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How Many Sounds are in Pāli?

Schism, Identity and Ritual in the Theravāda saṅgha

Journal of Indian Philosophy volume 42, pages 511–550 (2014)Cite this article

Abstract

This article highlights the central importance of Pāli phonetics in Theravāda Buddhism. In doing so, I focus on a single yet fundamental point of contention regarding the number of sounds in the Pāli language from the twelfth to fifteenth century. I argue that this debate on the number of sounds was of central concern due to the importance of Pāli pronunciation in the ritual sphere, the development of new regional monastic identities, and the introduction of regional scripts. In tracing this debate between two competing systems of Pāli grammar I show that these developments in the phonetic description of the Pāli language reveal the use and adaptation of Sanskritic phonetics in order to differentiate Pāli from Sanskrit, the Prakrits, and its surrounding vernaculars.

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  1. Singapore University of Technology and Design, 20 Dover Drive, Singapore, 138682, Singapore

    Alastair Gornall

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In this article, I translate both ‘akkhara’ (S. akṣara) and ‘vaṇṇa’ (S. varṇa) with the term ‘sound’, a short form for ‘speech-sound’. While both ‘akkhara’ and ‘vaṇṇa’ are often translated as ‘letter’, in the phonetic discussions of Pāli grammatical literature these terms mean the sounds of speech rather than the graphic representation of speech. This is not to say that orthography does not have a bearing on the discussions of speech-sounds, but that it is not primarily signified by either ‘akkhara’ or ‘vaṇṇa’. In addition, the terms ‘akkhara’ and ‘vaṇṇa’ in the discussions of Pāli phoneticians refer to a syllable consisting of a vowel or a consonant with an inherent vowel, e.g. ‘a’, ‘ā’, ‘ka’ and ‘kā’. Different vowels may be combined with a consonant base to make an akkhara, e.g. ‘ka’, ‘kā’, ‘ki’, ‘kī’. In this regard, Pāli does not have an ‘alphabet’ but a syllabary. However, the Pāli syllabary, i.e. the enumeration of akkharas, does not include every possible combination of consonants and inherent vowels. The Pāli syllabary only counts the vowels (a, ā, i, ī, u, ū, e, [ē], o, [ō]) and the consonants with an inherent vowel ‘a’ (ka, kha, ga, gha, ṅa etc.).

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Gornall, A. How Many Sounds are in Pāli?. J Indian Philos 42, 511–550 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10781-014-9221-z

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Keywords

  • Theravāda
  • Pāli
  • Sri Lanka
  • Phonetics
  • Buddhism
  • Ritual
  • Cosmopolitanism
  • Grammar
  • Vyākaraṇa
  • Grammatisation