Pāli language and computers

Pāli is the language of the scriptures of Theravada Buddhism, (the Pāli Canon or the Tipitaka in Pāli), which were written in Sri Lanka during the 1st century BC. Pāli has been written in a variety of scripts. In this article I'm focusing only on romanized version of Pāli language.

EXAMPLE

There is no Pāli writing. Just different pāli scripts from different countries.

Pāli romanized alphabet:

a ā i ī u ū e o ṃ k kh g gh ṅ c ch j jh ñ ṭ ṭh ḍ ḍh ṇ t th d dh n p ph b bh m y r l ḷ v s h

1.1 vowels (sara) and consonants (vyañjana)

a ā i ī u ū e o aṃ iṃ uṃ A Ā I Ī U Ū E O AṂ IṂ UṂ

k kh g gh ṅ c ch j jh ñ ṭ ṭh ḍ ḍh ṇ t th d dh n p ph b bh m y r l v s h ḷ

K KH G GH Ṅ C CH J JH Ñ Ṭ ṬH Ḍ ḌH Ṇ T TH D DH N P PH B BH M Y R L V S H Ḷ

manner of articulation	guttural	palatal	cerebral	dental	labial
voiceless unaspirated	k	c	ṭ	t	p
voiceless aspirated	kh	ch	ṭh	th	ph
voiced unaspirated	g	j	ḍ	d	b
voiced aspirated	gh	jh	ḍh	dh	bh
nasal	ṅ	ñ	ṇ	n	m
semivowel		y	r, ḷ	l	v*
spirant / sibilant	h			s

1.3 Change (vyaya), inflection

subject to inflection:

• nāma: noun, adjective, pronoun, numeral

• ākhyaāta: verb

not subject to inflection:

• upasagga: preposition, verbal prefix

• nipāta: particle, conjunction, adverb

nouns and pronouns have 3 cases

1. subject

2. objects (direct, indirect, of preposition)

3. possessive

8 cases in Pali

Pali case	English case
nominative	subject
acusative	direct object
instrumental	object of a prep.
dative	object of a prep.
ablative	object of a prep.
genetive	possessive
locative	object of a prep.
vocative	subject

9 tenses and moods

1. present

2. perfect

3. periphrastic future

4. future

5. imperative

6. imperfect

7. optative

8. aorist

9. conditional

Characteristics of conjugated verbal forms

term	translation	Commments
dhātu	root	can denote an activity or a condition
paccaya	ending	used to refer to both verbal and nominal endings
vikaraṇa	suffix, infix	can be placed after or in the root before an ending
akārāgama	augment	applies to some aorists and the conditional
abbhāsa	reduplication	applies to some verbs and some derivative forms

They can have...

• 3 times

  1. past

  2. future

  3. present

• time unexpressed (imperative and optative)

• 3 persons

  1. first (he/she/it/they)

  2. second (you)

  3. third (I/we)

• 3 factors of action

  1. agent/subject

  2. object

  3. state

• 2 numbers

  1. Singular

  2. Plural

• None of the 3 genders (participles do have gender, because they have, and decline, as adjectives)

RESOURCES