When I was a monk in Thailand some 40 years back, I remember my abbot (the
current Somdet Phutthacharn of Wat Srakes) saying when he went to Sri Lanka,
he knew no Sinhala, and the Sinhalese knew no Thai. So they communicated in
Pali.

Furthermore, Pali is not a "dead" language (like hieroglyphics, which nobody
uses).
Pali is commonly use by living cultures. Sometimes it is called a
Kunstsprache,
which I think literally translates as "speech for art" a sort of artificial
language
specially devised to preserve the Buddha's Teachings.

Metta,

Piya

On Jan 25, 2008 2:59 PM, Jon Fernquest <bayinnaung@...> wrote:

> In a previous thread (History of the word "Aryan") Piya Tan suggests:
>
> "I think we should stop speaking English here, and start using Pali. After
>
> all this is a Pali website."
>
> I would like to do this, but has a spoken Pali primer ever been written?
>
> I once asked a former monk friend of mine how to say some simple
> phrases and even though he can read Pali very well, he wasn't able to
> produce spoken Pali. Does anyone speak Pali anymore? When did they in
> the past?
>
> This reminds me of a **Pali phrase book** used to help beginners
> communicate in Pali, that I found at a bookseller in Yangon, Burma
> several years ago, that was published in Sri Lanka.
>
> Has anyone ever seen such a thing or know where it can be obtained?
>
> Sincerely,
> Jon
>
>
>



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