#pali langblr

[helenstudies]

Y'all, I got my pali diploma with an A-minus!!!! I'm gonna be a first year undergrad student for a Bachelor of Arts in Pali next month!!!!!!

[helenstudies]

I can confirm that it just means diligent training. But, that's not really an archaic word. It's just a technical term that means something else in a different context or background. In this case that is "practice buddhism or taoism" in buddhism. The same word is used in Chinese as well.

Brother in Buddha I didn't even know what this meant in English. Basically practices that relinquishes worldly desires.

[gwendolynlerman]

Writing systems

Burmese (မြန်မာအက္ခရာ)

The Burmese script was derived from the Pyu, Mon, Kadamba or Pallava script during the 8th century. The earliest known inscription is from 1035.

Burmese calligraphy originally followed a square format, but cursive took hold from the 17th century, when popular writing led to the wider use of palm leaves and folded paper. Straight lines would rip these leaves.

Notable features

Script type: abugida

Writing direction: left-to-right in rows

Number of characters: 33 (+ 14 vowel diacritics)

Languages: Burmese, Karen, Mon, Pali, Rakhine, and Sanskrit

Vowel diacritics are used to change the inherent vowel sound of consonants.

The three tones (creaky, low, and high) are indicated by diacritics or special letters above or below the consonant or before or after the consonant.

Consonant clusters are formed using special characters called stacked consonants. For example, ကမ္ဘာ (kambha) contains the stacked consonant မ္ဘ (m-bh). The first consonant is မ (m) and the second consonant is ဘ (bh).

Consonants

Stacked consonants

Vowels and vowel diacritics

Other symbols

Numerals

[henrydoeslanguages]

okay so my next crazy language goal TM is to learn Pāli in Burmese script well enough in 3 months so i can read epigraphy when i go there on my course in september to do some (v sketchy) research

what could go wrong says the sanskritist isnt pali just pleb sanskrit

[banglanotebook]

LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY CHALLENGE: southeast asia and oceania

K H M E R  |  ភាសាខ្មែរ

EXONYM | Khmer [kmɛər], Cambodian ENDONYM | ភាសាខ្មែរ [pʰiə.ˈsaː kʰmae]

LOCATION | Khmer is the official language of Cambodia, but is also natively spoken in Vietnam and Thailand.

POPULATION | Approximately 13 million speakers worldwide

BACKGROUND | Khmer is an Austroasiatic language of the Mon-Khmer branch, and has incorporated influence from Sanskrit and Pali. Most Khmer dialects are mutually intelligible but have very obvious differences. Old Khmer (600-800 CE) was heavily affected by Sanskrit, and with the fall of the Khmer Empire the language became less regulated and underwent a variety of changes. Middle Khmer (14-16th centuries) exhibited dramatic lexical, morphological and phonological changes when the language started borrowing more from Thai and Lao. Modern Khmer is governed by marginally different rules than Old Khmer as a result, making it hard to understand Old Khmer without prior knowledge. It is important to be aware that there are several social registers in Khmer which extends beyond variation in pronouns. The overall vocabulary you use to talk to your sister will not be the same as what you would use when talking to royalty.

GRAMMAR | Khmer is an analytic, isolating language, which means it often uses shorter words that include less morphemes and employs the use of helper words to convey meaning instead. For example, Khmer lacks inflections, conjugations, or case endings but instead has a wealth of particles and auxiliary words to compensate. Khmer follows an SVO word-order and places modifiers after the words their modifying. 

PHONOLOGY | Unlike many of its neighbors (Burmese, Thai, Lao, Vietnamese), Khmer is not a tonal language! Khmer generally places stress on the last syllable of a word, making stress non-phonemic (if you mess up your stresses, you will sound funny but you will not destroy the meaning of a word). Most words in Khmer are, on average, between one and two syllables. Most words with three or more syllables are loanwords, usually from Sanskrit or Pali. Intonation is used to distinguish mood and statements (kind of like how in English we may raise pitch at the end of a sentence to indicate a question). 

SCRIPT | The Khmer script is an abugida developed from the Pallava script of India and looks visually similar to Thai and Lao. There are two groups of consonants: series one with the inherent vowel /ɑː/, and series two with the inherent vowel /ɔː/. In Khmer, these series are referred to as “voiceless” and “voiced”, as series two was intended to represent voiced phonemes from Old Khmer. This makes Khmer kinda tricky to read because voiced stops have been lost, resulting in the use of dipthongs instead. Khmer now contains two symbols for most consonant phonemes, with vowel symbols having two possible readings depending on which series the consonant they come after belongs to.

SWADESH LIST

ក្បាល [kɓaːl] | head

សក់ [sɑʔ] | hair

ភ្នែក [pʰnɛːk] | eye

ច្រមុះ [crɑ.ˈmoh] | nose

មាត់ [mŏət] | mouth

ក [kɑː] | neck

ដោះ [ɗɑh] | breast

WHY KHMER? | Khmer is another one of those languages that despite their solid status and large speaking population they end up being neglected because they’re not “Western”, nor are they valued by the global community as much as they ought to be. I already knew about Burmese, Vietnamese, Thai, and Lao, which are the other big southeast Asian languages, so this seemed like the last one to know before I consider doing the lesser-known ones (maybe in future challenges!). Khmer also has a good number of free resources for this kind of challenge so it was an easy one lol 

Some of the other languages I considered also had scripts my computer wouldn’t display, which created a hassle I wasn’t ready for this time around; this obstacle is a good indication that some other languages need more recognition if major OS’s still don’t support them, so I noted those languages so I can give them special attention when I have more time to dedicate to a challenge. Part of the battle in making Langblr more diverse is finding a way to present languages that aren’t supported by half of modern devices. Just because a language has a substantial speaking population doesn’t mean it’s properly represented. Even widely spoken languages become underprivileged when they’re silenced on online platforms --Khmer just happened to be one of the luckier ones in this case.

[helenstudies]

If you study ANY foreign languages and post about your study logs/journey frequently, please interact with this post because I'd love to follow more langblrs!

[helenstudies]

new timeline for the next three months!

finish my pali assignment (oct 6th)

take my final pali exam (oct 13th)

sign up for hsk (???)

take coursera courses before the subscription runs out (oct 18th)

hsk exam (dec 8th)

tocfl registration and exam (undecided)

25th birthday (woo!)

also other stuff I might do in 2025

j.test exam (jan)

topik exam (may)

pali studies undergrad (?!)

yeah, it's gonna be busy ahead! I'm excited to just learn more deeply and enjoy the process but also prepare for exams because that's how I learn languages best and I also feel like every birthday is a huge milestone but especially because this year is going to be IU's palette year (if you know you know.)

[helenstudies]

3/100 Days of Productivity!

I'm still sick but I'm doing good academically! at least I think!

Done with my pali assignment! (on day 4 morning btw)

Also done with my HSKK class!

I'm still studying Japanese at N3 level because I'm not ready for N2 yet... Hyouka is helping me along.

A new semester for HGU UNITWIN starts tomorrow! Worldview studies and Health Psychology here I come!!!

I finished "The Con Job" which is a Leverage novel and it was honestly disappointing since I'm rewatching the show. But I'm still gonna pick up "The Zoo Job"

On this week's HAIYUU book club activity: We're reading the little prince! Last week my friend chose that book and I was astounded by the amount of people who thought it was a children's book(??!??) Anyway, we're gonna discuss translations too since we decided to let the readers pick the language of the book they wanted. Personally, I'm reading it in Chinese.

My tonsilitis still persists. Now I have body aches. Idk when I'll get better but god, it better be soon.

[helenstudies]

Everytime I get good grades, I'm like "wait the mfs from high school weren't kidding about academic validation" lmao

[helenstudies]

Yooooooooooo I made it!!!

Btw if you're a Burmese mutual who's interested in Pali language, you can attend this at No cost! They ship the textbook no matter where you live (any country! for real!) and you can attend a basic introductory course until you have a master's degree in Pali for zero kyats! They teach solely in Burmese but this is a trilingual course where you have to know Burmese, English and Pali to get good grades so it is challenging. But it's a huge opportunity and I totally recommend this school! Besides, they upload all their videos on youtube and telegram so you never even have to worry about time zones! I'm planning to get at least a Bachelor degree out of this school :D

[helenstudies]

I'm a week late lol but I have updates!!

- Started taking HSKK (Chinese Speaking Proficiency Test) advanced prep class :D We're all advanced learners in here with HSK 5/6 levels so the teacher is speaking in Chinese the whole time and I'm so happy that I can understand 99% of what she's saying but also I found out my Chinese speaking has really diminished 😭 Thank god I was able to introduce myself and answer her questions in Chinese but the mock tests are kicking my ass no doubt.

- J.Test (Japanese language exam) released the correct answers and I got enough marks to pass JLPT N3 level!! I'm still waiting for formal result announcements but I'm pretty sure I got it!! :D

- Started teaching a new basic Chinese class so now I have to teach 4 days per week. It's a bit tough but I think I'm making it work?

- the level 1 Chinese class I'm teaching is going to end in February so I'm gonna have to prep for the level 2 class and THEN prep and record my basic Korean classes. I'll tell y'all how it goes

- I have 100% grade but still missing classes for Pali Diploma and will have to make up a lot in the future. Thank god they don't grade attendances 😭

- I have a slight fever right now so I'm chugging Lipovitan-D to keep me going. I have a tarot session booked this afternon and a chinese class to teach so can't really rest Unfortunately :/ but Dimension 20 FHJY is helping me with my mood.

Anyways that's all! happy studying, y'all

[helenstudies]

My goals for 2024

- A diploma in Pali

- HSK 6 level in Chinese

- N2 level in Japanese

- Begin my university life in Korea

- Finish one of my OC books

- Publish one of my fanfictions

[helenstudies]

it's about two months until I finish my diploma in pali! second assignment for this semester done! I'm so excited but also it's so hard!

[helenstudies]

my pali diploma class is no longer grading our assignments. they're only handing out the model answers and you're supposed to check your work against it by yourself to see if you did well. then at the end of the semester, they'll tell you your combined grades in letters instead of letting you know your individual grades. I mean, I get it. they have like a hundred something student and they're non-proft and volunteer run so like it's cool but the suspense is not ideal!!!

[helenstudies]

100 Days of Productivity Challenge ☕✨

I made it through the other side but well, I have assignments piling up right now. There ain't no rest for the wicked I guess.

Things I did during the challenge

Leveled up my Japanese and passed J.Test D Level (JLPT N3) Equivalent

Leveled up my Chinese skills by taking an advance speaking and prep course

Started learning Pali language

Taught 2 chinese classes and one korean class! All of them good memories~

Successfully ran three paid telegram channels to help people in need in Myanmar

Did a free language consultation program to help out people who are trying to learn new languages

Raised money for people in Myanmar by tarot reading, selling ebooks etc

Put my health first even though it sucked to not have an income for 2 weeks

Saved money and learned how to budget and manage my finances

Re-kindled a past connection with someone who made me feel alive and happy, and who is now making me feel alive and happy

Watched/Listened to a lot of new stuff and also read good books!

Worked a lot on my WIPs, even though they aren't urgent, they're important to me

Found out new things to enjoy in life. Journaling, new coffee, new food, candles etc :) I bought myself a phone stand and now my neck and hand nerves suffer less! And I make my cats and my friends happy! I buy my family food and drinks!

Realized life is infinitely complex and hard and full of suffering but I don't have to be like that. I can make people smile via gifts and acts of service. I can be of help. And I don't even need to burn out myself to do it because my friends and family love me as well :)

Here's to many more weeks and many more days~

[helenstudies]

Have faith in your dreams

32/100 days of productivity

midterm test is over!! Thingyan (Water festival) holiday break for my Pali Diploma classes! Yay!!! Those assignments were really hard lmao.

I have to teach a basic Korean class

and also teach a level 2 chinese class

and then I have to read two books for our HAIYUU bookclub

It's new week for Health Psychology and Worldview Studies! I will be procrastinating, please and thank you.