Thanks Stephen.
I always had this notion that somewhere in the world there are
still old school Theravadin monks organized into teams who regularly
recite the entire tipitaka as a way of preserving the teaching rather
than relying on printed scripture. If such is the case, I would really
like to record that recitation. The problem with that is a recitation
done just for the sake of refreshing/retaining the tipitaka in human
memory is probably recited too quickly to be useful as a definitive
pronunciation guide. For that, the best would be a slower paced
enunciated recitation.
For a long time I ignored diacritics, macrons in the pali text,
focusing mostly on just learning particular vocabulary of interest to my
meditative practice. Now that I've reached a tipping point where I've
mentally committed to really learning Pali, grammar, pronunciation etc,
I've found that (for me) understanding pronunciation rules is key to
remembering the correct placement of diacritics, macrons. Otherwise, to
me they are just random scribbles that obscure readable roman script.
For example, "Ānanda" sounds like and is spelled the way I hear it
pronounced according to beginning pali rules, so it makes it easy to
remember that a macron goes only over the first "A", and not the other 2.
I realize that the nature of spoken human languages is such that
it's never going to have a short, elegant set of rules that can explain
everything. But if I can learn the fewest number of simple rules to get
about 80% of the tipitaka pronounced correctly, that will suffice. In
the Buddha's time I imagine monks living in different regions and
speaking different dialects probably had to deal with syllables being
emphasized/stressed differently than they were accustomed to, or just
pronounced with an regional accent that took time to decipher. From a
practical point of view, I think it would be more useful to learn how to
pronounce English like the Americans rather than the Queen's English,
since England has a population of about 50M compared to 300M of the
U.S. But for the most part English and Americans have no difficulty
communicating in their respective spoken languages. By that analogy, I
probably need not concern myself too much with most of these
pronunciation questions that perplex. Worst case, I'll just sound like
William Shatner reading his lines. It will sound funny, but it will
still be comprehensible.

-Frank

On 1/21/2011 7:41 PM, Stephen Hodge wrote:
>
> Dear Frank,
>
> > 4. When a native pali speaker asks a question . . .
>
> There are no native speakers of Pali.
>
> But, in general, you might think of following the pronunciation rules
> of a
> North India language, such as Hindi for the same sounds / letters (but
> not
> Bengali). After all, these are descendants of MIAs like Pali.
>
> Best wishes,
> Stephen Hodge
>



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