Dear Aleix and Petra,
Thank you for your helpful remarks which have sent me off in a different
direction. I've always taken the apostrophe (') to be a mark of elision but
it is becoming obvious that some Asians are using it differently. Another
example is: abhivandiya’ggaṁ compared to Pind's abhivandiy’aggaṃ and also
akkharehe’va instead of akkhareh’eva. The (’) is properly called the right
single quotation mark in unicode terminology and is the symbol used in both
Thitzana's and Pind's romanized Pāli. It'll take awhile before I get my head
around this as it is new to me. There are some sections in the introductory
parts of Thitzana's book which may offer an rational explanation.
Personally, I think the whole book is full of peculiarities and
unconventional English usage that are sure to fly in the face of
standardized Western conventions.
Yes, I agree that we don't need to have the apostrophe in the romanized
Pāli. We only need to have a good understanding of sandhi.
Best,
Jim
----- Original Message -----
From: "Aleix Ruiz Falqués ruydaleixo@... [palistudy]"
<palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: December 5, 2016 9:35 AM
Subject: Re: [palistudy] 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
>
>
>