Dear Bhante,

I think the widely available paritta chantings are a bit misleading as they
almost tend to be "artistic"...

I'm not sure about the monks you're referring to, but generally the

> Sri-lankans pronounces Pali quite accurately (compared to Thais and Burmese
> in general), except for a few oddities. Here are some of them that I can
> think of now:
>
> * Double 'g's are pronounced as a nasal guttural sound. E.g., "maggo is
> pronounced as "mang-go". (Thais and Burmese don't do this.)
>

? Never heard a Sri Lankan say "mango for maggo" :-)

> * The short 'a' at the end of a word is sounded as a weak "er". E.g.,
> "kamma" as "kammer". (Thais and Burmese don't do this.)
>

yes, the Thai/Burmese pronounce it almost as ā ... (from an Indian
standpoint).

> * When it comes to chanting, many of them tend to drag to last syllable at
> the end of the line or sentence. (The monks of the forest tradition seem to
> avoid this though. Some Thais do this sometimes, esp. at the end of the
> chanting.)
>

yes, unfortunately, I think esp. the temple chanting was influenced by
muslim (?) chanting (or some other influence), at least that what it sounds
like (the dragging you mention)... a trend which seems to have crept into
chanting in the last 50 years... A very interesting alternative is
Dhammaruwan's
style of chanting.<http://theravadin.wordpress.com/2008/08/09/chanting-in-the-6th-century/>
Also
forest monks tend to avoid any singing style, an example for which
would be Bhante
Silagavesi's chanting<http://nissarana.org/index.php?option=com_rubberdoc&view=category&id=14:pali-pirith-chanting&Itemid=57>
.

But rather than chanting, just reading the texts gives an even clearer
pronunciation, IMHO. So Frank's initial idea is not bad. Would be great to
find someone who would like to do that.

much metta,

Lennart


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