Florent wrote: "I will also try to find out how it has been translated
in Burmese."
The "nissaya" genre of Burmese literature
(also genre of Mon, Yuan/Chiang Mai literature),
essentially a phrase by phrase interleaved translation
of Pali into Burmese, addresses this exact issue.
Some of these works exist in published book form
(listed in front of Stewart's Burmese dictionary)
but most I suspect are only in palm leaf.
Something to check for in Peter Skilling's
palm leaf text library in Nonthaburi.
The following book in French supposedly
describes the genre in detail.
Has anyone had a chance to read it?
Pruitt, William
Etude linguistique de nissaya birmans:
traduction commentee de textes bouddhiques
Paris :
Presses de l'Ecole francaise d'Extreme-Orient,
1994
Monographies ; no. 174
Tipitaka. Vinayapitaka. Suttavibhanga.
Patimokkha. Bhikkhupatimokkha. Burmese
Buddhist literature, Burmese --
Translations from Pali
ISBN 2 85 539 774 X
http://lib.sac.or.th/search/
I believe that Justin McDaniels is coming out with a book this year
that addresses nissaya for Yuan/Chiang Mai language.
Anyway what I am reading from these discussions is a parallel
Pali-English corpus is needed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_text
I'm doing a parallel alignment/translation of my favorite Jataka,
the Mahasuddasana Jataka, no 95.
[Also an extensive and complete master syllabus for Pali that has all
grammar points systematically arranged, perhaps in flow chart form,
for example, the locative case ending on a word may indicate a
locative absolute phrase which requires a noun object, no object?,
then possible ellipsis, must substitute object, find object, which
object is most reasonable choice?....BTW the quickest way to come up
to speed on locative absolute phrases seems to be Yong Peng's answers
to exercises chapter 16, Warder, what I will be quizzing myself with
while walking to work this week, thanks Yong Peng!]
[Also Thanks for the references to those grammars]
With metta
Jon Fernquest