Is the PTS a reliable dictionary?

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mikenz66
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Re: Is the PTS a reliable dictionary?

Post by mikenz66 »

ToVincent wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 8:35 am
mikenz66 wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 8:15 pm In any case, translation is much more than dictionary lookup. It must take full account of the idioms of the source and target language.

Mainly taking into account the historical meanings of the source language AND of their underlying root meanings. So one can infer the meaning from the phrasal idiom.
Languages change. Historical meanings can inform, but do not define how people use language. For example "decimate" meant "killing one in ten" back in the (Roman) day, but in modern English it means "kill a large proportion". And as for gay... The Oxford dictionary lists the meaning I grew up with: "light-hearted and carefree" as DATED. What words mean is determined by how they are used.

The Buddha often took then-current concepts and switched them around to make his point. So it's important to know the historical context, but the history doesn't necessarily determine the meaning.

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Re: Is the PTS a reliable dictionary?

Post by Sam Vara »

mikenz66 wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 8:33 pm
ToVincent wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 8:35 am
mikenz66 wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 8:15 pm In any case, translation is much more than dictionary lookup. It must take full account of the idioms of the source and target language.

Mainly taking into account the historical meanings of the source language AND of their underlying root meanings. So one can infer the meaning from the phrasal idiom.
Languages change. Historical meanings can inform, but do not define how people use language. For example "decimate" meant "killing one in ten" back in the (Roman) day, but in modern English it means "kill a large proportion". And as for gay... The Oxford dictionary lists the meaning I grew up with: "light-hearted and carefree" as DATED. What words mean is determined by how they are used.

The Buddha often took then-current concepts and switched them around to make his point. So it's important to know the historical context, but the history doesn't necessarily determine the meaning.

:heart:
Mike
Excellent point. Gombrich spends a lot of time explaining how the Buddha ironised the Brahmin and Jain ideas of the time, by accepting the words they used and giving them outrageously different meanings. Kamma is a good one. For Brahmins it was ritual action, the things they had to do to keep the universe on an even keel. The Buddha accepted the term, agreed that it was crucially important, but said that it was...intention. So it became important for everyone, not just a priestly caste. Whether or not this holds water, the important thing here is that we work out the meaning of terms and phrases from context - how they are used across the whole spectrum of the Buddha's teachings, the actual work they do.
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Re: Is the PTS a reliable dictionary?

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Greetings,
mikenz66 wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 8:33 pm The Buddha often took then-current concepts and switched them around to make his point. So it's important to know the historical context, but the history doesn't necessarily determine the meaning.
Yes, but whereas pre-Buddha words and meanings may have influenced him and the words he used himself, words and meanings that came after him, most certainly did not.

Retrofitting later definitions back into words which couldn't possibly have meant those things at the time is an injustice to the speaker. Tradition is often guilty of doing that, and this one is no exception.

Metta,
Paul. :)
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Re: Is the PTS a reliable dictionary?

Post by ToVincent »

mikenz66 wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 8:33 pm...
That' the point. And it is just a question of probability.

I have already said that the graal is to have a meaning that went across Buddha's time. A meaning that was the same in pre-Buddhist and pos-Buddhist texts. However, in the event that it is not the case, one has to rely on the most probable meaning.

Statistically wise, it is far more probable that a meaning found in pre-Buddhist "texts", through oral transmission - when no books were available and memory was strong and tradition exact - had arrived unchanged at the time of Buddha.
Different significances among the different texts; among different Rishis - but yet unchanged up to Buddha's time.
"... he is a repeater (of the sacred words), knowing the mystic verses by heart, one who has mastered the Three Vedas, with the indices, the ritual, the phonology, and the exegesis (as a fourth), and the traditional accounts of former events (heroic history) as fifth. ... know philology and grammar, ...
Bhavañhi ajjhāyako mantadharo tiṇṇaṁ vedānaṁ pāragū sanighaṇḍukeṭubhānaṁ sākkharappabhedānaṁ itihāsapañcamānaṁ padako veyyākaraṇo
DN 4
.
Secondly, there was a major change when the Brahmins tried to recover their influence, lost through Buddhism and Jainism.
The gods of the Rg Veda, started to lose their characters in the Atharva veda. This latter text was the pivotal moment of the even greater changes in meanings, that one can find later on, in the Puranic literature.

Note:
In any case, you could easily decimate (decimare) a centuria, a cohort, or a legion. Ten percent is a lot, regardless of the unit's number.
That's "killing in large number" — the same than today's meaning, minus the "how".
I am pretty sure that the Roman common guy, let alone the soldier, must have considered that a massacre. Enough to inspire awe, anyway.




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Sam Vara wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 10:50 pm...
Buddha brought the karma of the sacrifices (as intention through action), towards the karma of the sacrifices as mere intention. This was generally the Araṇyaka/Śramaṇa philosophy - that is to say to bring in the forest, an "internal" personal sacrifice.
But the intention was the same.
Karma in Veda is also intention/desire/wish, and deed.
One instance is in BrArUp 1.4.17.

√kṛ-man
with √kṛ having in this instance, both the pre-Buddhist meanings of "to wish to make or do, intend to do, to wish to sacrifice" - as well as "to direct the thoughts, the mind".


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retrofuturist wrote: Fri Jan 28, 2022 2:39 am....
I agree.
.
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In this world, there are many people acting and yearning for the Mara's world; some for the Brahma's world; and very few for the Unborn.
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Re: Is the PTS a reliable dictionary?

Post by lostitude »

Coëmgenu wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 6:51 pm Good dictionaries are based upon usage because the semantics of our human languages are based on usages. Etymology is a history of historical usages for a word. Scholarly dictionaries are not compiled through reconstructing the "true meanings" of words as based on historical etymological roots that stretch back to a theorized and generally-reconstructed proto-stage of the language (such as "Proto-Indo-Iranian," etc.) in question. Because the PTS is a dictionary of a Middle Indic Prākrit, Vedic roots can be found for almost all Pāli words and are generally included in the dictionary entries. Such is the case with deeply related language. French words will similarly often have a Laton cognate. That is not surprising at all. One would not use the word senses Cicero employed to divine the meaning of a phrase in Old French or even proto-Romance. These roots do not determine the semantic value of the words they correspond to. It is usage that determines that.

The PTS is a scholarly and highly reliable dictionary.
I think this is debatable and really depends on the language you have in mind. French was probably the worst example because it is precisely a language that heavily relies on etymology, even today, to determine how words are used, at least in learned speech. I have no idea how Indian languages behave or have behaved in that regard, but surely early works on grammar and/or vocabulary would be a good indication of that? Throughout the development of French, Latin has remained the gold standard for semantics, so did Sanskrit play the same role vis-a-vis Pali?
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Re: Is the PTS a reliable dictionary?

Post by Coëmgenu »

I don't think it's debatable. Dictionaries are based on usage, not historical etymology. That is why the better ones include accounts of usage, like when a contestant in a spelling bee asks, "Can you use it in a sentence?"

I think that my example using Cicero, Classical Latin, Vulgar Romance/Old French, and modern French, stands. If you think it doesn't, I would invite you to provide substantiation. Classical Latin and Vulgar Romance are extraordinarily different, and French is the direct descendent of Vulgar Romance, not Classical Latin. If you wish to dispute this, which I consider to be obvious, you are quite free to, and I can provide you some substantiation that French comes from Vulgar Romance, not Classical Latin, and also that Pāli is not a direct descendent of Vedic Sanskrit.
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Re: Is the PTS a reliable dictionary?

Post by lostitude »

Coëmgenu wrote: Sun Jan 30, 2022 11:28 pm I don't think it's debatable. Dictionaries are based on usage, not historical etymology. That is why the better ones include accounts of usage, like when a contestant in a spelling bee asks, "Can you use it in a sentence?"
What you seem to refer to here is the 'descriptive' approach of lexicography. The second approach, which is seen in more normative languages such as French (in comparison with English at least) is the 'prescriptive' approach where for a given word, a specific definition is prescribed based on etymological concerns. The embodiment of such an approach is the Académie Française. Here's one example (second para).
The same is true for grammar where both approaches coexist: Littré follows a prescriptive approach, while Grevisse is descriptive.
I think that my example using Cicero, Classical Latin, Vulgar Romance/Old French, and modern French, stands. If you think it doesn't, I would invite you to provide substantiation. Classical Latin and Vulgar Romance are extraordinarily different, and French is the direct descendent of Vulgar Romance, not Classical Latin.
I think such a distinction is of very limited practical value. This is like saying I am descended from my father, not my grandfather. By the same token then I could say that since classical French has given rise to a number of creoles, then it should be specified that modern French is the direct descendent of classical French, not Vulgar Romance or old or middle French, which would not be very relevant.

What matters a lot more is that for the larger part of the history of French, there has been constant diglossia in learned circles, with Latin and successively Romance, old Fench, middle French and classical French (and even modern French up until the 19th century). Hence the very high number of Latin-based back-formations coexisting with naturally evolved Romance words, both coming from the same Latin word. For example Latin 'causa' gave 'chose' (popular derivation) meaning 'thing' through a natural drift in meaning, and 'cause' (learned back-formation) which has kept its strict Latin meaning. Same for Latin 'captivus' which gave 'chétif' (miserable, poor, weak) and 'captif' (learned back-formation meaning the same thing as in Latin), or 'captare' which gave 'chasser' (to hunt - popular drift) and 'capter' (learned version with the Latin meaning preserved).

Even in modern French, people wishing to justify a certain word usage almost always appeal to etymology, for example to draw a distinction between sympathy, empathy, and compassion (a very trendy topic lately). These three words have very close yet distinct meanings, which etymology helps distinguish. The point is they never base the meaning of the word on how it is loosely used by the general population, they base it on what it would have meant in Latin and/or Greek. Now what did the Buddha do with respect to Sanskrit?

Sorry for the long-winded post, but my point is that other languages (Arabic is another good example) also follow this same prescriptive approach, so it should not be assumed that Indian languages by default are non-normative. Maybe they are, but do we have any evidence for this? I have no idea.
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Re: Is the PTS a reliable dictionary?

Post by Coëmgenu »

lostitude wrote: Mon Jan 31, 2022 9:53 amThe embodiment of such an approach is the Académie Française.
Certainly, when you have a national body that standardizes a language, it will standardize according to its own notions of "correct." In Québec, we don't use the words coined by the Immortels, and increasingly in France they are seen as obsolete and redundant. The language can and has thrived without their institution.
lostitude wrote: Mon Jan 31, 2022 9:53 am
I think that my example using Cicero, Classical Latin, Vulgar Romance/Old French, and modern French, stands. If you think it doesn't, I would invite you to provide substantiation. Classical Latin and Vulgar Romance are extraordinarily different, and French is the direct descendent of Vulgar Romance, not Classical Latin.
I think such a distinction is of very limited practical value. This is like saying I am descended from my father, not my grandfather. By the same token then I could say that since classical French has given rise to a number of creoles, then it should be specified that modern French is the direct descendent of classical French, not Vulgar Romance or old or middle French, which would not be very relevant.
This is why it is absolutely absurd to be using the Monier-Williams Sanskrit dictionary to translate a Middle Indic Prakrit such as Pali, even if (as fraudulently claimed by the OP) "all the dictionaries" are plagiarizing "post-Buddhist meanings" from the PTS and MW sources. Of course, the OP is an utter incoherency inasmuch as they've suggested any form of methodology other than their own feelings and intuitions in the moment while looking at Vedic roots and cherry-picking meanings attributes for suffixes. That is how they synthesized their utterly wrong meaning for "viharati." They looked at "to fetch" and "to walk" in a Sanskrit dictionary. Then, they looked at "distinction" as a sense for "vi-." It's a farce that culminates in "to fetch distinctively." Using Monier-Williams and mining it for its Vedic roots in order to formulate new meanings for Pali words is like trying to read Vulgar Romance by exclusively referring to the word senses used by figures like Cicero, but much more incompetent, as that presumes an actual understanding of Cicero's language. There is no comparable understanding of Sanskrit present here.
What is the Uncreated?
Sublime & free, what is that obscured Eternity?
It is the Undying, the Bright, the Isle.
It is an Ocean, a Secret: Reality.
Both life and oblivion, it is Nirvāṇa.
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Re: Is the PTS a reliable dictionary?

Post by lostitude »

Certainly, when you have a state body that standardizes a language, it will standardize according to its own notions of "correct."
Its own notion of 'correct' is actually shared by the population, i.e. what's correct is what makes sense from an etymological standpoint. I gave the example of compassion/sympathy/empathy, which you will hear in any personal development workshop, but you could as well attend a workshop for trainers and again you will hear appeals to etymology to distinguish between éducation/instruction/enseignement. If you attend an HR lecture, you will hear etymological explanations as to why compétence, capacité, and habileté are not the same. Every single time they will go back to the Latin and/or Greek root to highlight the nuances. So it's not just an Académie whim, it's a population-wide pattern.
Coëmgenu wrote: Mon Jan 31, 2022 11:24 amIn Québec, we don't use the words coined by the Immortels, and increasingly in France they are seen as obsolete and redundant.
I live in France and certainly don't have that impression. New words coined to counteract anglicisms have never gained any traction here, but that issue is entirely different from the Académie's authority on the syntax and semantics of existing words and phrases, which I have rarely, if ever, seen questioned. So that's something open to debate and rather irrelevant.
This is why it is absolutely absurd to be using the Monier-Williams Sanskrit dictionary to translate a Middle Indic Prakrit such as Pali
I made a point just before (the only part you haven't quoted in your response) precisely about that. I don't think it is enough to use phylogeny to make such statements, and French and Arabic are good examples of this. What would matter would be whether the Buddha saw Sanskrit as having the same linguistic authority over Pali as Latin does over French. Again, I don't know the answer to that.
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Re: Is the PTS a reliable dictionary?

Post by Coëmgenu »

lostitude wrote: Mon Jan 31, 2022 12:07 pmWhat would matter would be whether the Buddha saw Sanskrit as having the same linguistic authority over Pali as Latin does over French. Again, I don't know the answer to that.
His usage of language as handed down in Buddhist scripture, as we can't be guaranteed he materially spoke any of it with said phrasing, suggests no. He does not speak with archaic speech. He is testified to as speaking a Middle Indic Prakrit, which makes perfect sense for his time period in history. He does not use, for instance, "saṃskāra" according to the "Vedic" usage. He does not use "karma" according to the Vedic usage. There are many other terms we can find where the Buddha is at variance with Vedic Sanskrit in the way that he uses the term.

Do the Immortels allow you to say "T'as tu un crayon?" I legitimately do not know. The standardized French of France is not the be-all and end-all of the French language. With that, we should probably conclude our foray into French as an example, unless you've more to say concerning it.

If we're closely examining these points and counterpoints, I did not respond to your matter to do with phylogeny because I do not think that it is relevant. I'm critiquing bad practice. I've used an example of bad practice, trying to use Cicero's word senses, which are quite distinct from word senses inherited by French, to read early or old French. It is an example of bad practice. The example is not perfect. I'll be the first to admit that. In order for the analogy to be solid, the OP would have to demonstrate even the slightest knowledge of the Vedic stratum of the language, as my example presumed that someone is an expert on Cicero's usage of language.

Here is a general Wikipedia page concerning the basics of the situation for those posters who are unfamiliar. I suspect that it will not be a necessary citation for you, Lostitude, but instead it is for others. If we wish to speak more in-depth about this, then another thread will be needed or we'll have to take it up via PM.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexical_c ... to-Romance
What is the Uncreated?
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It is the Undying, the Bright, the Isle.
It is an Ocean, a Secret: Reality.
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Re: Is the PTS a reliable dictionary?

Post by lostitude »

Coëmgenu wrote: Mon Jan 31, 2022 12:15 pm
lostitude wrote: Mon Jan 31, 2022 12:07 pmWhat would matter would be whether the Buddha saw Sanskrit as having the same linguistic authority over Pali as Latin does over French. Again, I don't know the answer to that.
His usage of language as handed down in Buddhist scripture, as we can't be guaranteed he materially spoke any of it with said phrasing, suggests no. He does not speak with archaic speech. He is testified to as speaking a Middle Indic Prakrit, which makes perfect sense for his time period in history. He does not use, for instance, "saṃskāra" according to the "Vedic" usage. He does not use "karma" according to the Vedic usage. There are many other terms we can find where the Buddha is at variance with Vedic Sanskrit in the way that he uses the term.
Then it would be interesting to know (again, I have no idea but I'm curious to know) whether we find that his use of such words deviated from Sanskrit because it has been noticed that their original meaning simply did not match the context in which he used them, or we know it deviated because he explicitly gave them a new definition.
If he explicitly gave a new definition, it could mean that he felt his semantic departure would be misleading enough to warrant a clear definition, suggesting that the 'traditional' one was still widely shared and accepted.
If however the change in usage was not particularly pointed out, then it would suggest the meaning had evolved naturally and everybody was acquainted with the 'new' meaning and had probably lost touch with the original one. That's just my personal assumption.
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Re: Is the PTS a reliable dictionary?

Post by Coëmgenu »

That will take a while to substantiate, but I think it's a very fruitful avenue of inquiry.

You've only included one possibility, however. If the Buddha gives an etymology at variance with the Vedas, that does not mean that the Buddha personally is introducing a new meaning. He can give accounts of meanings that have already shifted by his time without necessarily himself being the shifter.
Last edited by Coëmgenu on Mon Jan 31, 2022 12:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
What is the Uncreated?
Sublime & free, what is that obscured Eternity?
It is the Undying, the Bright, the Isle.
It is an Ocean, a Secret: Reality.
Both life and oblivion, it is Nirvāṇa.
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Re: Is the PTS a reliable dictionary?

Post by lostitude »

Coëmgenu wrote: Mon Jan 31, 2022 12:15 pm Do the Immortels allow you to say "T'as tu un crayon?" I legitimately do not know. The standardized French of France is not the be-all and end-all of the French language. With that, we should probably conclude our foray into French as an example, unless you've more to say concerning it.
The point was only to illustrate that some languages, or some regional variations (to respond to your remark) of it do rely on diglossia with an older parent for semantic treatment of their lexicon, thus making Sanskrit influence on the Buddha's speech a possibility that can't simply be discarded just 'cause. Your objections, although very interesting, tend to deviate from this point. I agree that further details would not contribute to this discussion.
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Re: Is the PTS a reliable dictionary?

Post by Coëmgenu »

lostitude wrote: Mon Jan 31, 2022 12:45 pm[...] thus making Sanskrit influence on the Buddha's speech a possibility that can't simply be discarded just 'cause.
If I can clarify my objection, it is specifically to the usage of Vedic Sanskrit, and merely English definitions of Vedic roots pulled from a dictionary, being used to synthesize new meanings for Pāli words. "Sanskrit" can be very close to Pāli. Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit certainly is. In short, my objection is to the bad practice that led to the new "to fetch distinctively" and "to walk" senses being claimed for "viharati" as it appears in Buddhist texts.
What is the Uncreated?
Sublime & free, what is that obscured Eternity?
It is the Undying, the Bright, the Isle.
It is an Ocean, a Secret: Reality.
Both life and oblivion, it is Nirvāṇa.
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Re: Is the PTS a reliable dictionary?

Post by ToVincent »

There is a major specialist on Pali roots, advised to me by Assaji/Dmytro, who wrote a all book, just on Pali roots — What is said in his book is the following:
Sanskrit (or at least the older Vedic Sanskrit*) is definitely older than Pāli, since we know from comparative study of the two languages (Pāli & Sanskrit,) that the majority of the Pāli words are derived from Sanskrit.
*That is to say the "Sanskrit spoken at the time of Buddha.

Some people know better, I suppose.

I advise the readers of this thread, to read again its two first and a half pages.
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In this world, there are many people acting and yearning for the Mara's world; some for the Brahma's world; and very few for the Unborn.
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