________________
Notes on the pronunciation of Pāli
Pāli was a dialect of northern India in the time of Gotama the Buddha. The earliest known script in which it was written was the Brahmi script of the third century B.C. After that it was preserved in the scripts of the various countries where Pāli was maintained. In Roman script, the following set of diacritical marks has been established to indicate the proper pronunciation.
The alphabet consists of forty-one characters: eight vowels, thirty-two consonants and one nasal sound (niggahita).
Vowels (a line over a vowel indicates that it is a long vowel):
as the "a" in father
a as the "a" in about
- as the "i" in mint
- as the "u" in put
1
u
-
e is pronounced as the "ay" in day, except before double consonants when it is pronounced as the "e" in bed: deva, metta;
o is pronounced as the "o" in no, except before double consonants when it is pronounced slightly shorter: loka, photthabba.
Consonants are pronounced mostly as in English.
g - as the "g" in get
c soft like the "ch" in church
V - a very soft -v- or -w
All aspirated consonants are pronounced with an audible expulsion of breath following the normal unaspirated sound.
a
i as the "ee" in see as the "oo" in cool
ū -
th - not as in 'three'; rather 't' followed by 'h' (outbreath) ph- not as in 'photo'; rather 'p' followed by 'h' (outbreath)
-
The retroflex consonants: t, th, d, dh, n are pronounced with the tip of the tongueturned back; and I is pronounced with the tongue retroflexed, almost a combined 'rl' sound.
The nasal sounds:
The dental consonants: t, th, d, dh, n are pronounced with the tongue touching the upper front teeth.
n- guttural nasal, like -ng- as in singer
ň - as in Spanish señor
n
m- as in hung, ring
-
with tongue retroflexed
Jain Education International
Double consonants are very frequent in Pali and must be strictly pronounced as long consonants, thus -nn- is like the English 'nn' in "unnecessary".
20
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
