Re: Romanised paali character sets

Despite of what I have written, I do not mean to sound pedantic nor fanatical.

Many popular books or literature for the general public do not use the diacritics for
Buddhist terms. Even the big dictionaries (like Merriam Websters) contain Buddhist
words (like Nirvana) without the diacritics. This is when the word has naturally
entered into the English-speaking conscious and we are clear what they refer to.
(Please do not read too much about my remark "entered into...consciousness": see
interesing reading in Blackmore's "Consciousness: An introduction".)

I do not advocate a jihad or crusade for diacritics.

However when we are referring to the Pali texts and scholars, students and serious
seekers, it is wise and profitable to know exactly what words we are reading before
we are able read between the lines and transcend the black marks on white paper.

Happy New Year and Sukhi

Piya
�
�

"Dennis W. K. Khong" wrote:

> Hmmm. Does that mean that dropping diacritical marks was a bad idea
> from the start? It was done as a result of a technical constraint.
> Then path dependency kicks in and we are almost stuck with these "bad
> spellings". Perhaps we should emphasise this aspect more and start a
> campaign to rid Dhamma publications of non-diacritical (sloppy) paali
> terms.
>
> Dennis
>
> --- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, Gunnar G�llmo <gunnargallmo@...> wrote:
> >� --- libris <libris@...> skrev:
> > >
> > > Dear Dennis & friends,
> > >
> > > Reading Pali is like reading a musical score:
> > > actually Pali is musical in its own way. Each
> > > diacriticised character is a letter in itself. If
> > > the diacritics are removed, the result is clearly
> > > bad spelling! This is like removing all the vowels
> > > from the English alphabet.
> > >
> > Or like removing all the accents from French.
> >
> > Gunnar
> >
> > =====
> > gunnargallmo@...
>
>
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