--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, "flrobert2000" <flrobert2000@...> wrote:

>
> Dear Mahinda,
>
> Sorry if I might have bored people with that verse. However, I

must

> say that I found the discussion triggered by those verses really
> interesting, especially the part on Pali metrics and your last
> message which gives a very detailed summary of that text.
>
> At least it taught me how to count the syllables in Pali verses

and

> this leads to one last question. Why do we count as long the

vowels

> a, i, u preceded by double consonnants and does this mean one has

to

> actually lengthen them when one pronounces them?

In both Pali and Skt, a vowel followed by a consonant is counted as
a long syllable: a single short vowel is a syllabic unit; when you
add another sound to it it becomes 2 units. In actual
pronounciation we can see that this makes sense.

> you would agree that these was maybe not the easiest lines to ask

a

> beginner student in Pali to translate, especially when taken out

of

> context!

Quite so. In fact I was wondering why Ven. Buddhadatta included this
stz in that exercise. Even worse was the inclusion of a stz from the
Jaataka Paali
(chamaassasanto etc.) which someone presented to the group as a
difficult case, from another beginners' text. There, there were
problems on such a grand scale that I did not even want to enter
into its discussion.

So, since some of us did have fun unravelling the HVV verse, let's
be happy that it is now satisfactorily concluded.

Mahinda Palihawadana