A Beginner (Non-Linguist) Guide to Learning Pali
The current status of this work is Early Draft for Review: every chapter is written, and the whole is now being read through for consistency and slips.
This is a textbook meant for those who wish to learn Pali as quickly as possible, without prior knowledge of linguistics or grammar terminology. It is based on Kaccāyana Pali Vyākaraṇam, the oldest extant Pali grammar book, and aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of Pali grammar and syntax.
Contents
Section titled “Contents”The chapters alternate between grammar and texts: each grammar chapter is followed by a discourse, read word by word, that uses what the chapter taught. The grammar chapters together cover all eight chapters of Kaccāyana; the texts run from the Buddha’s awakening through the three discourses that made the first arahants to a selection of the core teachings.
| chapter | kind | what it covers |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | why this book, and how it differs from other Pali textbooks | |
| 1 | grammar | an overview of the whole language in one chapter: the writing system and sounds, the shape of a sentence, every part of speech, the symbols the book uses |
| 2 | grammar | nāma and sandhi: how words join and split, the endings of nouns, pronouns, numbers, prefixes and particles |
| 3 | text | the Bodhikathā: the night of the awakening and dependent origination (Vinaya Mahāvagga 1.1) |
| 4 | grammar | kāraka: what each ending says a noun is doing in the sentence |
| 5 | text | the Dhammacakkappavattanasutta: the first discourse, the middle way and the four realisations (SN 56.11) |
| 6 | grammar | samāsa: compounds, the six kinds and how to split them |
| 7 | text | the Anattalakkhaṇasutta: the second discourse, the five collections are not self (SN 22.59) |
| 8 | grammar | ākhyāta: verbs, the eight sets of endings, the voices, and the verb-like forms |
| 9 | text | the Ādittapariyāyasutta: the Fire Sermon, all is burning (SN 35.28) |
| 10 | grammar | taddhita and uṇādi: words made from other words with affixes |
| Bonus | text | Pali Buddhist Texts: fifty-two short passages on the core teachings, after Johansson; my earliest translation effort, since updated to my latest understanding |
| A–P | reference | the symbols, the alphabet, a glossary of terms, the full rule tables of Kaccāyana (roots, sandhi, prefixes, endings, affixes, verbs, pronouns), and the endings by frequency |
How to read it
Section titled “How to read it”Chapter 1 is the whole language in one chapter, and it is enough to start
reading the texts with; the rest of the book is optional, and deepens what
chapter 1 introduces. After it, take the chapters in order, a grammar chapter
and the text after it, or go straight to a text and come back to the grammar
chapters as questions arise. Each grammar chapter opens with a reading path
naming the sections a first pass needs; the rest of the chapter is for looking
a form up when it comes. Every rule number in braces, {104}, links to Kaccāyana’s own
rule on kaccayana.github.io, for the reader who
wants to know why a form is what it is.
The texts are read with a dictionary open: the Digital Pāḷi Dictionary gives every form’s lemma and analysis, and the exercises are built on it.