Pronunciation

Pāli is the original language of the Theravadin Buddhist scriptures, the closest we have to the dialect spoken by the Buddha himself. It has no written script of its own, and so every country that has adopted Theravada Buddhism has used its own script to transcribe it. In Thailand this has meant that Pāli has picked up some of the tones of the Thai language, as each consonant & consonant cluster in the Thai alphabet has a built-in tone — high, medium, low, rising, or falling. This accounts for the characteristic melody of Thai Pāli chanting.