Hi Nina,

>I think when pronouncing aloud, it begins with what
>is in the back of the throat, but I cannot quite make this our for e and o.

The vowels a > uu go from back to front, then e and o start a new
back to front series (the 'dipthongs'). Similarly, the consonants
start again at the back.

>Also the consonants give me trouble. Ka, yes, but the others?

Which others? Do you mean kha, ga, gha, ^na? These all share the same
point of articulation with ka, but vary in terms of voiced/unvoiced,
aspirated/unaspirated and nasal.

Or do you mean the later groups of five? ca, .ta, ta, pa ? These have
their place of articulation successively farther forward in the
mouth, ending with the labials, pa, ba etc which are formed at the
lips.

Then the semivowels ya, ra, la, va go again back to front. And
finally the sibilants, s, h. .l and .m are in there somewhere too,
don't remember offhand where.

>Some people have trouble with the alphabethical order in the dictionnary,
>but it helps to know the why.

This was also my experience before I had learnt the alphabetical
order. I would start flipping through the PED and look about as far
along in the dictionary as I thought the consonant was produced in
the mouth. It worked pretty well.

>
>I do not know whether there are rules which of the ya-va-ma-da-na-ta-ra-laa
>is inserted where? But we shall see in the payoga in the texts.

There are some specific examples, for example the word puthu,
optionally inserts 'g' before vowels. (puthag eva). This is from Kc
42. This is clearly a remainder from the original sanskrit version of
the word p.rthak. In fact many cases of what in traditional Pali
grammar is called consonant insertion, can actually be cases where
underlying phonemes from the sanskrit form make their presence felt.
(something very similar happens in french, though there the 'silent'
consonants are written out). So it's not actually entirely random or
free. I think a lot of later Pali authors were familiar with
sanskrit, so they understood this, even if it wasn't always
articulated in the rules.

I'll look at the translations when I have a bit more time. Thanks for
the response!

best regards,

/Rett