Pāli word syllabication rules

Q & A
1

I’m interested to know the Pāli word syllabication rules used in the k-ā in the CONTROLS tab. Could anyone please let me know? Thanks.

2

@blake wrote this, so he is probably the best one to explain.

3

Thanks Bhante Sujato.

4

Here is the javascript code which generates the regular expression which breaks words into syllables

    //In english, a pali syllable may be described as 'Zero or more consonants, a single vowel (no dipthongs in pali),
    //then optionally a consonant which ends the word, or a consonant which starts a cluster.
    //The complexity is mainly dealing with aspiration (am-ha is correct, a-bha is correct)
    //Mk2
    var cons = "(?:br|[kgcjtṭdḍbp]h|[kgcjtṭdḍp](?!h)|[mnyrlvshṅṇṃṃñḷ]|b(?![rh]))";
    var vowel = "(?:[aiueoāīū])";
    var other = "[^aiueokgcjtdnpbmyrlvshāīūṭḍṅṇṃṃñḷ]";
    return RegExp(cons + '*' + vowel + '(?:' + cons + '(?!' + vowel + '))?' + '|' + other, 'gi')

From the start of a word it looks for 0 or more consonants followed by a vowel which optionally is followed by a consonant which is not followed by a vowel. A consonant followed by a vowel would be the start of the next syllable.

5 Likes
5

Thanks Venerable Sir.