This is a multi-part question, really.
The verse, Sādhayissāmahaṃyeva nāñño aññassa kārako, is giving me some trouble. Basically I’m hung up on the first part, “Sādhayissāmahaṃyeva.” I understand the translation, but parsing it has been “fun.” It seems like there is a lot of consonant sandhi.
So, to the question: aside from sādha and eva, what words are being used here? Admittedly, I haven’t had much luck with dictionaries.
This is just a little project I’ve picked up because I’m trying to find a good breakdown for a Lanna Thai group I’m part of. There’s often a Pali verse shared, and the translation given in Lanna and Thai.
So here’s the second part of my question:
Right now, this is the translation (from the English) that I have in Thai:
ฉัน(จะ)ทำมันตัวเอง ไม่มีใครทำได้หน้าที่คนอื่น
But I feel like this is a little too literal. Maybe I should use ข้าพเจ้า for I? And instead of หน้าที่ maybe อากร. My Thai isn’t always the best.
Like I said, this is more for fun. I enjoy learning how to breakdown the sandhi and such.
Thanks for any responses. If this is more a watercooler subject, please let me know and I will move it. Sorry for the long post
Hi Jothi. This definitely belongs here in “translations”.
Sandhi is always fun! Except when it’s not!
Sādhayissāmahaṃyeva breaks as follows:
Sādhayissām(i) - ahaṃ - yeva
Sādhayissāmi is first person future of sādheti “to accomplish, to make happen”. Lit “I alone will make it happen.”
I’d encourage you to stick with the less formal form. Pali is not a very hierarchical language, and we should avoid imposing modern distinctions where we can.
One test I used for my translations, if a word or phrase is only used for Buddhism, it’s probably not a good thing. For example, search “volitional formations” and every result is Buddhist.
Oh, this is a good tip! What I usually do is looking it up in the “Duden”, the German reference dictionary. If the Duden doesn’t know a word I should be careful. Next time I’ll try your trick as well!
So here is the final product. Someone in my Lanna group spent a lot of time showing me how to correct my grammar and spelling, going over the differences between Central and Northern Thai.
His localized translation renders “I will doit myself, no one else can do it for me.”
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