Earlier this year, or was it late last year, I mentioned I had created a Pali grammar dictionary which I used for reading Pali Texts. It is shamelessly based on DPD’s grammar dictionary, but I extended it to output grammatical symbols corresponding to my Pali textbook. It also provides root analysis and meaning, so it’s kind of a “one stop shop all you need is this” dictionary, which then allows me to turn off all the other dictionaries when I want to focus.
Here is how my dictionary compares with DPD’s grammar dict on the word “Buddha”
I did say at one stage I may provide a version of it for download. At that time I thought I needed a few days to clean it up. Those were infamous last words. As some of you know, I accepted a casual teaching position at university earlier this year at the request of a friend. Soon I was teaching 1, 2, 3, then 4 different subjects which basically took all my time and the academic year only ended in December.
Here is a photo of me and students from one of my classes (Advanced Professional Practice) - the students are super happy because I basically taught their very last class on their last day of uni, after that they will graduate with masters degrees:
Anyway, I finally have time to work on the Pali dictionary and it is now available for download if you want to try it with GoldenDict-NG:
The source is available if you want to tweak it:
My apologies for the poor quality of the code. I barely know Python, so a lot of this was done with experimentation and error. My first attempt was horrible, I ended up modifying bits of DPD all over the place. This version is at least self contained.
It’s wonderful you’ve dedicated time and resources to the new dictionary . Thank you.
I have never learned those grammatical symbols so I would not know how to use them. I’d be interested in a brief primer on those when you get a chance (in this thread if possible).
I use them whenever I am studying Pali texts, as I find them a convenient shorthand to understand the role of a word in a sentence.
I haven’t forgotten about finishing the textbook either, or my Kaccayana translation. I am hoping to translate a trio of related Pali grammar textbooks (including Balavatara and Rupasiddhi) and I’ve started on all three of them, but my teaching duties have so far prevented me from making much progress. I do hope to some work before start of trimester next year, so watch this space!
You’ll find if you go to my web site I have made initial progress on the Balavatara:
I also want to complete revamp that website and restructure it completely. I developed it using Hugo during COVID lockdown. At that time I barely know any HTML or CSS so I wanted to use something “simple” and I was recommended Hugo. Since then I have found Hugo extremely difficult to learn and very very frustrating to use, so I really want to move away from Hugo in the near future.
!
. Thank you.