical, literary language of Theravada Buddhism, with special reference to problems of indigenous orthography and phonology by Eisel Mazard (大影)

LEARN PALI LANGUAGE

Pali language grammar tutorials. Learn to read the Pali language for yourself. This blog is to help those wishing to make a first stab at translating the Pāli language & scriptures.

Learning Pali – Buddha’s Language

Buddhist Association of the United States.

A Course in the Pali Language

This course is designed to help you to learn the basics of Pali grammar and vocabulary through direct study of selections from the Buddha’s discourses. It thus aims to enable you to read the Buddha’s discourses in the original as quickly as possible. The textbook for the course is A New Course in Reading Pali: Entering the Word of the Buddha by James Gair and W.S. Karunatilleke (1998, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, Delhi, India. ISBN 81-208-1440-1). The Pali grammatical tables were designed by Bhikkhu Nyanatusita.

OCBS Courses

Online Courses from the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies

Pali-English Dictionary

Online version of The Pali Text Society’s Pali-English dictionary

Wisdom and Wonders Introduction to Pali

This course, Introduction to Pali by Ajahn Brahmali, is separated into 24 parts. There are approximately 20 hours of material, including lessons and exercises. The course is intended for those who wish to read content from the Pali canon, rather than those who wish to read, write and construct terms in Pali. The course uses Introduction to Pali by A. K. Warder as the core text, and covers the first 16 chapters.

Open Buddhist University: The Pāli Language: Level 1

This course doesn’t assume any prior knowledge of linguistics or classical languages, and so serves as a suitable introduction for anyone. Note that the examples will not be drawn directly from the Pāli Canon.

Grammar and Prosody

This section contains studies of the grammar and prosody of Buddhist texts, with original texts in Pāli and Sanskrit (together with extensive annotation).

Illustrated Glossary of Pāli Terms

This Glossary was originally conceived of as a way of supporting my own translations. Preparing it first of all involved gathering all instances of words in question together with their contexts. It would then usually become clear that words carried different meanings in different contexts. This was in accordance with the findings in Pāli dictionaries, which rarely consist of an explanation by a single word. The excerpts I found could then be divided into groups accordingly. Finding the correct English term for Pāli words when they are grouped on the same page turned out to be altogether easier than working with single passages or sentences and experimenting with terms in one’s head. By following this method, and sorting and resorting groups of quotes over days, months, or even years, continuously applying the find-and-replace tool, shifting backwards and forwards nearly two million words, it eventually confirmed or denied choices of my original renderings, and led to increasing confidence in my findings. Such a system of translation is only possible with computer leverage. With computers, Pāli studies have entered a new era.