Tuesday, July 7, 2020

☸🦍 fun pali pronunciation lesson: tapping with the fingers as a metronome to distinguish between long and short syllables.


audio for the lesson:

♦ buddhaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāmi.
(to the) Buddha (as a) refuge (I) go.

On the audio, when I recite this carefully select phrase, each finger tap on the table is equivalent to one long syllable in time.

Two short syllables = 1 long syllable in time. 
I selected this phrase because the number of short consecutive syllables are even (except for the 'i' in the last word gacchami). This is so the metronome tapping stays in sync.

The purpose of this exercise is to train you to get a feel of timing for 2 shorts = 1 long temporally. In practice, you don't have to get the timing perfect, but the more accurate you are, the more easily pali speakers can communicate with each other without ambiguity and confusion. Imagine during an arahant council and everyone is reciting the suttas they know in unison to verify the fidelity of transmission. You don't want to be the oddball out of sync that keeps interrupting the group chant. 

Breaking down the syllables word by word:
bud - long
dham - long
sa - short
ra - short
nam - long
gac - long
chā - long
mi - short

Remember the 4 simple rules of pronunciation? 
☸🦍 pali pronunciation, quick and easy, 4 simple ...

In the phrase above, pronounce every letter you see.
Note that a long syllable does not have to contain a 'long' vowel.
The long 'ā' vowel has a bar on top of the 'a'.
The short 'a' vowel does not.
Similarly: 'ī' is long, 'i' is short vowel.
Similarly: 'ū' is long, 'u' is short vowel.
The remaining two vowels are tricky: 'e' and 'o' are always long vowels, even though they have no bar on top of them. This is just a dumb rule we have to live with because the people who designed the romanized pali script decided that was the way it was going to be. Perhaps they thought saving ink on the printing presses from not having the extra bars on top of the 'o' and 'e' would save money? Who knows. 

So the basic of the 4 rules of pronunciation is, pronounce every letter you see, including the 'h', know the difference between long and short vowels, long and short syllables, treat multiple consonants like speed bumps, and listen to accurate pali audio to learn from.

My pronunciation is very competent on timing and fundamentals, but not up to par on the more subtle things that Americans have trouble discerning from native Indian or Sri Lankan vocals. Ideally use Ven. Jiv's audio samples whenever possible on lucid24.org. He's the gold standard. Other Sri Lankan bhikkhus and bhikkhunis are excellent, but sometimes they get a little carried away with musicality and it can be hard for a beginner to know what is being musical and what is the actual vowel supposed to sound like. 



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