Re: Paali

From: Kumara Bhikkhu
Message: 3974
Date: 2014-11-27

'Jim Anderson' jimanderson.on@... [palistudy] wrote thus at 08:18 AM 27-11-14:
<<I would translate bhāsā as speech rather than texts. >>

I think "speech" is the most literal translation of "bhāsā". Other
possibilities that come to mind are: language, dialect, vernacular, tongue.
'canonical texts' is the translation of 'pāli' and I take it that (-bhāsā)
was left untranslated by the writer of the article. I would translate
pāḷibhāsā as the language of the canonical texts rather than the Pali
language (a language called Pali). I'm follwoing Childers here.

Translating Pali words is challenging for one reason: It evolves. Pali language may be a dead language now, but it wasn't. What a word means and how it's used in the Suttas need not be the same in the Commentaries written centuries later and thousands of miles away. E.g.,
Yet, the tradition seems to "pretend" otherwise. So, it gets a bit problematic when translating a commentarial text glossing an early text.

kb
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