Modern languages closest to Pali

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DNS
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Modern languages closest to Pali

Post by DNS »

mikenz66 wrote:Addi (mountain)
[Interesting that hima is another word that Thai borrowed from Pali: http://www.thai2english.com/dictionary/snow.html]
(from the Pali word association thread)

Yes, interesting; to extend this further, is Hindi the closest modern language to Pali? I am sure it is, but since I am not versed in Hindi, just wanted to confirm if this is correct.

I know Sanskrit is the closest of the ancient languages, but curious as to which is closest of the modern languages (still in use)?

And then after Hindi (if in fact Hindi is the closest), is Thai the second-most?
SamKR
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Re: Modern languages closest to Pali

Post by SamKR »

David N. Snyder wrote:
mikenz66 wrote:Addi (mountain)
[Interesting that hima is another word that Thai borrowed from Pali: http://www.thai2english.com/dictionary/snow.html]
(from the Pali word association thread)

Yes, interesting; to extend this further, is Hindi the closest modern language to Pali? I am sure it is, but since I am not versed in Hindi, just wanted to confirm if this is correct.

I know Sanskrit is the closest of the ancient languages, but curious as to which is closest of the modern languages (still in use)?

And then after Hindi (if in fact Hindi is the closest), is Thai the second-most?
Hello David,

I think the Indo-Aryan languages (mentioned in this wikipedia page) are the closest to Pali: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Aryan_languages" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
But it would be hard to say which one among them is the closest to Pali. Hindi is definitely not more closer than Nepali, I think. Probably Prakrit languages (eg, Magadhi) could be closest, but I'm not sure.
:anjali:
Last edited by SamKR on Sun Apr 22, 2012 9:48 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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Kim OHara
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Re: Modern languages closest to Pali

Post by Kim OHara »

I was looking at another wikipedia article - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_India - at the same time and came to more-or-less the same result: Hindi and its close relations are all descended from Sanskrit. But I couldn't tell whether one of the minor languages might actually be closer to Sanskrit than standard Hindi is.
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Re: Modern languages closest to Pali

Post by tiltbillings »

David N. Snyder wrote:)?

And then after Hindi (if in fact Hindi is the closest), is Thai the second-most?
While Thai has for obvious reasons borrowed a great deal of vocabularly from Pali and Sanskrit, it is tonal language and of an different family grouping altogether.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

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Re: Modern languages closest to Pali

Post by Goofaholix »

tiltbillings wrote: And then after Hindi (if in fact Hindi is the closest), is Thai the second-most?
While Thai has for obvious reasons borrowed a great deal of vocabularly from Pali and Sanskrit, it is tonal language and of an different family grouping altogether.[/quote]

Thai script really screws up the pronunciation of pali and while the script itself might be indian in origin the spoken language is southern china in origin.
Pronouns (no self / not self)
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Re: Modern languages closest to Pali

Post by mikenz66 »

tiltbillings wrote:
David N. Snyder wrote:)?

And then after Hindi (if in fact Hindi is the closest), is Thai the second-most?
While Thai has for obvious reasons borrowed a great deal of vocabularly from Pali and Sanskrit, it is tonal language and of an different family grouping altogether.
Yes, Thai has Pali and Sanskrit loan words, and uses an alphabet, also due to Indian influences. However, as Goofaholix says, it is basically a Southern Chinese dialect, and you get a lot of commonality between Thai and, for example, Cantonese (Actually, Cantonese is in a different languge group. However, it's much better known than other southern Chinese dialects...).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tai%E2%80% ... _languages" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

:anjali:
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Re: Modern languages closest to Pali

Post by Assaji »

Ukrainian and Russian are closest to Pali in grammar, among the European languages.

And they share the very basic vocabulary: http://dhamma.ru/paali/etimolog.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Modern languages closest to Pali

Post by Kim OHara »

Dmytro wrote:Ukrainian and Russian are closest to Pali in grammar, among the European languages.

And they share the very basic vocabulary: http://dhamma.ru/paali/etimolog.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
That fits with the idea that the cultural group which spoke Pali/Sanskrit came into India from the North-West. The countries in between India and the Ukraine - Afghanistan, etc - ought to be closer than Ukrainian and Russian.
(That's all guesswork, in case you didn't notice :embarassed: )

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Re: Modern languages closest to Pali

Post by Assaji »

Hi Kim,
Kim O'Hara wrote:I was looking at another wikipedia article - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_India - at the same time and came to more-or-less the same result: Hindi and its close relations are all descended from Sanskrit.
That's a part of Brahmanic mythology. Sanskrit didn't exist until the first centuries of Common Era. It was an artificial creation, based on Vedic language.

http://web.archive.org/web/200605010152 ... sans1.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hindi descended from Western Prakrits, while Pali is Eastern. So they are far off.

The only living Indian language descended from Eastern Prakrits is Marathi.

http://books.google.com/books?id=5eDHuc ... &lpg=PA264" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"Marathi belongs to the Indo-Aryan stock of languages. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. It is spoken by 62.48 million people in India, which constitutes about 7.38% of the total population. Marathi is written in Devanagari script. The history of Marathi goes back to about 1000 AD when a Marathi inscription dating 980 AD was found at the foot of the huge monolithic statue of Gomateshwara in Mysore. Later inscriptions such as the edict of King Aparaditya (1183 AD) and the Pandharpur inscription (1273 AD) indicate the use of Old Marathi."

http://www.culturopedia.com/Languages/o ... uages.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Best wishes, Dmytro
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Re: Modern languages closest to Pali

Post by Assaji »

Kim O'Hara wrote:That fits with the idea that the cultural group which spoke Pali/Sanskrit came into India from the North-West. The countries in between India and the Ukraine - Afghanistan, etc - ought to be closer than Ukrainian and Russian.
Once people in Gandhara (the ancient country located in the area of Afghanistan-Pakistan border) spoke Gandhari, which is quite close to Pali.

But now the languages of Afghanistan (due to the influence of Persian Empire) are Iranian - Persian and Pashto. Also related, but much more distant.

:namaste:
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Re: Modern languages closest to Pali

Post by vitellius »

Dmytro wrote:Sanskrit didn't exist until the first centuries of Common Era.
Dear Dmytro, but why?

According to the modern consensus in indology Panini (the "creator" of Classical Sanskrit) is dated to 450 BC, Katyayana and Patanjali, who developed his theory, are dated to the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC respectively. Some literary pieces in Classical and Epic Sanskrit are dated to pre-common era dates as well.
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Re: Modern languages closest to Pali

Post by daverupa »

Oleksandr wrote:
Dmytro wrote:Sanskrit didn't exist until the first centuries of Common Era.
Dear Dmytro, but why?

According to the modern consensus in indology Panini (the "creator" of Classical Sanskrit) is dated to 450 BC, Katyayana and Patanjali, who developed his theory, are dated to the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC respectively. Some literary pieces in Classical and Epic Sanskrit are dated to pre-common era dates as well.
There are two Sanskrits, Vedic and Classical, and this will be a source of confusion if it isn't clarified.
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

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Re: Modern languages closest to Pali

Post by Kim OHara »

Dmytro wrote:
Kim O'Hara wrote:That fits with the idea that the cultural group which spoke Pali/Sanskrit came into India from the North-West. The countries in between India and the Ukraine - Afghanistan, etc - ought to be closer than Ukrainian and Russian.
Once people in Gandhara (the ancient country located in the area of Afghanistan-Pakistan border) spoke Gandhari, which is quite close to Pali.

But now the languages of Afghanistan (due to the influence of Persian Empire) are Iranian - Persian and Pashto. Also related, but much more distant.

:namaste:
Okay, that makes sense.
Thanks,
Kim
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Assaji
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Re: Modern languages closest to Pali

Post by Assaji »

Dear Oleksandr,
Panini (the "creator" of Classical Sanskrit) is dated to 450 BC, Katyayana and Patanjali, who developed his theory, are dated to the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC respectively.
I well know that Panini lived before the Common Era. He started the transformation of Vedic language into something new and living, but it was just a start. He still called the language 'chandaso'.
Some literary pieces in Classical and Epic Sanskrit are dated to pre-common era dates as well.
Thanks for correction. So first Sanskrit texts date to period about 3rd and 2nd centuries BC.

It was then that the name Sanskrit (refined) was introduced, and other Indo-Aryan languages were called by a derogatory term Prakrit (unrefined). Though the new language was created artificially, and had quite a different dialectal base than Vedic language (see http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.ph ... it#p140638" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ), the Brahmanic mythology maintained that Sanskrit and Vedic are the same language. This mythology made its way into scholarship.

The similar modern language, created artificially from scratch, is modern Hebrew. It's quite different from ancient Hebrew, but for the religious purposes these languages are considered the same. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Heb ... sification" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ).

I would not touch this topic at all, if it were not for the derogatory attitude to Middle Indo-Aryan languages (so called Prakrits), including Pali, in the Brahmanic mythology.

Pali and other Middle Indo-Aryan languages originated from Old Indo-Aryan, and not from Vedic or Sanskrit (see http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=3215" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ). The 'mother Sanskrit' theory doesn't hold water at all.

Best wishes, Dmytro
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Re: Modern languages closest to Pali

Post by Mr Man »

How about the Oriya language which is spoken in Orissa (India)?
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