If Pali wasn't a lingua franca of northern India, then what language did the Buddha speak?

Gunnar G�llmo <gunnargallmo@...> wrote:--- Piya Tan <libris@...> skrev:

>
> Pali however was never a "living
> spoken" language. It was a Kunstsprache...

I would like to re-formulate that:

"Pali however was never anyone's first language. It
was a Plansprache..."

For two reasons:

1. Any language with a normalized grammar and spelling
is more or less artificial; therefore, the term
"Kunstsprache" ("artificial language") for languages
like Volap�k and Esperanto tends now to be replaced by
"Plansprache" ("planned language").

2. It is perfectly possible for a planned language to
be a "living spoken" one, as can be testified by
anyone who has visited an Esperanto congress - where,
for many of its participants, the "artificial"
language is actually more "living" than their second
or third national language.

What makes me doubt that Pali was ever a "living
spoken" language, therefore, is not the fact that it
is an artificial language, and perhaps a planned one,
but the fact that it is so specialized. All Pali texts
either deal directly with Buddhist matters (like the
Tipitaka), or makes use of Buddhism for political
goals (like the Mahava"msa), or are written to get
into contact with Buddhists (like the Pali translation
of the Bible), so the language seems never to have
been meant for general use about everyday secular
life.

Gunnar


=====
gunnargallmo@...


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