Indian, Thai, Sri Lankan, Burmese: how accurate is their pronunciation of pāḷi

 

Re: How to easily learn to pronounce Pali words?

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Unread post by mikenz66 » Wed Apr 24, 2024 12:40 pm

Here's Ven Dhammanando's comments on the matter:

Dhammanando wrote: ↑Sat Oct 26, 2019 2:06 am

Srilankaputra wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2019 10:21 pmBhante,

How close do you think the current pronunciation of pali to the original?

Assuming that the phonetic descriptions given in the ancient Pali grammars are correct, then the modern way of pronunciation that comes closest to this is that of Indian and Bangladeshi bhikkhus. Typically they'll get all the sounds correct except the palatals ca and ja.

After the Indians the next best are the Sinhalese. Their main mistake is either to fail to aspirate the aspirated consonants (e.g., dha as da, ṭha as ṭa) or to hypercorrect by pronouncing non-aspirates as aspirates, e.g., mettā as metthā.

As for modern SE Asian ways of pronunciation, these are all very poor, with at least half of the consonants mispronounced. The pronunciation of the Thais and Cambodians is about equally bad; that of the Laotians is a bit worse and that of the Burmese the worst of all.

The typical pronunciation of an English-speaking Western bhikkhu will contain about the same number of mistakes as that of the Thais. Our main ones are not bothering to distinguish retroflex and dental consonants, but realizing both types as alveolars, aspirating ka, ta and pa, incorrect syllabification when a vagga consonant is followed by an avagga, turning doubled consonants into single ones (e.g., dhammaŋ as /damaŋ/), and turning the vowel in unstressed syllables into a schwa (e.g., a British Buddhist will probably pronounce buddha as /'budə/, while an American will do so as /'būdə/).

[His warning about the back-reading of Sinhala meanings into Pali of some Sri Lankan teachers
(viewtopic.php?p=421520#p421520) is also pertinent. Speaking a language that has evolved from languages related to Pali over a couple of thousand years doesn't necessarily make one an expert on Pali nuances.]

I've found it interesting to be currently doing weekly sits with a Sri Lankan group, where we also chant homages, precepts, and the Metta Sutta. I'm used to Thai chanting and don't have to make too many pronunciation adjustments apart from modifying the trailing "a"s into "err"s (Sambuddhaserr), but my ear for the minutiae is not great. A big difference is pitch. Thai people generally back-read Thai tone rules, giving predictable pitches. From my perspective (I may be wrong and they may follow some convnetion) the Sri Lankans appear to vary their pitch quite randomly, which can lead to a certain amount of dissonance. They also go awefully fast!

To me, chanting is a powerful community bond, so I make an effort to fit into whichever group I find myself in.