Pali language

Middle Indo-Aryan language of the 5th century BC in which the most essential documents of Theravada Buddhism are written.

Linguistically, Pali is a homogenization of the northern Middle Indo-Aryan dialects in which the Buddha's teachings were orally recorded and transmitted. According to the tradition of Sri Lankan chronicles, the Theravada canon was first written down in the 1st century BC, though its oral transmission continued long afterward. No single script was ever developed for Pali; scribes used scripts of their own languages to copy canonical texts and commentaries (see Indic writing systems), and most extant palm-leaf manuscripts of Pali are of relatively recent date.

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      sacred language of the Theravāda Buddhist canon, a Middle Indo-Aryan language of north Indian origin. On the whole, Pāli seems closely related to the Old Indo-Aryan Vedic and Sanskrit dialects but is apparently not directly descended from either of these.

      Pāli's use as a Buddhist canonical language came about because the Buddha opposed the use of Sanskrit, a learned language, as a vehicle for his teachings and encouraged his followers to use vernacular dialects. In time, his orally transmitted sayings spread through India to Ceylon (c. 3rd century BC), where they were written down in Pāli (1st century BC), a literary language of rather mixed vernacular origins. Pāli eventually became a revered, standard, and international tongue. The language and the Theravāda canon known as Tipiṭaka (Sanskrit: Tripiṭaka) were brought to Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Pāli died out as a literary language in mainland India in the 14th century but survived elsewhere until the 18th.

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