Thanks for sharing; I was awaiting further work of his. I am sure Bryan Levman (or someone else) is going to respond one way or the other.
[…] his pitching it terms of “the language the Buddha spoke”, will more or less ensure that he is not taken seriously by professional scholars […].
Let’s await his argumentation. There are and always have been reputable scholars in the field who argued that Pāḷi was spoken by the Buddha. I have summarized some of the main scholarly opinions in the introduction to my Pāḷi grammar ((PDF) Māgadhabhāsā (Pāḷi) – A Compendious Grammar on the Language of Pāḷi Buddhism (Second Edition, Revised) | Ṭhānuttamo Anāgārika - Academia.edu); here the relevant portion:
Pāḷi – What is it?
The Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics (Klein et al., 2017: 318) states: “It is generally accepted that Pāli as known from the Theravāda texts was a lingua franca, not a single individual language particular to one dialect area.” However, the scholarly discussions on the subject matter that have been consulted are of course somewhat more nuanced than that generalizing statement in its depiction of the status quo. They state, more specifically, that Pāḷi is either (a) some form of either a lingua franca, [f.n. 1] koine [f.n. 2] or standard dialect (Geiger, 1916/1956: 4–6; Karpik, 2019: 67; Oberlies; 2007: 183; Roth, 1980: 78; Wynne, 2019: 9–10), (b) some form of a vernacular (Childers, 1875: xiv; Roth, 1980: 78; Warder, 1970/2000: 294) or (c) based upon one of these (Levman, 2019: 64–5, n. 1; Lüders, as quoted by Waldschmidt in Lüders, 1954: 8; Norman, 1980: 66; Rhys Davids, 1911: 53–4). There is also a dissensus as to the question if Pāḷi predominantly constitutes an artificially crafted language (Gombrich, 2018: 84–5; [f.n. 3] Norman: 65; von Hinüber, 1996: 5 [f.n. 4]) or had developed mainly by natural means (Pischel, 1957: 5). It also has to be noted that the first-mentioned views under (a) above premise some actually spoken basis underlying the Pāḷi language, having been significantly morphed or superseded by contrived structures in the course of time – at least in part – and that the second-mentioned view does not assume that the language was safe from any form of change as it relates to redaction, transmission errors etc. Not one text-critically involved scholar, as far as I am aware of, is of the opinion that the Pāḷi as we know it has undergone no changes whatsoever.
The above-presented traditional accounts, reporting the language as found in the texts of the Pāḷi Buddhist tradition to be māgadhabhāsā etc., are by and large considered incorrect by modern scholars. They adduce, inter alia, the peculiar features of the Māgadhī dialect proper as inferred from the Aśokan inscriptions and the medieval descriptions of it by the Indian grammarians and determined these features to be (a) l instead of r (e.g. lāja – rāja), (b) a-stems in e for o (e.g. lāje – rājo) and (c) palatal ś for dental s. However, based upon inscriptional and other evidence, Norman (1980: 68–9) demonstrated that these features were found merely within a relatively restricted area and that it is feasible to regard the home of Pāḷi as being outside the region where the true Māgadhī was spoken but still within Magadha, somewhat in the center of the east-Indian region, not far from Kaliṅga. He considers it feasible that Māgadhī – as depicted within the aṭṭhakathā tradition as the language of the tipiṭaka – is a variant of the Māgadhī dialect proper and that the Buddhist tradition can thus be correct. To similar conclusions came already Winternitz (1908/1981: 40), seeing the Māgadhī dialect proper at the base of Pāḷi, and Geiger (1916/1956: 4), to quote the latter:
“A consensus of opinion regarding the home of the dialect on which Pāli is based has therefore not been achieved. Windisch therefore falls back on the old tradition—and I am also inclined to do the same—according to which Pāli should be regarded as a form of Māgadhī, the language in which Buddha himself had preached. What emerges from the above is that the traditional narrative should not be and has not been dismissed outright.”
[…] Surely, Geiger (1916/1956: 4–6) must have based his deliberations to some extent upon the exegeses of the aṭṭhakathā, ṭīkā and grammatical traditions showcased throughout this section when he wrote:
“[…] Pāli should be regarded as a form of Māgadhī […]. Such a lingua franca naturally contained elements of all the dialects […]. I am unable to endorse the view, which has apparently gained much currency at present, that the Pāli canon is translated from some other dialect (according to Lüders, from old Ardha-Māgadhī). The peculiarities of its language may be fully explained on the hypothesis of (a) a gradual development and integration of various elements from different parts of India, (b) a long oral tradition extending over several centuries, and (c) the fact that the texts were written down in a different country. I consider it wiser not to hastily reject the tradition altogether but rather to understand it to mean that Pāli was indeed no pure Māgadhī, but was yet a form of the popular speech which was based on Māgadhī and which was used by Buddha himself.”
Whatever the case may be when it comes to the nature of Pāḷi, perhaps Bodhi (2020: 3) is right when suggesting: “If by some unexpected miracle transcripts of the original discourses should turn up in the exact language(s) in which they were delivered, one who knows Pāli well would be able to read them with perhaps 90 percent accuracy.” In thus manner, the scope of modern scholarly assessments concerning the nature of Pāḷi partially extends […].
Footnotes
- Merriam Webster (“Lingua franca,” n.d.): “[A]ny of various languages used as common or commercial tongues among peoples of diverse speech.”
- Merriam Webster (“Koine,” n.d.): “[A] dialect or language of a region that has become the common or standard language of a larger area.”
- Gombrich holds that the Buddha was the progenitor of the Pāḷi language or at least a principle figure as it relates to its creation.
- Commenting on von Hinüber’s assessment of Pāḷi as an artificial language, Prof. Oberlies remarks: “The ‘artificial language’ of Mr. von Hinüber goes too far also for me” – “Die ‘Kunstsprache’ von Herrn von Hinüber geht auch mir zu weit” (personal communication, May 3, 2020).
References
- Bodhi (2020). Reading the Buddha’s discourses in Pali : A practical guide to the language of the ancient Buddhist canon . Wisdom Publications.
- Childers, R. C. (1875). A dictionary of the Pali language . Trübner & Co.
- Geiger, W. (1956). Pali literature and language (B. Ghosh, Trans.; 2nd ed.). University of Calcutta (original work published 1916).
- Gombrich, R. F. (2018). Buddhism and Pali. Mud Pie Books.
- von Hinüber, O. (1996). A handbook of Pāli literature. Walter de Gruyter.
- Karpik, S. (2019). The Buddha taught in Pāli: A working hypothesis. The Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies , 16, 10–86.
- Klein, J., Joseph, B. & Fritz, M. (Eds.) (2017). Handbook of comparative and historical Indo-European linguistics . De Gruyter Mouton.
- Levman, B. G. (2019). The language the Buddha spoke. Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies , 17, 64–108.
- Lüders, H. (1954). Beobachtungen über die Sprache des buddhistischen Urkanons (E. Waldschmidt, Ed.). Akademie Verlag.
- Norman, K. R. (1980). The dialects in which the Buddha preached. In H. Bechert (Ed.), Die Sprache der ältesten buddhistischen Überlieferung – The language of the earliest buddhist tradition (pp. 61–77). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
- Oberlies, T. (2007). Aśokan Prakrit and Pāli. In D. Jain & G. Cardona (Eds.), The Indo-Aryan languages (pp. 161–203). Routledge.
- Pischel, R. (1957). Comparative language of the Prākrit languages (S. Jhā, Trans.). Motilal Banarsidass.
- Roth, G. (1980). Particular features of the language of the Ārya-Mahāsāṃghika-Lokottaravādins and their importance for early Buddhist tradition. In H. Bechert (Ed.), Die Sprache der ältesten buddhistischen Überlieferung – The language of the earliest Buddhist tradition (pp. 78–100). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
- Rhys Davids, T. W. (1911). Buddhist India. T. Fisher Unwin.
- Warder, A. K. (2000). Indian Buddhism . Motilal Banarsidass (original work published 1970).
- Winternitz, M. (1981). A history of Indian literature (Vol. I) (V. S. Sar-ma, Trans.). Motilal Banarsidass (original work published 1908).
- Wynne, A. (2019). Once more on the language of the Buddha. The Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, 8–10.