Are Pali and Nepali distinctive languages?
5 Answers
Kanwalpal Singh Flora, Some interest in Languages
Yes.
And i have little knowledge of both languages, albeit superficial.
Nepali is still a alive and official language of Nepal, Sikkim and Nepali has also been declared as Official Language in Darjeeling and Kurseong sub-divisions of the district of Darjeeling, West Bengal.
I wrote about Nepali earlier.
Its spoken roughly in this region: Nepal, Sikkim and Northern Bengal Region.
Nepali is a Indo-Aryan language, and anyone with good grasp of Hindi and Sanskrit will be able to see that.
Pali is a extinct language in daily usage form, more like Sanskrit is in everyday usage. Pali was the Language of the Magadh and it was a Middle Indo Aryan language.
It is widely studied because it is the language of the Pali Canon, and is the sacred language of some religious texts of Hinduism and all texts of Theravada Buddhism. The earliest archaeological evidence of the existence of canonical Pali comes from Pyu-City States inscriptions found in Burma dated to the mid 5th to mid 6th century CE.
Basically, Pali is to Theravada Buddhism , what Sanskrit is to Hinduism.
Pali and Sanskrit are also closely related, and i see it all the time.
And since Buddhism declined in India, and Theravada is the dominant form of Buddhism practiced in Thailand(and few other countries like Sri Lanka), Pali is learned in Thailand just like Sanskrit is learned in India.
Magadh today would be around the Indian States of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, just below Nepal. So, it would be interesting to know if Buddhists in Nepal have a better grasp of Pali, though its Tibetan Buddhism which is more followed in Nepal, which has Sanskrit and not Pali as the liturgical language.
Magadh in 6th-4th Century BC.
I know some Nepali because i grew up around Darjeeling/Siliguri area and i know some Pali, because i have been chanting Pali Canon chants for last 10+ years, though without knowing much meaning, usually going by just translations.
Now we see some examples of Pali and Nepali,
Pali :
Sample text in Pāli (Romanized script)
Manopubbangamā dhammā, manosetthā manomayā; Manasā ce padutthena, bhāsati vā karoti vā, Tato nam dukkhamanveti, cakkam'va vahato padam.
Translation
Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox.
Same sentence in Nepali, using Google Translate,
Nepali:
Manakō sabai mānasika avasthāharū pahilē dēkhinchan. Mana unīharūkō mukhya hō; tinīharū sabai dimāga hun. Yadi ēka aśud'dha dimāga saṅga ēka vyakti bōlcha vā pīḍita kāma gardacha usalā'ī bvām̐sōkō khuṭṭā pachyā'una pahiyā jastai uhām̐lā'ī pachyā'um̐cha.
Some words which anyone knowing any Indo-Aryan language can recognize in both are:
Man, Mano, Dhamma, Maya, Dukkha, Cakka(Chakra), Padam(Pad in Sanskrit, as in Foot).
But one can also see, they are clearly not Mutually Intelligible.
No comments:
Post a Comment