Re: dhamma'mamalaṁ

 

Dear Jim,

I have seen a similar thing in other texts recently. I'm not sure whether we can call it a mistake or not. I do not know the actual reason. Maybe some Burmese editors cannot understand what is the exact function of the apostrophe in the Roman script, as this is not a sign that we find in the Theravada scripts. So maybe some editors think that it is a kind of syllable breaker (which is what looks like in the regular cases if you ignore the fact that there is an elision, e.g. tato 'ham). That is why the syllable is broken as dham-ma-ma-ma-lam, and if we separate the two words: dhamma mamalam. The apostrophe indicates that a sandhi was originally there but it has been artificially broken, as in tatoham. That explains also the Buddhañ ca, ñca being originally a single akkhara, the editor wants to tell us that he has artificially broken it. Do you think that's possible?
Of course this is not the standard way, but I think the reasons of this practice stem from a misunderstanding of a sign that does not belong to the written culture of Pali. I personally defend that we should never use apostrophe in romanised Pali. But this is another discussion!

Best,

Aleix  

2016-12-05 20:58 GMT+07:00 'Jim Anderson' jimanderson.on@... [palistudy] <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>:

 

Dear all,

Does anyone know why an apostrophe would be inserted in the following
reading:

Dhamma'mamalaṁ --- from A. Thitzana's Kaccāyana Pāli Vyākaraṇaṁ, Vol. 2, p.
117. Also, Buddhañ'ca and throughout the romanized text.

Compare with O.H. Pind's romanization (p. 1 PTS, 2013) :

Buddhañ ca dhammam amalaṃ . . .

Best wishes,

Jim