> Dear Yuttodhamma,
> The last few emails concerning the Pali compounds was incredably
> informative. You seem to be quite familiar working with the Pali
> language using its own terminalogy instead of western grammatical labels.
> Because you seem to be so familiar with pali from the inside, I was
> wondering if you might know of how pali is used to express such things
> as please and thankyou, hello and goodbye. Warder seems talk briefly
> about these expressions. Such as welcome, "svagato bhagavato hotu" .
> Warder also says that a greeting might be constructed using bhavo and
> the imperative of "as". Would this be constructed as "bhavo satu"? Any
> hints would be appreciated.
>
> John Pruitt

Dear John,

Thank you for the feedback. The reason for using the Pali terminology
should be clear if you know the Thai language; it is 50% Pali/Sanskrit
anyway, so they have no problem borrowing Pali words and truncating the
final vowel to make it a Thai word. I also feel more comfortable using
these words. I found Warder's book to be terribly difficult and
eventually realized it is simply organized wrongly. I had started
studying Sanksrit in 2000 using Goldman's Devavanipraveshaka (sp?) which
was organized very much in the way one would expect - akkharavidhi,
sandhi, naama, abhayya, kiriya, samaasa (I think kitaka and taddhita
were lacking, at least we never got to them). Unfortunately, I've yet
to find an English Pali grammar that follows this tradition route, which
seems an incredibly easy and beneficial course to follow.

But on to your questions. I am still a novice, I believe, so don't let
my clever usage of terminology fool you! My first thought as to such
words as hello, goodbye, thank you, etc. is that many of them will not
be found simply due to the terse nature of the texts; the Pali is not
pulp fiction, it is pedagogical, of course. In that sense, I think many
of the little words simply wouldn't exist. We instead find stock
phrases like

"ekamidaaha.m, bhante, samaya.m yena puura.no kassapo tenupasa"nkami;
upasa"nkamitvaa puura.nena kassapena saddhi.m sammodi.m. sammodaniiya.m
katha.m saara.niiya.m viitisaaretvaa ekamanta.m nisiidi.m. ekamanta.m
nisinno kho aha.m, bhante, puura.na.m kassapa.m etadavoca.m -- 'yathaa
nu kho imaani, bho kassapa, puthusippaayatanaani ... '

the whole "hello, how are you" is summed up by "sammodi.m" = exchanged
pleasantries. When he leaves?

" bhagavato bhaasita.m abhinanditvaa anumoditvaa u.t.thaayaasanaa
bhagavanta.m abhivaadetvaa padakkhi.na.m katvaa pakkaami."

All we have is "abhivaadetvaa padakkhi.na.m katvaa", which we can assume
is silently performed. All he says before this is:

''handa ca daani maya.m, bhante, gacchaama bahukiccaa maya.m
bahukara.niiyaa''

Which is probably as close as we get to a standard phrase for goodbye.
Most of the dialogue in the dhammapada is lacking even this.

A few other points:

1)the use of the aalapana.m in the sense of hello, eg "bho" or "samma".

2) the use of sotthi for "good day" - this only in Thailand, I don't
know if the texts support this, though there is the use of "sotthi te
hotu" in a similar sense.

2) use of sattami vibhatti aakhyaata for "please", eg "pabbajjetha ma.m
bhante", "maa evamakattha"

3) use of saadhu in the sense of "please" and perhaps even "thank you".
"saadhu no bhante..." or "saadhu, bhante" (this second I only imagine
could be used as thank you, I can't find an example). Sadhu often is
used where one would expect "good-bye" as the last words in a
conversation, and indeed it is used in this way in Thailand when ending
Pali class.

Apart from this, there is one brilliant monk near Bangkok who is writing
Pali Conversation textbooks in Thai and English. He is the vice-abbot
of Wat Jaak Daeng in Samutprakan, and teaches at Wat Mahadhatu, section
25. He invited me to visit when I'm in Bangkok, and it looks like I may
have to make a trip in the next couple of weeks. I'll try to get
whatever I can from him. He's very friendly, and is currently
re-editing the Thai-Pali tipitaka as well as the Thai translation of it
(no one else dares, he said, but he is using 25 source grammar texts to
back every edit he makes. In the abhidhamma alone he says he found over
1000 mistakes).

And perhaps there is a scholar on this list with a better answer than mine.

Best wishes,

Yuttadhammo (Phra Noah)