After Warder

Explore the ancient language of the Tipitaka and Theravāda commentaries
Reductor
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Re: After Warder

Post by Reductor »

Hey,

Just found that you can buy a pdf version of Buddhavacana from pariyatti.org . Cost: 5 bucks.
Reductor
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Location: Alberta, Canada

Re: After Warder

Post by Reductor »

Regarding my original post, below is the pertinent bit from the email I received from Bhikkhu Bodhi. And no, Tilt, I didn't email him - I wrote him (I swear!). I did, however, include my email at the bottom of my letter, and will assume the Bhikkhu Bodhi made a small slip.
BhikkhuBodhi wrote:Dear Michael,

Thank you for your email. I am hesitant to recommend Warder's book to a relative beginner in study of Pali. The title is a bit misleading. I would retitle it: "Introduction to Pali for Students of Sanskrit, LInguistics, and Philology." I used it myself to learn Pali--back in 1973--but I recognize its faults, mainly two: (1) the explanations use highly technical linguistic terminology, opaque to one who doesn't come from a background in linguistics; (2) W uses rather obscure and curious passages from the Digha Nikaya for his reading exercises, texts that often relate to the core dhamma teachings only tangentially (like the Buddha's debates with the brahmins, early Buddhist cosmology, narratives and extended similes, etc.).

I have been teaching a weekly introductory course on Pali here at Chuang Yen Monastery. The students are mostly the resident monks and nuns, though a few lay students attend, and a few people participate through ooVoo. I have been using Lily De Silva's Pali Primer, which is available online. The book is boring (I admit), but it provides in a nutshell the basic grammatical structures--the declension system of nouns and the conjugation of verbs--that one normally needs as a foundation for learning this language.
I was just now looking at the Pali course recorded by Bhikkhu Bodhi in 2003. While doing that I checked the "Words from the teacher" page, where I found the very quote that I had half remembered. Also included there is B. Bodhi's preferred course in teaching Pali.

Anyway, there you have it.
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Kare
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Re: After Warder

Post by Kare »

Reductor wrote:Regarding my original post, below is the pertinent bit from the email I received from Bhikkhu Bodhi. And no, Tilt, I didn't email him - I wrote him (I swear!). I did, however, include my email at the bottom of my letter, and will assume the Bhikkhu Bodhi made a small slip.
BhikkhuBodhi wrote:Dear Michael,

Thank you for your email. I am hesitant to recommend Warder's book to a relative beginner in study of Pali. The title is a bit misleading. I would retitle it: "Introduction to Pali for Students of Sanskrit, LInguistics, and Philology." I used it myself to learn Pali--back in 1973--but I recognize its faults, mainly two: (1) the explanations use highly technical linguistic terminology, opaque to one who doesn't come from a background in linguistics; (2) W uses rather obscure and curious passages from the Digha Nikaya for his reading exercises, texts that often relate to the core dhamma teachings only tangentially (like the Buddha's debates with the brahmins, early Buddhist cosmology, narratives and extended similes, etc.).
I have seen criticism of the Warder book in this vein from time to time, and frankly - I do not understand it. When I started learning Pali back in 1972, I used this book and had no teacher. I had no special linguist training, no Sanskrit and no philology. I just had Warder - and I had an open mind and a will to study. The explanations in Warder made Pali transparent to me. It is true that there was not so much of the core dhamma in the textbook passages. But is that really a problem? You want to use the book to learn the language. Once you can read Pali, you have no problem at all finding core dhamma passages.
Mettāya,
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Dhammanando
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Re: After Warder

Post by Dhammanando »

Bhikkhu Bodhi wrote:(1) the explanations use highly technical linguistic terminology, opaque to one who doesn't come from a background in linguistics;
But whose opacity may be readily dispelled by consulting Wikipedia's fine entries for linguistic topics:

Phonetics Topics

Linguistic Morphology

Grammatical Cases

Grammatical Tenses

Grammatical Voices

Grammatical Moods

Grammatical Gender

Grammatical Number

Syntax
Yena yena hi maññanti,
tato taṃ hoti aññathā.


In whatever way they conceive it,
It turns out otherwise.
(Sn. 588)
pabhaata
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Joined: Sat Dec 07, 2013 8:35 am

Re: After Warder

Post by pabhaata »

i would recommend 'A new course in reading Pali' by James W. Gair and W.S. Karunatillake. it is more simple and concise than Warder. the quotes from the canon are also well chosen and inspiring.
later, when you are comfortable with reading the main pali texts - begin to consult the commentaries when you have trouble comprehending some difficult term. that is why the commentaries were written - in order to explain some difficult phrases and terms in the main canon.
Sylvester
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Re: After Warder

Post by Sylvester »

I suppose after Warder, one can delve into the exotica presented in Wijesekera's "Syntax of the Cases in the Pali Nikayas". A very difficult book to procure, but very rewarding in its exploration of the different senses of the cases. If you have already signed up, you can read a review here - https://www.academia.edu/503951/Book_Re ... li_Nikayas

It's apparently the last word on Pali case syntax.
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