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Pali

Pāli, also known as Pali-Magadhi, is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language on the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist Pāli Canon or Tipiṭaka as well as the sacred language of Theravāda Buddhism.

Etymology
The word 'Pali' is used as a name for the language of the Theravada canon. The word seems to have its origins in commentarial traditions, wherein the (in the sense of the line of original text quoted) was distinguished from the commentary or vernacular translation that followed it in the manuscript. K. R. Norman suggests that its emergence was based on a misunderstanding of the compound, with being interpreted as the name of a particular language.

The name Pali does not appear in the canonical literature, and in commentary literature is sometimes substituted with, meaning a string or lineage. This name seems to have emerged in Sri Lanka early in the second millennium CE during a resurgence in the use of Pali as a courtly and literary language.

As such, the name of the language has caused some debate among scholars of all ages; the spelling of the name also varies, being found with both long "ā" and short "a", and also with either a retroflex  or non-retroflex  "l" sound. Both the long ā and retroflex are seen in the ISO 15919/ALA-LC rendering, ; however, to this day there is no single, standard spelling of the term, and all four possible spellings can be found in textbooks. R. C. Childers translates the word as "series" and states that the language "bears the epithet in consequence of the perfection of its grammatical structure".

Geographic origin
There is persistent confusion as to the relation of Pāḷi to the vernacular spoken in the ancient kingdom of Magadha, which was located in modern-day Bihar and around modern-day Bengal. Beginning in the Theravada commentaries, Pali was identified with 'Magahi', the language of the kingdom of Magadha, and this was taken to also be the language that the Buddha used during his life. In the 19th century, the British Orientalist Robert Caesar Childers argued that the true or geographical name of the Pali language was Magadhi Prakrit, and that because pāḷi means "line, row, series", the early Buddhists extended the meaning of the term to mean "a series of books", so pāḷibhāsā means "language of the texts".

However, modern scholarship has regarded Pali as a mix of several Prakrit languages from around the 3rd century BCE, combined and partially Sanskritized. There is no attested dialect of Middle Indo-Aryan with all the features of Pali. In the modern era, it has been possible to compare Pali with inscriptions known to be in Magadhi Prakrit, as well as other texts and grammars of that language. While none of the existing sources specifically document pre-Ashokan Magadhi, the available sources suggest that Pali is not equatable with that language.

Modern scholars generally regard Pali to have originated from a western dialect, rather than an eastern one. Pali has some commonalities with both the western Ashokan Edicts at Girnar in Saurashtra, and the Central-Western Prakrit found in the eastern Hathigumpha inscription. These similarities lead scholars to associate Pali with this region of western India. Nonetheless, Pali does retain some eastern features that have been referred to as Māgadhisms.

Pāḷi, as a Middle Indo-Aryan language, is different from Classical Sanskrit more with regard to its dialectal base than the time of its origin. A number of its morphological and lexical features show that it is not a direct continuation of Ṛgvedic Sanskrit. Instead it descends from one or more dialects that were, despite many similarities, different from Ṛgvedic.

Early history
The Theravada commentaries refer to the Pali language as "Magadhan" or the "language of Magadha". This identification first appears in the commentaries, and may have been an attempt by Buddhists to associate themselves more closely with the Maurya Empire.

However, only some of the Buddha's teachings were delivered in the historical territory of Magadha kingdom. Scholars consider it likely that he taught in several closely related dialects of Middle Indo-Aryan, which had a high degree of mutual intelligibility.

Theravada tradition, as recorded in chronicles like the Mahavamsa, states that the Tipitaka was first committed to writing during the first century BCE. This move away from the previous tradition of oral preservation is described as being motivated by threats to the Sangha from famine, war, and the growing influence of the rival tradition of the Abhayagiri Vihara. This account is generally accepted by scholars, though there are indications that Pali had already begun to be recorded in writing by this date. By this point in its history, scholars consider it likely that Pali had already undergone some initial assimilation with Sanskrit, such as the conversion of the Middle-Indic bahmana to the more familiar Sanskrit brāhmana that contemporary brahmans used to identify themselves.

In Sri Lanka, Pali is thought to have entered into a period of decline ending around the 4th or 5th century (as Sanskrit rose in prominence, and simultaneously, as Buddhism's adherents became a smaller portion of the subcontinent), but ultimately survived. The work of Buddhaghosa was largely responsible for its reemergence as an important scholarly language in Buddhist thought. The Visuddhimagga, and the other commentaries that Buddhaghosa compiled, codified and condensed the Sinhala commentarial tradition that had been preserved and expanded in Sri Lanka since the 3rd century BCE.

With only a few possible exceptions, the entire corpus of Pali texts known today is believed to derive from the Anuradhapura Maha Viharaya in Sri Lanka. While literary evidence exists of Theravadins in mainland India surviving into the 13th century, no Pali texts specifically attributable to this tradition have been recovered. Some texts (such as the Milindapanha) may have been composed in India before being transmitted to Sri Lanka, but the surviving versions of the texts are those preserved by the Mahavihara in Ceylon and shared with monasteries in Theravada Southeast Asia.

The earliest inscriptions in Pali found in mainland Southeast Asia are from the first millennium CE, some possibly dating to as early as the 4th century. Inscriptions are found in what are now Burma, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia and may have spread from southern India rather than Sri Lanka. By the 11th century, a so-called "Pali renaissance" began in the vicinity of Pagan, gradually spreading to the rest of mainland Southeast Asia as royal dynasties sponsored monastic lineages derived from the Mahavihara of Anuradhapura. This era was also characterized by the adoption of Sanskrit conventions and poetic forms (such as kavya) that had not been features of earlier Pali literature. This process began as early as the 5th century, but intensified early in the second millennium as Pali texts on poetics and composition modeled on Sanskrit forms began to grow in popularity. One milestone of this period was the publication of the Subodhalankara during the 14th century, a work attributed to Sangharakkhita Mahāsāmi and modeled on the Sanskrit Kavyadarsa.

Peter Masefield devoted considerable research to a form of Pali known as Indochinese Pali or 'Kham Pali'. Up until now, this has been considered a degraded form of Pali, But Masefield states that further examination of a very considerable corpus of texts will probably show that this is an internally consistent Pali dialect. The reason for the changes is that some combinations of characters are difficult to write in those scripts. Masefield further states that upon the third re-introduction of Theravada Buddhism into Sri Lanka (The Siyamese Sect), records in Thailand state that large number of texts were also taken. It seems that when the monastic ordination died out in Sri Lanka, many texts were lost also. Therefore the Sri Lankan Pali canon had been translated first into Indo-Chinese Pali, and then back again into Pali.

Despite an expansion of the number and influence of Mahavihara-derived monastics, this resurgence of Pali study resulted in no production of any new surviving literary works in Pali. During this era, correspondences between royal courts in Sri Lanka and mainland Southeast Asia were conducted in Pali, and grammars aimed at speakers of Sinhala, Burmese, and other languages were produced. The emergence of the term 'Pali' as the name of the language of the Theravada canon also occurred during this era.

Manuscripts and inscriptions
While Pali is generally recognized as an ancient language, no epigraphical or manuscript evidence has survived from the earliest eras. The earliest samples of Pali discovered are inscriptions believed to date from 5th to 8th century located in mainland Southeast Asia, specifically central Siam and lower Burma. These inscriptions typically consist of short excerpts from the Pali Canon and non-canonical texts, and include several examples of the Ye dhamma hetu verse.

The oldest surviving Pali manuscript was discovered in Nepal dating to the 9th century. It is in the form of four palm-leaf folios, using a transitional script deriving from the Gupta script to scribe a fragment of the Cullavagga. The oldest known manuscripts from Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia date to the 13th–15th century, with few surviving examples. Very few manuscripts older than 400 years have survived, and complete manuscripts of the four Nikayas are only available in examples from the 17th century and later.

Early Western research
Pali was first mentioned in Western literature in Simon de la Loubère's descriptions of his travels in the kingdom of Siam. An early grammar and dictionary was published by Methodist missionary Benjamin Clough in 1824, and an initial study published by Eugène Burnouf and Christian Lassen in 1826 (Essai sur le Pali, ou Langue sacrée de la presqu'île au-delà du Gange). The first modern Pali-English dictionary was published by Robert Childers in 1872 and 1875. Following the foundation of the Pali Text Society, English Pali studies grew rapidly and Childer's dictionary became outdated. Planning for a new dictionary began in the early 1900s, but delays (including the outbreak of World War I) meant that work was not completed until 1925.

T. W. Rhys Davids in his book Buddhist India, and Wilhelm Geiger in his book Pāli Literature and Language, suggested that Pali may have originated as a lingua franca or common language of culture among people who used differing dialects in North India, used at the time of the Buddha and employed by him. Another scholar states that at that time it was "a refined and elegant vernacular of all Aryan-speaking people". Modern scholarship has not arrived at a consensus on the issue; there are a variety of conflicting theories with supporters and detractors. After the death of the Buddha, Pali may have evolved among Buddhists out of the language of the Buddha as a new artificial language. R. C. Childers, who held to the theory that Pali was Old Magadhi, wrote: "Had Gautama never preached, it is unlikely that Magadhese would have been distinguished from the many other vernaculars of Hindustan, except perhaps by an inherent grace and strength which make it a sort of Tuscan among the Prakrits."

Modern scholarship
According to K. R. Norman, differences between different texts within the canon suggest that it contains material from more than a single dialect. He also suggests it is likely that the viharas in North India had separate collections of material, preserved in the local dialect. In the early period it is likely that no degree of translation was necessary in communicating this material to other areas. Around the time of Ashoka there had been more linguistic divergence, and an attempt was made to assemble all the material. It is possible that a language quite close to the Pali of the canon emerged as a result of this process as a compromise of the various dialects in which the earliest material had been preserved, and this language functioned as a lingua franca among Eastern Buddhists from then on. Following this period, the language underwent a small degree of Sanskritisation (i.e., MIA bamhana > brahmana, tta > tva in some cases).

Bhikkhu Bodhi, summarizing the current state of scholarship, states that the language is "closely related to the language (or, more likely, the various regional dialects) that the Buddha himself spoke". He goes on to write: "Scholars regard this language as a hybrid showing features of several Prakrit dialects used around the third century BCE, subjected to a partial process of Sanskritization. While the language is not identical to what Buddha himself would have spoken, it belongs to the same broad language family as those he might have used and originates from the same conceptual matrix. This language thus reflects the thought-world that the Buddha inherited from the wider Indian culture into which he was born, so that its words capture the subtle nuances of that thought-world." According to A. K. Warder, the Pali language is a Prakrit language used in a region of Western India. Warder associates Pali with the Indian realm (janapada) of Avanti, where the Sthavira nikāya was centered. Following the initial split in the Buddhist community, the Sthavira nikāya became influential in Western and South India while the Mahāsāṃghika branch became influential in Central and East India. Akira Hirakawa and Paul Groner also associate Pali with Western India and the Sthavira nikāya, citing the Saurashtran inscriptions, which are linguistically closest to the Pali language.

Emic views of Pali
Although Sanskrit was said in the Brahmanical tradition to be the unchanging language spoken by the gods in which each word had an inherent significance, such views for any language was not shared in the early Buddhist traditions, in which words were only conventional and mutable signs. This view of language naturally extended to Pali and may have contributed to its usage (as an approximation or standardization of local Middle Indic dialects) in place of Sanskrit. However, by the time of the compilation of the Pali commentaries (4th or 5th century), Pali was described by the anonymous authors as the natural language, the root language of all beings.

Comparable to Ancient Egyptian, Latin or Hebrew in the mystic traditions of the West, Pali recitations were often thought to have a supernatural power (which could be attributed to their meaning, the character of the reciter, or the qualities of the language itself), and in the early strata of Buddhist literature we can already see Pali dhāraṇīs used as charms, as, for example, against the bite of snakes. Many people in Theravada cultures still believe that taking a vow in Pali has a special significance, and, as one example of the supernatural power assigned to chanting in the language, the recitation of the vows of Aṅgulimāla are believed to alleviate the pain of childbirth in Sri Lanka. In Thailand, the chanting of a portion of the Abhidhammapiṭaka is believed to be beneficial to the recently departed, and this ceremony routinely occupies as much as seven working days. There is nothing in the latter text that relates to this subject, and the origins of the custom are unclear.

Pali today
Pali died out as a literary language in mainland India in the fourteenth century but survived elsewhere until the eighteenth. Today Pali is studied mainly to gain access to Buddhist scriptures, and is frequently chanted in a ritual context. The secular literature of Pali historical chronicles, medical texts, and inscriptions is also of great historical importance. The great centres of Pali learning remain in Sri Lanka and other Theravada nations of Southeast Asia: Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. Since the 19th century, various societies for the revival of Pali studies in India have promoted awareness of the language and its literature, including the Maha Bodhi Society founded by Anagarika Dhammapala.

In Europe, the Pali Text Society has been a major force in promoting the study of Pali by Western scholars since its founding in 1881. Based in the United Kingdom, the society publishes romanized Pali editions, along with many English translations of these sources. In 1869, the first Pali Dictionary was published using the research of Robert Caesar Childers, one of the founding members of the Pali Text Society. It was the first Pali translated text in English and was published in 1872. Childers' dictionary later received the Volney Prize in 1876.

The Pali Text Society was founded in part to compensate for the very low level of funds allocated to Indology in late 19th-century England and the rest of the UK; incongruously, the citizens of the UK were not nearly so robust in Sanskrit and Prakrit language studies as Germany, Russia, and even Denmark. Even without the inspiration of colonial holdings such as the former British occupation of Sri Lanka and Burma, institutions such as the Danish Royal Library have built up major collections of Pali manuscripts, and major traditions of Pali studies.

Pali literature
Pali literature is usually divided into canonical and non-canonical or extra-canonical texts. Canonical texts include the whole of the Pali Canon or Tipitaka. With the exception of three books placed in the Khuddaka Nikaya by only the Burmese tradition, these texts (consisting of the five Nikayas of the Sutta Pitaka, the Vinaya Pitaka, and the books of the Abhidhamma Pitaka) are traditionally accepted as containing the words of the Buddha and his immediate disciples by the Theravada tradition.

Extra-canonical texts can be divided into several categories:
 * Commentaries (Atthakatha) which record additional details and explanations regarding the contents of the Suttas.
 * Sub-commentaries (ṭīkā) which explain and add contents to the commentaries
 * Chronicles (Vaṃsa) which relate the history of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, as well as the origins of famous relics and shrines and the deeds of historical and mythical kings
 * Manuals and treatises, which include summaries of canonical books and compendia of teachings and techniques like the Visuddhimagga
 * Abhidhamma manuals, which explain the contents of the Abhidhamma Pitaka

Other types of texts present in Pali literature include works on grammar and poetics, medical texts, astrological and divination texts, cosmologies, and anthologies or collections of material from the canonical literature.

While the majority of works in Pali are believed to have originated with the Sri Lankan tradition and then spread to other Theravada regions, some texts may have other origins. The Milinda Panha may have originated in northern India before being translated from Sanskrit or Gandhari Prakrit. There are also a number of texts that are believed to have been composed in Pali in Sri Lanka, Thailand and Burma but were not widely circulated. This regional Pali literature is currently relatively little known, particularly in the Thai tradition, with many manuscripts never catalogued or published.

Paiśācī
is a largely unattested literary language of classical India that is mentioned in Prakrit and Sanskrit grammars of antiquity. It is found grouped with the Prakrit languages, with which it shares some linguistic similarities, but was not considered a spoken language by the early grammarians because it was understood to have been purely a literary language.

In works of Sanskrit poetics such as Daṇḍin's Kavyadarsha, it is also known by the name of, an epithet which can be interpreted as 'dead language' (i.e., with no surviving speakers), or means past and  means language i.e. 'a language spoken in the past'. Evidence which lends support to this interpretation is that literature in Paiśācī is fragmentary and extremely rare but may once have been common.

The 13th-century Tibetan historian Buton Rinchen Drub wrote that the early Buddhist schools were separated by choice of sacred language: the Mahāsāṃghikas used Prakrit, the Sarvāstivādins used Sanskrit, the Sthaviravādins used Paiśācī, and the Saṃmitīya used Apabhraṃśa. This observation has led some scholars to theorize connections between Pali and Paiśācī; Sten Konow concluded that it may have been an Indo-Aryan language spoken by Dravidian people in South India, and Alfred Master noted a number of similarities between surviving fragments and Pali morphology.

Ardha-Magadhi Prakrit
Ardhamagadhi Prakrit was a Middle Indo-Aryan language and a Dramatic Prakrit thought to have been spoken in modern-day Bihar & Eastern Uttar Pradesh and used in some early Buddhist and Jain drama. It was originally thought to be a predecessor of the vernacular Magadhi Prakrit, hence the name (literally "half-Magadhi"). Ardhamāgadhī was prominently used by Jain scholars and is preserved in the Jain Agamas.

Ardhamagadhi Prakrit differs from later Magadhi Prakrit in similar ways to Pali, and was often believed to be connected with Pali on the basis of the belief that Pali recorded the speech of the Buddha in an early Magadhi dialect.

Magadhi Prakrit
Magadhi Prakrit was a Middle Indic language spoken in present-day Bihar, and eastern Uttar Pradesh. Its use later expanded southeast to include some regions of modern-day Bengal, Odisha, and Assam, and it was used in some Prakrit dramas to represent vernacular dialogue. Preserved examples of Magadhi Prakrit are from several centuries after the theorized lifetime of the Buddha, and include inscriptions attributed to Asoka Maurya.

Differences observed between preserved examples of Magadhi Prakrit and Pali lead scholars to conclude that Pali represented a development of a northwestern dialect of Middle Indic, rather than being a continuation of a language spoken in the area of Magadha in the time of the Buddha.

Lexicon
Nearly every word in Pāḷi has cognates in the other Middle Indo-Aryan languages, the Prakrits. The relationship to Vedic Sanskrit is less direct and more complicated; the Prakrits were descended from Old Indo-Aryan vernaculars. Historically, influence between Pali and Sanskrit has been felt in both directions. The Pali language's resemblance to Sanskrit is often exaggerated by comparing it to later Sanskrit compositions—which were written centuries after Sanskrit ceased to be a living language, and are influenced by developments in Middle Indic, including the direct borrowing of a portion of the Middle Indic lexicon; whereas, a good deal of later Pali technical terminology has been borrowed from the vocabulary of equivalent disciplines in Sanskrit, either directly or with certain phonological adaptations.

Post-canonical Pali also possesses a few loan-words from local languages where Pali was used (e.g. Sri Lankans adding Sinhala words to Pali). These usages differentiate the Pali found in the Suttapiṭaka from later compositions such as the Pali commentaries on the canon and folklore (e.g., commentaries on the Jataka tales), and comparative study (and dating) of texts on the basis of such loan-words is now a specialized field unto itself.

Pali was not exclusively used to convey the teachings of the Buddha, as can be deduced from the existence of a number of secular texts, such as books of medical science/instruction, in Pali. However, scholarly interest in the language has been focused upon religious and philosophical literature, because of the unique window it opens on one phase in the development of Buddhism.

Vowels
Vowels may be divided into

 * 1) pure vowels: a, ā, e, o
 * 2) sonant vowels: i, ī, u, ū
 * 3) vowels short by nature: a, i, u
 * 4) vowels long by nature: ā, ī, ū
 * 5) vowels of variable length: e, o
 * 1) vowels of variable length: e, o

Long and short vowels are only contrastive in open syllables; in closed syllables, all vowels are always short. Short and long e and o are in complementary distribution: the short variants occur only in closed syllables, the long variants occur only in open syllables. Short and long e and o are therefore not distinct phonemes.

e and o are long in an open syllable: at the end of a syllable as in [ne-tum̩] เนตุํ 'to lead' or [so-tum̩] โสตุํ 'to hear'. They are short in a closed syllable: when followed by a consonant with which they make a syllable as in [upek-khā] 'indifference' or [sot-thi] 'safety'.

For vowels ā, ī, ū, e appears for a before doubled consonants:

 * seyyā = sayyā 'bed'
 * pheggu = phaigu 'empty, worthless'

The vowels ⟨i⟩ and ⟨u⟩ are lengthened in the flexional endings including: -īhi, -ūhi and -īsu

A sound called anusvāra (Skt.; Pali: niggahīta), represented by the letter ṁ (ISO 15919) or ṃ (ALA-LC) in romanization, and by a raised dot in most traditional alphabets, originally marked the fact that the preceding vowel was nasalized. That is, aṁ, iṁ and uṁ represented, and. In many traditional pronunciations, however, the anusvāra is pronounced more strongly, like the velar nasal, so that these sounds are pronounced instead , and. However pronounced, ṁ never follows a long vowel; ā, ī and ū are converted to the corresponding short vowels when ṁ is added to a stem ending in a long vowel, e.g. kathā + ṁ becomes kathaṁ, not *kathāṁ, devī + ṁ becomes deviṁ, not *devīṁ.

Changes of vowels due to the structure of the word

Final vowels

The final consonants of the Sanskrit words have been dropped in Pali and thus all the words end in a vowel or in a nasal vowel:  -> kantā 'from the loved one;  -> 'the loved one

The final vowels were usually weak in pronunciation and hence they were shortened: akārsit -> akāsi 'he did'.

Consonants
Among the labial consonants, is labiodental and the rest are bilabial. Among the dental/alveolar consonants, the majority is dental but and  are alveolar.

Of the sounds listed above only the three consonants in parentheses, ṅ, ḷ, and ḷh, are not distinct phonemes in Pali: ṅ only occurs before velar stops, while ḷ and ḷh are intervocalic allophones of single ḍ and ḍh.

In the Pali language, the consonants may be divided according to their strength or power of resistance. The strength decreases in the order of: mutes, sibilant, nasals, l, v, y, r

When two consonants come together, they are subject to one of the following change:

 * 1) they are assimilated to each other
 * 2) they are first adapted and then assimilated to each other
 * 3) they give rise to a new consonant group
 * 4) they separated by the insertion of an epenthetic vowel
 * 5) they are sometimes interchanged by metathesis

Aspirate consonants

when one of the two consonants is the sibilant s, then the new group of consonants has the aspiration in the last consonant: as-ti (root: √as) > atthi 'is'

the sibilant s, followed by a nasal, is changed to h and then it is transposed after the nasal (metathesis): akas-ma > akah-ma > akamha 'we did'

Alternation between y and v

Pali v appears for Skr. y. For instance, āvudha -> āyudha 'weapon'; kasāva -> kasāya 'dirt, sin'. After the svarabhakti-vowel I there appear v instead of y as in praṭyamsa -> pativimsa.

Alternation between r and l

Representation of r by l is very common in Pali, and in Pkr. it is the rule for Magadhi, although this substitution occurs sporadically also in other dialect. This, initially, in lūjjati -> rūjyate 'falls apart; sometimes both forms with l and r occur in Skr.: lūkha -> lūksa, rūksa 'gross, bad

Morphology
Pali is a highly inflected language, in which almost every word contains, besides the root conveying the basic meaning, one or more affixes (usually suffixes) which modify the meaning in some way. Nouns are inflected for gender, number, and case; verbal inflections convey information about person, number, tense and mood.

Nominal inflection
Pali nouns inflect for three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter) and two numbers (singular and plural). The nouns also, in principle, display eight cases: nominative or paccatta case, vocative, accusative or upayoga case, instrumental or karaṇa case, dative or sampadāna case, ablative, genitive or sāmin case, and locative or bhumma case; however, in many instances, two or more of these cases are identical in form; this is especially true of the genitive and dative cases.

a-stems
a-stems, whose uninflected stem ends in short a, are either masculine or neuter. The masculine and neuter forms differ only in the nominative, vocative, and accusative cases.

ā-stems
Nouns ending in ā are almost always feminine.

i-stems and u-stems
i-stems and u-stems are either masculine or neuter. The masculine and neuter forms differ only in the nominative and accusative cases. The vocative has the same form as the nominative.

Linguistic analysis of a Pali text
From the opening of the Dhammapada:

Mano-pubbaṅ-gam-ā dhamm-ā, mano-seṭṭh-ā mano-may-ā;

Mind-before-going-M.PL.NOM dharma-M.PL.NOM, mind-foremost-M.PL.NOM mind-made-M.PL.NOM

Ta-to naṁ dukkhaṁ anv-e-ti, cakkaṁ 'va vahat-o pad-aṁ.

That-from him suffering after-go-3.SG.PRES, wheel as carrying(beast)-M.SG.GEN foot-N.SG.ACC

The three compounds in the first line literally mean:
 * manopubbaṅgama "whose precursor is mind", "having mind as a fore-goer or leader"
 * manoseṭṭha "whose foremost member is mind", "having mind as chief"
 * manomaya "consisting of mind" or "made by mind"

The literal meaning is therefore: "The dharmas have mind as their leader, mind as their chief, are made of/by mind. If [someone] either speaks or acts with a corrupted mind, from that [cause] suffering goes after him, as the wheel [of a cart follows] the foot of a draught animal."

A slightly freer translation by Acharya Buddharakkhita
 * Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought.
 * If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts suffering follows him
 * like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox.

Conversion between Sanskrit and Pali forms
Pali and Sanskrit are very closely related and the common characteristics of Pali and Sanskrit were always easily recognized by those in India who were familiar with both. A large part of Pali and Sanskrit word-stems are identical in form, differing only in details of inflection.

Technical terms from Sanskrit were converted into Pali by a set of conventional phonological transformations. These transformations mimicked a subset of the phonological developments that had occurred in Proto-Pali. Because of the prevalence of these transformations, it is not always possible to tell whether a given Pali word is a part of the old Prakrit lexicon, or a transformed borrowing from Sanskrit. The existence of a Sanskrit word regularly corresponding to a Pali word is not always secure evidence of the Pali etymology, since, in some cases, artificial Sanskrit words were created by back-formation from Prakrit words.

The following phonological processes are not intended as an exhaustive description of the historical changes which produced Pali from its Old Indic ancestor, but rather are a summary of the most common phonological equations between Sanskrit and Pali, with no claim to completeness.

Vowels and diphthongs

 * Sanskrit ai and au always monophthongize to Pali e and o, respectively
 * Examples: maitrī (friendliness, benevolence) → mettā, auṣadha (medical herb) → osadha

 * Sanskrit āya, ayā and avā reduce to Pali ā
 * Examples: katipayāha (someone) → katipāha, vaihāyasa (sky-dwelling) → vehāsa, yāvagū (barley) → yāgu

 * Sanskrit aya and ava likewise often reduce to Pali e and o
 * Examples: dhārayati (one maintains, one holds) → dhāreti, avatāra (descent) → otāra, bhavati (one becomes) → hoti

 * Sanskrit avi and ayū becomes Pali e (i.e. avi → ai → e) and o
 * Examples: sthavira (broad, thick, compact) → thera, mayūra (peacock) → mora

 * Sanskrit ṛ appears in Pali as a, i or u, often agreeing with the vowel in the following syllable. ṛ also sometimes becomes u after labial consonants.
 * Examples: kṛta (done) → kata, tṛṣṇa (thirst) → taṇha, smṛti (remembrance, reminiscence) → sati, ṛṣi (cleric) → isi, dṛṣṭi (vision, sight) → diṭṭhi, ṛddhi (growth, increase) → iddhi, ṛju (straight) → uju, spṛṣṭa (touched) → phuṭṭha, vṛddha (old) → vuddha

 * Sanskrit long vowels are shortened before a sequence of two following consonants.
 * Examples: kṣānti (patience, forbearance, endurance, indulgence) → khanti, rājya (kingdom) → rajja, īśvara (lord) → issara, tīrṇa (crossed, surpassed) → tiṇṇa, pūrva (east) → pubba

Sound changes

 * The Sanskrit sibilants ś, ṣ, and s merge as Pali s
 * Examples: śaraṇa (protector, defender) → saraṇa, doṣa (night, darkness) → dosa

 * The Sanskrit stops ḍ and ḍh become ḷ and ḷh between vowels (as in Vedic)
 * Example: cakravāḍa (cyclic) → cakkavāḷa, virūḍha (mounted, sprouted) → virūḷha

General rules

 * Many assimilations of one consonant to a neighboring consonant occurred in the development of Pali, producing a large number of geminate (double) consonants. Since aspiration of a geminate consonant is only phonetically detectable on the last consonant of a cluster, geminate kh, gh, ch, jh, ṭh, ḍh, th, dh, ph and bh appear as kkh, ggh, cch, jjh, ṭṭh, ḍḍh, tth, ddh, pph and bbh, not as khkh, ghgh etc.
 * Initial consonent clusters are simplified to a single consonant.
 * Examples: prāṇa (respiration) → pāṇa (not ppāṇa), sthavira (compact, dense) → thera (not tthera), dhyāna (meditation) → jhāna (not jjhāna), jñāti (intelligence) → ñāti (not ññāti)

 * When assimilation would produce a sequence of three consonants in the middle of a word, geminates are simplified until there are only two consonants in sequence.
 * Examples: uttrāsa (fear, terror) → uttāsa (not utttāsa), mantra (instrument of thought, speech) → manta (not mantta), indra (conquerer) → inda (not indda), vandhya (barren, fruitless, deprived) → vañjha (not vañjjha)

 * The sequence vv resulting from assimilation changes to bb.
 * Example: sarva (all, every, various) → savva → sabba, pravrajati (one moves forth) → pavvajati → pabbajati, divya (supernatural, wonderful, magical) → divva → dibba, nirvāṇa (deceased, extinguished; extinction, cessation, vanishing, disappearance) → nivvāṇa → nibbāna

Total assimilation
Total assimilation, where one sound becomes identical to a neighboring sound, is of two types: progressive, where the assimilated sound becomes identical to the following sound; and regressive, where it becomes identical to the preceding sound.

Regressive assimilations

 * Internal visarga assimilates to a following voiceless stop or sibilant
 * Examples: duḥkṛta (=duṣkṛta, wrong-done) → dukkata, duḥkha (difficult, unagreeable) → dukkha, duḥprajña (misknowledge) → duppañña, niḥkrodha (=niṣkrodha, wrath) → nikkodha, niḥpakva (=niṣpakva, well-cooked, decocted, infused) → nippakka, niḥśoka (ugly, unhappy, inglorious)→ nissoka, niḥsattva → nissatta

 * In a sequence of two dissimilar Sanskrit stops, the first stop assimilates to the second stop
 * Examples: vimukti → vimutti, dugdha → duddha, utpāda → uppāda, pudgala → puggala, udghoṣa → ugghosa, adbhuta → abbhuta, śabda → sadda

 * In a sequence of two dissimilar nasals, the first nasal assimilates to the second nasal
 * Example: unmatta → ummatta, pradyumna → pajjunna

 * j assimilates to a following ñ (i.e., jñ becomes ññ)
 * Examples: prajñā → paññā, jñāti → ñāti

 * The Sanskrit liquid consonants r and l assimilate to a following stop, nasal, sibilant, or v
 * Examples: mārga → magga, karma → kamma, varṣa → vassa, kalpa → kappa, sarva → savva → sabba

 * r assimilates to a following l
 * Examples: durlabha → dullabha, nirlopa → nillopa

 * d sometimes assimilates to a following v, producing vv → bb
 * Examples: udvigna → uvvigga → ubbigga, dvādaśa → bārasa (beside dvādasa)

 * t and d may assimilate to a following s or y when a morpheme boundary intervenes
 * Examples: ut+sava → ussava, ud+yāna → uyyāna

Progressive assimilations

 * Nasals sometimes assimilate to a preceding stop (in other cases epenthesis occurs)
 * Examples: agni (fire) → aggi, ātman (self) → atta, prāpnoti → pappoti, śaknoti → sakkoti

 * m assimilates to an initial sibilant
 * Examples: smarati → sarati, smṛti → sati

 * Nasals assimilate to a preceding stop+sibilant cluster, which then develops in the same way as such clusters without following nasals
 * Examples: tīkṣṇa → tikṣa → tikkha, lakṣmī → lakṣī →lakkhī

 * The Sanskrit liquid consonants r and l assimilate to a preceding stop, nasal, sibilant, or v
 * Examples: prāṇa → pāṇa, grāma → gāma, śrāvaka → sāvaka, agra → agga, indra → inda, pravrajati → pavvajati → pabbajati, aśru → assu

 * y assimilates to preceding non-dental/retroflex stops or nasals
 * Examples: cyavati → cavati, jyotiṣ → joti, rājya → rajja, matsya → macchya → maccha, lapsyate → lacchyate → lacchati, abhyāgata → abbhāgata, ākhyāti → akkhāti, saṁkhyā → saṅkhā (but also saṅkhyā), ramya → ramma

 * y assimilates to preceding non-initial v, producing vv → bb
 * Example: divya → divva → dibba, veditavya → veditavva → veditabba, bhāvya → bhavva → bhabba

 * y and v assimilate to any preceding sibilant, producing ss
 * Examples: paśyati → passati, śyena → sena, aśva → assa, īśvara → issara, kariṣyati → karissati, tasya → tassa, svāmin → sāmī

 * v sometimes assimilates to a preceding stop
 * Examples: pakva → pakka, catvāri → cattāri, sattva → satta, dhvaja → dhaja

Partial and mutual assimilation

 * Sanskrit sibilants before a stop assimilate to that stop, and if that stop is not already aspirated, it becomes aspirated; e.g. śc, st, ṣṭ and sp become cch, tth, ṭṭh and pph
 * Examples: paścāt → pacchā, asti → atthi, stava → thava, śreṣṭha → seṭṭha, aṣṭa → aṭṭha, sparśa → phassa

 * In sibilant-stop-liquid sequences, the liquid is assimilated to the preceding consonant, and the cluster behaves like sibilant-stop sequences; e.g. str and ṣṭr become tth and ṭṭh
 * Examples: śāstra → śasta → sattha, rāṣṭra → raṣṭa → raṭṭha

 * t and p become c before s, and the sibilant assimilates to the preceding sound as an aspirate (i.e., the sequences ts and ps become cch)
 * Examples: vatsa → vaccha, apsaras → accharā

 * A sibilant assimilates to a preceding k as an aspirate (i.e., the sequence kṣ becomes kkh)
 * Examples: bhikṣu → bhikkhu, kṣānti → khanti

 * Any dental or retroflex stop or nasal followed by y converts to the corresponding palatal sound, and the y assimilates to this new consonant, i.e. ty, thy, dy, dhy, ny become cc, cch, jj, jjh, ññ; likewise ṇy becomes ññ. Nasals preceding a stop that becomes palatal share this change.
 * Examples: tyajati → cyajati → cajati, satya → sacya → sacca, mithyā → michyā → micchā, vidyā → vijyā → vijjā, madhya → majhya → majjha, anya → añya → añña, puṇya → puñya → puñña, vandhya → vañjhya → vañjjha → vañjha

 * The sequence mr becomes mb, via the epenthesis of a stop between the nasal and liquid, followed by assimilation of the liquid to the stop and subsequent simplification of the resulting geminate.
 * Examples: āmra → ambra → amba, tāmra → tamba

Epenthesis
An epenthetic vowel is sometimes inserted between certain consonant-sequences. As with ṛ, the vowel may be a, i, or u, depending on the influence of a neighboring consonant or of the vowel in the following syllable. i is often found near i, y, or palatal consonants; u is found near u, v, or labial consonants.
 * Sequences of stop + nasal are sometimes separated by a or u
 * Example: ratna → ratana, padma → paduma (u influenced by labial m)

 * The sequence sn may become sin initially
 * Examples: snāna → sināna, sneha → sineha

 * i may be inserted between a consonant and l
 * Examples: kleśa → kilesa, glāna → gilāna, mlāyati → milāyati, ślāghati → silāghati

 * An epenthetic vowel may be inserted between an initial sibilant and r
 * Example: śrī → sirī

 * The sequence ry generally becomes riy (i influenced by following y), but is still treated as a two-consonant sequence for the purposes of vowel-shortening
 * Example: ārya → arya → ariya, sūrya → surya → suriya, vīrya → virya → viriya

 * a or i is inserted between r and h
 * Example: arhati → arahati, garhā → garahā, barhiṣ → barihisa

 * There is sporadic epenthesis between other consonant sequences
 * Examples: caitya → cetiya (not cecca), vajra → vajira (not vajja)

Other changes

 * Any Sanskrit sibilant before a nasal becomes a sequence of nasal followed by h, i.e. ṣṇ, sn and sm become ṇh, nh, and mh
 * Examples: tṛṣṇa → taṇha, uṣṇīṣa → uṇhīsa, asmi → amhi

 * The sequence śn becomes ñh, due to assimilation of the n to the preceding palatal sibilant
 * Example: praśna → praśña → pañha

 * The sequences hy and hv undergo metathesis
 * Examples: jihvā → jivhā, gṛhya → gayha, guhya → guyha

 * h undergoes metathesis with a following nasal
 * Example: gṛhṇāti → gaṇhāti

 * y is geminated between e and a vowel
 * Examples: śreyas → seyya, Maitreya → Metteyya

 * Voiced aspirates such as bh and gh on rare occasions become h
 * Examples: bhavati → hoti, -ebhiṣ → -ehi, laghu → lahu

 * Dental and retroflex sounds sporadically change into one another
 * Examples: jñāna → ñāṇa (not ñāna), dahati → ḍahati (beside Pali dahati) nīḍa → nīla (not nīḷa), sthāna → ṭhāna (not thāna), duḥkṛta → dukkaṭa (beside Pali dukkata), granthi→ gaṇṭhi, pṛthivī → paṭhavī/puṭhuvī (beside Pali pathavī/puthuvī/puthavī)

Exceptions
There are several notable exceptions to the rules above; many of them are common Prakrit words rather than borrowings from Sanskrit.
 * ārya (noble, pure) → ayya (beside ariya)
 * guru (master) → garu (adj.) (beside guru (n.))
 * puruṣa (man) → purisa (not purusa)
 * vṛkṣa (tree) → rukṣa → rukkha (not vukkha)

Writing
Emperor Ashoka erected a number of pillars with his edicts in at least three regional Prakrit languages in Brahmi script, all of which are quite similar to Pali. Historically, the first written record of the Pali canon is believed to have been composed in Sri Lanka, based on a prior oral tradition. According to the Mahavamsa (the chronicle of Sri Lanka), due to a major famine in the country Buddhist monks wrote down the Pali canon during the time of King Vattagamini in 100 BCE. Bilingual coins containing Pali written in the Kharosthi script and Greek writing were used by James Prinsep to decipher the Kharosthi abugida. This script became particularly significant for the study of early Buddhism following the discovery of the Gandharan Buddhist texts.

The transmission of written Pali has retained a universal system of alphabetic values, but has expressed those values in a variety of different scripts. In the 1840s, Thai king Mongkut invented the Ariyaka script, adapted from the Greek and Burmese-Mon scripts, as a universal medium for transcribing Pali, intended to replace other existing regional scripts, including Khom Thai and Tai Tham. The script did not come into popular use. Theravada Buddhist-professing regions use distinct scripts to transcribe Pali:
 * India: Devanāgarī, Ahom script
 * Nepal: Pracalit script
 * Bangladesh: Bengali, Chakma
 * Sri Lanka: Sinhala
 * Myanmar: Mon-Burmese, Lik-Tai
 * Cambodia: Khmer
 * Thailand: Thai (since 1893; historically Tai Tham, Khom Thai and Ariyaka script)
 * Laos: Lao (since 1930; historically Tai Tham)

Alphabet with diacritics
Since the 19th century, Pali has also been written in the Roman script. An alternate scheme devised by Frans Velthuis, called the Velthuis scheme (see § Text in ASCII) allows for typing without diacritics using plain ASCII methods, but is arguably less readable than the standard IAST system, which uses diacritical marks.

The Pali alphabetical order is as follows:
 * a ā i ī u ū e o ṃ k kh g gh ṅ c ch j jh ñ ṭ ṭh ḍ ḍh ṇ t th d dh n p ph b bh m y r l ḷ v s h

ḷh, although a single sound, is written with ligature of ḷ and h.

Transliteration on computers
There are several fonts to use for Pali transliteration. However, older ASCII fonts such as Leedsbit PaliTranslit, Times_Norman, Times_CSX+, Skt Times, Vri RomanPali CN/CB etc., are not recommendable, they are deprecated, since they are not compatible with one another, and are technically out of date. Instead, fonts based on the Unicode standard are recommended.

However, not all Unicode fonts contain the necessary characters. To properly display all the diacritic marks used for romanized Pali (or for that matter, Sanskrit), a Unicode font must contain the following character ranges:

 * Basic Latin: U+0000 – U+007F
 * Latin-1 Supplement: U+0080 – U+00FF
 * Latin Extended-A: U+0100 – U+017F
 * Latin Extended-B: U+0180 – U+024F
 * Latin Extended Additional: U+1E00 – U+1EFF

Some Unicode fonts freely available for typesetting Romanized Pali are as follows:
 * The Pali Text Society recommends VU-Times and Gandhari Unicode for Windows and Linux Computers.
 * The Tibetan & Himalayan Digital Library recommends Times Ext Roman, and provides links to several Unicode diacritic Windows and Mac fonts usable for typing Pali together with ratings and installation instructions. It also provides macros for typing diacritics in OpenOffice and MS Office.
 * SIL: International provides Charis SIL and Charis SIL Compact, Doulos SIL, Gentium, Gentium Basic, Gentium Book Basic fonts. Of them, Charis SIL, Gentium Basic and Gentium Book Basic have all four styles (regular, italic, bold, bold-italic); so can provide publication quality typesetting.
 * Libertine Openfont Project provides the Linux Libertine font (four serif styles and many Opentype features) and Linux Biolinum (four sans-serif styles) at the SourceForge.
 * Junicode (short for Junius-Unicode) is a Unicode font for medievalists, but it provides all diacritics for typing Pali. It has four styles and some Opentype features such as Old Style for numerals.
 * Thryomanes includes all the Roman-alphabet characters available in Unicode along with a subset of the most commonly used Greek and Cyrillic characters, and is available in normal, italic, bold, and bold italic.
 * GUST (Polish TeX User Group) provides Latin Modern  and TeX Gyre  fonts. Each font has four styles, with the former finding most acceptance among the LaTeX users while the latter is a relatively new family. Of the latter, each typeface in the following families has nearly 1250 glyphs and is available in PostScript, TeX and OpenType formats.
 * The TeX Gyre Adventor family of sans serif fonts is based on the URW Gothic L family. The original font, ITC Avant Garde Gothic, was designed by Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnase in 1970.
 * The TeX Gyre Bonum family of serif fonts is based on the URW Bookman L family. The original font, Bookman or Bookman Old Style, was designed by Alexander Phemister in 1860.
 * The TeX Gyre Chorus is a font based on the URW Chancery L Medium Italic font. The original, ITC Zapf Chancery, was designed in 1979 by Hermann Zapf.
 * The TeX Gyre Cursor family of monospace serif fonts is based on the URW Nimbus Mono L family. The original font, Courier, was designed by Howard G. (Bud) Kettler in 1955.
 * The TeX Gyre Heros family of sans serif fonts is based on the URW Nimbus Sans L family. The original font, Helvetica, was designed in 1957 by Max Miedinger.
 * The TeX Gyre Pagella family of serif fonts is based on the URW Palladio L family. The original font, Palatino, was designed by Hermann Zapf in the 1940s.
 * The TeX Gyre Schola family of serif fonts is based on the URW Century Schoolbook L family. The original font, Century Schoolbook, was designed by Morris Fuller Benton in 1919.
 * The TeX Gyre Termes family of serif fonts is based on the Nimbus Roman No9 L family. The original font, Times Roman, was designed by Stanley Morison together with Starling Burgess and Victor Lardent.

 * John Smith provides IndUni Opentype fonts, based upon URW++ fonts. Of them:
 * IndUni-C is Courier-lookalike;
 * IndUni-H is Helvetica-lookalike;
 * IndUni-N is New Century Schoolbook-lookalike;
 * IndUni-P is Palatino-lookalike;
 * IndUni-T is Times-lookalike;
 * IndUni-CMono is Courier-lookalike but monospaced;
 * An English Buddhist monk titled Bhikkhu Pesala provides some Pali OpenType fonts he has designed himself. Of them:
 * Acariya is a Garamond style typeface derived from Guru (regular, italic, bold, bold italic).
 * Balava is a revival of Baskerville derived from Libre Baskerville (regular, italic, bold, bold italic).
 * Cankama is a Gothic, Black Letter script. Regular style only.
 * (Carita has been discontinued.)
 * Garava was designed for body text with a generous x-height and economical copyfit. It includes Petite Caps (as OpenType Features), and Heavy styles besides the usual four styles (regular, italic, bold, bold italic).
 * Guru is a condensed Garamond style typeface designed for economy of copy-fit. A hundred A4 pages of text set in Pali would be about 98 pages if set in Acariya, 95 if set in Garava or Times New Roman, but only 90 if set in Guru.(regular, italic, bold, bold italic styles).
 * Hari is a hand-writing script derived from Allura by Robert E. Leuschke.(Regular style only).
 * (Hattha has been discontinued)
 * Jivita is an original Sans Serif typeface for body text. (regular, italic, bold, bold italic).
 * Kabala is a distinctive Sans Serif typeface designed for display text or headings. Regular, italic, bold and bold italic styles.
 * Lekhana is a Zapf Chancery clone, a flowing script that can be used for correspondence or body text. Regular, italic, bold and bold italic styles.
 * Mahakampa is a hand-writing script derived from Great Vibes by Robert E. Leuschke. Regular type style.
 * Mandala is designed for display text or headings. Regular, italic, bold and bold italic styles.
 * Nacca is a hand-writing script derived from Dancing Script by Pablo Impallari and released on Font Squirrel. Regular type style.
 * Odana is a calligraphic brush font suitable for headlines, titles, or short texts where a less formal appearance is wanted. Regular style only.
 * Open Sans is a Sans Serif font suitable for body text. Ten type styles.
 * Pali is a clone of Hermann Zapf's Palatino. Regular, italic, bold and bold italic styles.
 * Sukhumala is derived from Sort Mills Goudy. Five type styles
 * Talapanna is a clone of Goudy Bertham, with decorative gothic capitals and extra ligatures in the Private Use Area. Regular and bold styles.
 * (Talapatta is discontinued.)
 * Veluvana is another brush calligraphic font but basic Greek glyphs are taken from Guru. Regular style only.
 * Verajja is derived from Bitstream Vera. Regular, italic, bold and bold italic styles.
 * VerajjaPDA is a cut-down version of Verajja without symbols. For use on PDA devices. Regular, italic, bold and bold italic styles.
 * He also provides some Pali keyboards for Windows XP.
 * The font section of Alanwood's Unicode Resources have links to several general purpose fonts that can be used for Pali typing if they cover the character ranges above.

Some of the latest fonts coming with Windows 7 can also be used to type transliterated Pali: Arial, Calibri, Cambria, Courier New, Microsoft Sans Serif, Segoe UI, Segoe UI Light, Segoe UI Semibold, Tahoma, and Times New Roman. Some of them have four styles each, hence usable in professional typesetting: Arial, Calibri and Segoe UI are sans-serif fonts, Cambria and Times New Roman are serif fonts and Courier New is a monospace font.

Text in ASCII
The Velthuis scheme was originally developed in 1991 by Frans Velthuis for use with his "devnag" Devanāgarī font, designed for the TeX typesetting system. This system of representing Pali diacritical marks has been used in some websites and discussion lists. However, as the Web itself and email software slowly evolve towards the Unicode encoding standard, this system has become almost unnecessary and obsolete.

The following table compares various conventional renderings and shortcut key assignments:

Influence on other languages
Pali has influenced the languages of mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia to various degrees, among them Burmese, Khmer, and Lao, Sinhala, and Thai.

In Cambodia, Pali replaced Sanskrit as a prestige language in the 13th century, coinciding with the spread of Theravada Buddhism there. Throughout the 1900s, Chuon Nath used Pali roots to coin Khmer neologisms to describe modern phenomena, such as the 'train.' Similarly, in 20th century Thailand and Laos, local scholars, including Jit Bhumisak and Vajiravudh coined new words using Pali roots to describe foreign concepts and technological innovations.

In Myanmar, since its earliest stage as Old Burmese, the Burmese language has readily adopted thousands of loanwords from Pali, particularly in the domains of religion, government, arts, and science, whereas the adoption of Sanskrit loanwords has been confined to specialized subjects like astrology, astronomy, and medicine. The first to tenth ordinal numbers in Burmese are also directly borrowed form Pali. Burmese has a long history of using and repurposing Pali roots to coin Burmese neologisms well into the 20th century, including the words for 'feudalism' (from Pali ), 'organization' (from Pali ), and 'leader' (from Pali ). Pali has also influenced Burmese grammatical structures, particularly in the literary register of Burmese. By the 13th century, the third person pronoun in Pali had become grammaticized into the Burmese grammatical particle so (သော), which is still used to modify nouns, following Pali syntax. Until the 19th century, Burmese prose writing was heavily influenced by Pali texts, in particular nissaya texts that first emerged in the 15th century.

In Sri Lanka, Pali has enriched the Sinhala language since the Anuradhapura period, particularly in the realm of literature, as exemplified by the Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa chronicles, both written in Pali verse. Following the Anuradhapura period, Sanskrit became more influential in the development of Sinhala

title: Pali


text:
Horikawa

Horikawa may refer to:

 * Horikawa (surname), a Japanese surname
 * Emperor Horikawa, emperor of Japan
 * Horikawa, Kyoto, one of main streets in Kyoto, whereupon lie the Horikawa Mansion of both Emperor Horikawa, and later, Minamoto no Yoshitsune
 * Hori River (Nagoya), known as Horikawa in Japanese

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Horikawa


text:
1107

Year 1107 (MCVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.

Scotland

 * January 8 – King Edgar dies at Edinburgh Castle after a 9-year reign. He is succeeded by his brother Alexander I, who is married to Sybilla of Normandy (an illegitimate daughter of King Henry I). A split of unity, between Alexander and his younger brother David I, makes David co-ruler in Lothian and Strathclyde (Southern Scotland). He does not receive the title of king, but of "Prince of the Cumbrians".

England

 * August 11 – The Investiture Controversy is resolved, by the reconciliation of Henry I and Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury and the mass consecration of bishops by Anselm at the royal Palace of Westminster: William Giffard to Winchester, Roger to Salisbury, Reynelm to Hereford, William Warelwast to Exeter and Urban to Llandaff. Roger of Salisbury is also appointed Justiciar in this year.

Europe

 * Spring – Duke Bolesław III along with his ally King Coloman of Hungary, invades Bohemia in order to aid Duke Svatopluk in gaining the Bohemian throne. The Polish expedition is a complete success: on May 14 Svatopluk is installed as Duke of Bohemia in Prague. King Henry V demands tribute from Svatopluk as his overlord and vassal of the Holy Roman Empire.
 * Autumn – King Sigurd I sails for the Holy Land with 60 ships (with some 5,000 men) on the first stage of the Norwegian Crusade to Palestine. Now 17, he is the first European king to support the Crusaders in the Levant. Sigurd leaves his older brother Eystein I to rule the kingdom in his absence – and visits England, France, Galicia and Sicily en route.
 * October 9 – Bohemond I, prince of Antioch, lands with his army (some 34,000 men) in Epirus near Avlona. He plunders the countryside and marches to Dyrrhachium (modern Albania).
 * November – Siege of Dyrrhachium: Bohemond I begins the siege of the Adriatic port city of Dyrrhachium held by its  doux Alexios Komnenos.
 * Winter – Bolesław III undertakes a punitive expedition against his half-brother Zbigniew with the help of Kievan and Hungarian allies.
 * Saracen pirates raid the Benedictine monastery of Saint Honorat, on the Lérins Islands.

Levant

 * June – Kilij Arslan I, sultan of Sultanate of Rum, conquers Mosul (during the Battle of Mosul). But he is defeated and killed by Seljuk forces under Muhammad I Tapar supported by the Ortoqids and Fakhr al-Mulk Radwan.
 * The Crusaders under Tancred, prince of Galilee, recover the Cilician cities of Tarsus, Adana and Mamistra conquered by Emperor Alexios I 3-years ago (see 1104).
 * Joscelin I, lord of Turbessel, is released by Ilghazi (the Artukid ruler of Mardin) for a ransom of 20,000 dinars and the promise of military aid.
 * Emir Fadl ibn Rabi'ah is expelled by Toghtekin, ruler (atabeg) of Damascus in Syria (approximate date).

Asia

 * August 9 – Emperor Horikawa dies after a 20-year reign and is succeeded by his 4-year-old son Toba as emperor of Japan.

Commerce

 * Chinese authorities print paper money in three colors to thwart counterfeiting (approximate date).

Literature

 * Emperor Hui Zong writes his Treatise on Tea, the most detailed description of the Song sophisticated style of tea ceremony.

Births

 * June 12 – Gao Zong, Chinese emperor (d. 1187)
 * Anthelm of Belley, French prior and bishop (d. 1178)
 * Enrico Dandolo, doge of Venice (d.1205)
 * Falaki Shirvani, Persian poet and writer (d. 1157)
 * Kenkai, Japanese Shingon Buddhist monk (d. 1155)
 * Stephen Kontostephanos, Byzantine general (d. 1149)
 * William III, count of Nevers and Auxerre (d. 1161)

Deaths

 * January 8 – Edgar, king of Scotland
 * April 12 – Burchard, bishop of Basel
 * May 24 – Raymond of Burgundy, count of Galicia
 * August 9 – Horikawa, emperor of Japan (b. 1079)
 * September 26 – Maurice, bishop of London
 * Changlu Zongze, Chinese Chan Buddhist monk
 * Cheng Yi, Chinese neo-confusian philosopher (b. 1033)
 * Kilij Arslan I, sultan of the Sultanate of Rum (b. 1079)
 * Mi Fu, Chinese painter, poet and calligrapher (b. 1051)
 * Richard de Redvers, Norman warrior and nobleman
 * Robert Fitzhamon, Norman warrior and nobleman
 * Roger Bigod, Norman knight and nobleman

title: 1107


text:
Frame Relay

Frame Relay is a standardized wide area network (WAN) technology that specifies the physical and data link layers of digital telecommunications channels using a packet switching methodology. Originally designed for transport across Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) infrastructure, it may be used today in the context of many other network interfaces.

Network providers commonly implement Frame Relay for voice (VoFR) and data as an encapsulation technique used between local area networks (LANs) over a WAN. Each end-user gets a private line (or leased line) to a Frame Relay node. The Frame Relay network handles the transmission over a frequently changing path transparent to all end-user extensively used WAN protocols. It is less expensive than leased lines and that is one reason for its popularity. The extreme simplicity of configuring user equipment in a Frame Relay network offers another reason for Frame Relay's popularity.

With the advent of Ethernet over fiber optics, MPLS, VPN and dedicated broadband services such as cable modem and DSL, Frame Relay has become less popular in recent years.

Technical description
The designers of Frame Relay aimed to provide a telecommunication service for cost-efficient data transmission for intermittent traffic between local area networks (LANs) and between end-points in a wide area network (WAN). Frame Relay puts data in variable-size units called "frames" and leaves any necessary error-correction (such as retransmission of data) up to the end-points. This speeds up overall data transmission. For most services, the network provides a permanent virtual circuit (PVC), which means that the customer sees a continuous, dedicated connection without having to pay for a full-time leased line, while the service-provider figures out the route each frame travels to its destination and can charge based on usage.

An enterprise can select a level of service quality, prioritizing some frames and making others less important. Frame Relay can run on fractional T-1 or E1, or full T-carrier or E-carrier system carriers. Frame Relay complements and provides a mid-range service between basic rate ISDN, which offers bandwidth at 128 kbit/s, and Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), which operates in somewhat similar fashion to Frame Relay but at speeds from 155.520 Mbit/s to 622.080 Mbit/s.

Frame Relay has its technical base in the older X.25 packet-switching technology, designed for transmitting data on analog voice lines. Unlike X.25, whose designers expected analog signals with a relatively high chance of transmission errors, Frame Relay is a fast packet switching technology operating over links with a low chance of transmission errors (usually practically lossless like PDH), which means that the protocol does not attempt to correct errors. When a Frame Relay network detects an error in a frame, it simply drops that frame. The end points have the responsibility for detecting and retransmitting dropped frames. (However, digital networks offer an incidence of error extraordinarily small relative to that of analog networks.)

Frame Relay often serves to connect local area networks (LANs) with major backbones, as well as on public wide-area networks (WANs) and also in private network environments with leased lines over T-1 lines. It requires a dedicated connection during the transmission period. Frame Relay does not provide an ideal path for voice or video transmission, both of which require a steady flow of transmissions. However, under certain circumstances, voice and video transmission do use Frame Relay.

Frame Relay originated as an extension of integrated services digital network (ISDN). Its designers aimed to enable a packet-switched network to transport over circuit-switched technology. The technology has become a stand-alone and cost-effective means of creating a WAN.

Frame Relay switches create virtual circuits to connect remote LANs to a WAN. The Frame Relay network exists between a LAN border device, usually a router, and the carrier switch. The technology used by the carrier to transport data between the switches is variable and may differ among carriers (i.e., to function, a practical Frame Relay implementation need not rely solely on its own transportation mechanism).

The sophistication of the technology requires a thorough understanding of the terms used to describe how Frame Relay works. Without a firm understanding of Frame Relay, it is difficult to troubleshoot its performance.

Frame-relay frame structure essentially mirrors almost exactly that defined for LAP-D. Traffic analysis can distinguish Frame Relay format from LAP-D by its lack of a control field.

Protocol data unit
Each Frame Relay protocol data unit (PDU) consists of the following fields:

 * 1) Flag Field. The flag is used to perform high-level data link synchronization which indicates the beginning and end of the frame with the unique pattern 01111110. To ensure that the 01111110 pattern does not appear somewhere inside the frame, bit stuffing and destuffing procedures are used.
 * 2) Address Field. Each address field may occupy either octet 2 to 3, octet 2 to 4, or octet 2 to 5, depending on the range of the address in use. A two-octet address field comprises the EA=ADDRESS FIELD EXTENSION BITS and the C/R=COMMAND/RESPONSE BIT.En-tête Relais de Trame.png
 * 3) DLCI-Data Link Connection Identifier Bits. The DLCI serves to identify the virtual connection so that the receiving end knows which information connection a frame belongs to. Note that this DLCI has only local significance. A single physical channel can multiplex several different virtual connections.
 * 4) FECN, BECN, DE bits. These bits report congestion:
 * 5) * FECN=Forward Explicit Congestion Notification bit
 * 6) * BECN=Backward Explicit Congestion Notification bit
 * 7) * DE=Discard Eligibility bit
 * 8) Information Field. A system parameter defines the maximum number of data bytes that a host can pack into a frame. Hosts may negotiate the actual maximum frame length at call set-up time. The standard specifies the maximum information field size (supportable by any network) as at least 262 octets. Since end-to-end protocols typically operate on the basis of larger information units, Frame Relay recommends that the network support the maximum value of at least 1600 octets in order to avoid the need for segmentation and reassembling by end-users.
 * 9) Frame Check Sequence (FCS) Field. Since one cannot completely ignore the bit error-rate of the medium, each switching node needs to implement error detection to avoid wasting bandwidth due to the transmission of erred frames. The error detection mechanism used in Frame Relay uses the cyclic redundancy check (CRC) as its basis.

Congestion control
The Frame Relay network uses a simplified protocol at each switching node. It achieves simplicity by omitting link-by-link flow-control. As a result, the offered load has largely determined the performance of Frame Relay networks. When offered load is high, due to the bursts in some services, temporary overload at some Frame Relay nodes causes a collapse in network throughput. Therefore, Frame Relay networks require some effective mechanisms to control the congestion.

Congestion control in Frame Relay networks includes the following elements:

 * 1) Admission Control. This provides the principal mechanism used in Frame Relay to ensure the guarantee of resource requirement once accepted. It also serves generally to achieve high network performance. The network decides whether to accept a new connection request, based on the relation of the requested traffic descriptor and the network's residual capacity. The traffic descriptor consists of a set of parameters communicated to the switching nodes at call set-up time or at service-subscription time, and which characterizes the connection's statistical properties. The traffic descriptor consists of three elements:
 * 2) Committed Information Rate (CIR). The average rate (in bit/s) at which the network guarantees to transfer information units over a measurement interval T. This T interval is defined as: T = Bc/CIR.
 * 3) Committed Burst Size (BC). The maximum number of information units transmittable during the interval T.
 * 4) Excess Burst Size (BE). The maximum number of uncommitted information units (in bits) that the network will attempt to carry during the interval.

Once the network has established a connection, the edge node of the Frame Relay network must monitor the connection's traffic flow to ensure that the actual usage of network resources does not exceed this specification. Frame Relay defines some restrictions on the user's information rate. It allows the network to enforce the end user's information rate and discard information when the subscribed access rate is exceeded.

Explicit congestion notification is proposed as the congestion avoidance policy. It tries to keep the network operating at its desired equilibrium point so that a certain quality of service (QoS) for the network can be met. To do so, special congestion control bits have been incorporated into the address field of the Frame Relay: FECN and BECN. The basic idea is to avoid data accumulation inside the network.

FECN means forward explicit congestion notification. The FECN bit can be set to 1 to indicate that congestion was experienced in the direction of the frame transmission, so it informs the destination that congestion has occurred. BECN means backwards explicit congestion notification. The BECN bit can be set to 1 to indicate that congestion was experienced in the network in the direction opposite of the frame transmission, so it informs the sender that congestion has occurred.

Origin
Frame Relay began as a stripped-down version of the X.25 protocol, releasing itself from the error-correcting burden most commonly associated with X.25. When Frame Relay detects an error, it simply drops the offending packet. Frame Relay uses the concept of shared access and relies on a technique referred to as "best-effort", whereby error-correction practically does not exist and practically no guarantee of reliable data delivery occurs. Frame Relay provides an industry-standard encapsulation, utilizing the strengths of high-speed, packet-switched technology able to service multiple virtual circuits and protocols between connected devices, such as two routers. Although Frame Relay became very popular in North America, it was never very popular in Europe. X.25 remained the primary standard until the wide availability of IP made packet switching almost obsolete. It was used sometimes as backbone for other services, such as X.25 or IP traffic. Where Frame Relay was used in the USA also as carrier for TCP/IP traffic, in Europe backbones for IP networks often used ATM or PoS, later replaced by Carrier Ethernet

Relationship to X.25
X.25 was an important early WAN protocol, and is often considered to be the grandfather of Frame Relay as many of the underlying protocols and functions of X.25 are still in use today (with upgrades) by Frame Relay.

X.25 provides quality of service and error-free delivery, whereas Frame Relay was designed to relay data as quickly as possible over low error networks. Frame Relay eliminates a number of the higher-level procedures and fields used in X.25. Frame Relay was designed for use on links with error-rates far lower than available when X.25 was designed.

X.25 prepares and sends packets, while Frame Relay prepares and sends frames. X.25 packets contain several fields used for error checking and flow control, most of which are not used by Frame Relay. The frames in Frame Relay contain an expanded link layer address field that enables Frame Relay nodes to direct frames to their destinations with minimal processing. The elimination of functions and fields over X.25 allows Frame Relay to move data more quickly, but leaves more room for errors and larger delays should data need to be retransmitted.

X.25 packet switched networks typically allocated a fixed bandwidth through the network for each X.25 access, regardless of the current load. This resource allocation approach, while apt for applications that require guaranteed quality of service, is inefficient for applications that are highly dynamic in their load characteristics or which would benefit from a more dynamic resource allocation. Frame Relay networks can dynamically allocate bandwidth at both the physical and logical channel level.

Virtual circuits
As a WAN protocol, Frame Relay is most commonly implemented at Layer 2 (data link layer) of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) seven layer model. Two types of circuits exist: permanent virtual circuits (PVCs) which are used to form logical end-to-end links mapped over a physical network, and switched virtual circuits (SVCs). The latter are analogous to the circuit-switching concepts of the public switched telephone network (PSTN), the global phone network.

Local management interface
Initial proposals for Frame Relay were presented to the Consultative Committee on International Telephone and Telegraph (CCITT) in 1984. Lack of interoperability and standardization prevented any significant Frame Relay deployment until 1990, when Cisco, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), Northern Telecom, and StrataCom formed a consortium to focus on its development. They produced a protocol that provided additional capabilities for complex inter-networking environments. These Frame Relay extensions are referred to as the local management interface (LMI).

Datalink connection identifiers (DLCIs) are numbers that refer to paths through the Frame Relay network. They are only locally significant, which means that when device-A sends data to device-B it will most likely use a different DLCI than device-B would use to reply. Multiple virtual circuits can be active on the same physical end-points (performed by using subinterfaces).

The LMI global addressing extension gives Frame Relay data-link connection identifier (DLCI) values global rather than local significance. DLCI values become DTE addresses that are unique in the Frame Relay WAN. The global addressing extension adds functionality and manageability to Frame Relay internetworks. Individual network interfaces and the end nodes attached to them, for example, can be identified by using standard address-resolution and discovery techniques. In addition, the entire Frame Relay network appears to be a typical LAN to routers on its periphery.

LMI virtual circuit status messages provide communication and synchronization between Frame Relay DTE and DCE devices. These messages are used to periodically report on the status of PVCs, which prevents data from being sent into black holes (that is, over PVCs that no longer exist).

The LMI multicasting extension allows multicast groups to be assigned. Multicasting saves bandwidth by allowing routing updates and address-resolution messages to be sent only to specific groups of routers. The extension also transmits reports on the status of multicast groups in update messages.

Committed information rate
Frame Relay connections are often given a committed information rate (CIR) and an allowance of burstable bandwidth known as the extended information rate (EIR). The provider guarantees that the connection will always support the C rate, and sometimes the PRa rate should there be adequate bandwidth. Frames that are sent in excess of the CIR are marked as discard eligible (DE) which means they can be dropped should congestion occur within the Frame Relay network. Frames sent in excess of the EIR are dropped immediately.

Market reputation
Frame Relay aimed to make more efficient use of existing physical resources, permitting the over-provisioning of data services by telecommunications companies to their customers, as clients were unlikely to be using a data service 45 percent of the time. In more recent years, Frame Relay has acquired a bad reputation in some markets because of excessive bandwidth overbooking.

Telecommunications companies often sell Frame Relay to businesses looking for a cheaper alternative to dedicated lines; its use in different geographic areas depended greatly on governmental and telecommunication companies' policies. Some of the early companies to make Frame Relay products included StrataCom (later acquired by Cisco Systems) and Cascade Communications (later acquired by Ascend Communications and then by Lucent Technologies).

As of June 2007, AT&T was the largest Frame Relay service provider in the US, with local networks in 22 states, plus national and international networks.

FRF.12
When multiplexing packet data from different virtual circuits or flows, quality of service concerns often arise. This is because a frame from one virtual circuit may occupy the line for a long enough period of time to disrupt a service guarantee given to another virtual circuit. IP fragmentation is a method for addressing this. An incoming long packet is broken up into a sequence of shorter packets and enough information is added to reassemble that long frame at the far end. FRF.12 is a specification from the Frame Relay Forum which specifies how to perform fragmentation on frame relay traffic primarily for voice traffic. The FRF.12 specification describes the method of fragmenting Frame Relay frames into smaller frames.

title: Frame Relay


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Harlequin

Harlequin (, Arlecchino, ; Arlechin, ) is the best-known of the comic servant characters (Zanni) from the Italian commedia dell'arte, associated with the city of Bergamo. The role is traditionally believed to have been introduced by the Italian actor-manager Zan Ganassa in the late 16th century, was definitively popularized by the Italian actor Tristano Martinelli in Paris in 1584–1585, and became a stock character after Martinelli's death in 1630.

The Harlequin is characterized by his checkered costume. His role is that of a light-hearted, nimble, and astute servant, often acting to thwart the plans of his master, and pursuing his own love interest, Columbina, with wit and resourcefulness, often competing with the sterner and melancholic Pierrot. He later develops into a prototype of the romantic hero. Harlequin inherits his physical agility and his trickster qualities, as well as his name, from a mischievous "devil" character in medieval Passion Plays.

The Harlequin character first appeared in Bergamo, Italy, early in the 17th century and took centre stage in the derived genre of the Harlequinade, developed in the early 18th century by John Rich. As the Harlequinade portion of the English dramatic genre pantomime developed, Harlequin was routinely paired with the character Clown. As developed by Joseph Grimaldi around 1800, Clown became the mischievous and brutish foil for the more sophisticated Harlequin, who became more of a romantic character. The most influential portrayers of the Harlequin character in Victorian England were William Payne and his sons the Payne Brothers, the latter active during the 1860s and 1870s.

Origin of the name
The name Harlequin is taken from that of a mischievous "devil" or "demon" character in popular French Passion Plays. It originates with an Old French term herlequin, hellequin, first attested in the 11th century, by the chronicler Orderic Vitalis, who recounts a story of a monk who was pursued by a troop of demons when wandering on the coast of Normandy (France) at night. These demons were led by a masked, club-wielding giant and they were known as familia herlequin (var. familia herlethingi). This medieval French version of the Germanic Wild Hunt, Mesnée d'Hellequin, has been connected to the English figure of Herla cyning ("host-king"; German: Erlkönig). Hellequin was depicted as a black-faced emissary of the devil, roaming the countryside with a group of demons chasing the damned souls of evil people to Hell. The physical appearance of Hellequin offers an explanation for the traditional colours of Harlequin's red-and-black mask. The name's origin could also be traced to a knight from the 9th century, Hellequin of Boulogne, who died fighting the Normans and originated a legend of devils. In Cantos XXI and XXII from Dante's Inferno there is a devil by the name of Alichino. The similarities between the devil in Dante's Inferno and the Arlecchino are more than cosmetic. The prank-like antics of the devils in the aforementioned antics reflect some carnivalesque aspects.

The first known appearance on stage of Hellequin is dated to 1262, the character of a masked and hooded devil in Jeu da la Feuillière by Adam de la Halle, and it became a stock character in French passion plays.

History

The re-interpretation of the "devil" stock character as a Zanni character of the commedia dell'arte took place in the 16th century in France. Zan Ganassa, whose troupe is first mentioned in Mantua in the late 1560s, is one of the earliest known actors suggested to have performed the part, although there is "little hard evidence to support [it]". Ganassa performed in France in 1571, and if he did play the part there, he left the field open for another actor to take up the role, when he took his troupe to Spain permanently in 1574.

Among the earliest depictions of the character are a Flemish painting (c. 1571–1572) in the Museum of Bayeux and several woodblock prints probably dating from the 1580s in the Fossard collection, discovered by Agne Beijer in the 1920s among uncatalogued items in the Nationalmuseum, in Stockholm.

Tristano Martinelli is the first actor definitely known to have used the name "Harlequin" (or "Arlequin") from French folklore and adapted it for the comic secondo Zanni role, and he probably first performed the part in France in (or just before) 1584 and only later did he bring the character to Italy, where he became known as Arlecchino. The motley costume is sometimes attributed to Martinelli, who wore a linen costume of colourful patches, and a hare-tail on his cap to indicate cowardice. Martinelli's Harlequin also had a black leather half-mask, a moustache and a pointed beard. He was very successful, even playing at court and becoming a favourite of Henry IV of France, to whom he addressed insolent monologues (Compositions de Rhetorique de Mr. Don Arlequin, 1601). Martinelli's great success contributed to the perpetuation of his interpretation of the Zanni role, along with the name of his character, after his death in 1630, among others, by Nicolò Zecca, active c. 1630 in Bologna as well as Turin and Mantua.

The character was also performed in Paris at the Comédie-Italienne in Italian by Giambattista Andreini and Angelo Costantini (c. 1654–1729) and in French as Arlequin in the 1660s by (1636–1688), who combined the Zanni types, "making his Arlecchino witty, neat, and fluent in a croaking voice, which became as traditional as the squawk of Punch". The Italians were expelled from France in 1697 for satirizing King Louis XIV's second wife, Madame de Maintenon, but returned in 1716 (after his death), when Tommaso Antonio Vicentini ("Thomassin", 1682–1739) became famous in the part. The rhombus shape of the patches arose by adaptation to the Paris fashion of the 17th century by Biancolelli.

Physicality
The primary aspect of Arlecchino was his physical agility. He was very nimble and performed the sort of acrobatics the audience expected to see. The character would never perform a simple action when the addition of a cartwheel, somersault, or flip would spice up the movement. "By contrast with the "first" Zanni Harlequin takes little or no part in the development of the plot. He has the more arduous task of maintaining the even rhythm of the comedy as a whole. He is therefore always on the go, very agile and more acrobatic than any of the other Masks."

- Oreglia, Giacomo

Early characteristics of Arlecchino paint the character as a "second" Zanni servant from northern Italy with the paradoxical attributes of a dimwitted fool and an intelligent trickster. Arlecchino is sometimes referred to as putting on a show of stupidity in a metatheatrical attempt to create chaos within the play. Physically, Arlecchino is described as wearing a costume covered in irregular patches, a hat outfitted with either a rabbit or fox's tail, and a red and black mask. The mask itself is identified by carbuncles on the forehead, small eyes, a snub nose, hollow cheeks, and sometimes bushy brows with facial hair. Arlecchino is often depicted as having a wooden sword hanging from a leather belt on his person, and sometimes holding a marotte (fool's scepter). Aside from his acrobatics, Arlecchino is also known for having several specific traits such as: and several other techniques.
 * Appearing humpbacked without artificial padding
 * The ability to eat large amounts of food quickly
 * Using his wooden sword like a fan
 * A parody of bel canto

Speech
One of the major distinctions of commedia dell'arte is the use of regional languages. Arlecchino's speech evolved with the character. Originally speaking in a Bergamo dialect of Lombard language, the character adopted a mixture of French, Lombard and Italian dialects when the character became more of a fixture in France so as to help the performers connect to the common masses.

Dramatic function
Various troupes and actors would alter his behaviour to suit style, personal preferences, or even the particular scenario being performed. He is typically cast as the servant of an innamorato or vecchio much to the detriment of the plans of his master. Arleqin often had a love interest in the person of Columbina, or in older plays any of the soubrette roles, and his lust for her was only superseded by his desire for food and fear of his master. Occasionally, Harlequin would pursue the innamorata, though rarely with success, as in the Recueil Fossard of the 16th century where he is shown trying to woo Donna Lucia for himself by masquerading as a foreign nobleman. He also is known to try to win any given lady for himself if he chances upon anyone else trying to woo her, by interrupting or ridiculing the new competitor. His sexual appetite is essentially immediate, and can be applied to any passing woman.

Between the 16th and 17th centuries Harlequin gained some function as a politically aware character. In the Comédie-Italienne Harlequin would parody French tragedies as well comment on current events.

Variants
Duchartre lists the following as variations on the Harlequin role:

Trivelino or Trivelin. Name is said to mean "Tatterdemalion." One of the oldest versions of Harlequin, dating to the 15th century. Costume almost identical to Harlequin's, but had a variation of the 17th century where the triangular patches were replaced with moons, stars, circles and triangles. In 18th century France, Trivelino was a distinct character from Harlequin. They appeared together in a number of comedies by Pierre de Marivaux including L'Île des esclaves.

Truffa, Truffaldin or Truffaldino. Popular characters with Gozzi and Goldoni, but said to be best when used for improvisations. By the 18th century was a Bergamask caricature.

Guazzetto. In the seventeenth century, a variety of anonymous engravings show Guazzetto rollicking, similar to Arleqin. He wears a fox's brush, a large three-tiered collarette, wide breeches, and a loose jacket tied tightly by a belt. He also dons a neckerchief dropped over the shoulders like a small cape. Guazzetto's mask is characterized with a hooked nose and a mustache. His bat is shaped like a scimitar-esque sword.

Zaccagnino. Character dating to the 15th century.

Bagatino. A juggler.

Pedrolino or Pierotto. A servant or valet clad in mostly white, created by Giovanni Pellesini.

Famous Harlequins
16th century 17th century 18th century 19th century 20th century 21st century
 * Alberto Naselli (Zan Ganassa)
 * Tristano Martinelli
 * Domenico Biancolelli
 * Evaristo Gherardi
 * Pier Francesco Biancolelli
 * Tommaso Visentini
 * Carlo Bertinazzi
 * William Payne
 * The Payne Brothers
 * Marcello Moretti
 * Ben-Jamin Newham ‘The Zanni Virtuoso’ (Fools In Progress Theatre Company)

English harlequinade and pantomime
The Harlequin character came to England early in the 17th century and took center stage in the derived genre of the Harlequinade, developed in the early 18th century by the Lincoln's Fields Theatre's actor-manager John Rich, who played the role under the name of Lun. He developed the character of Harlequin into a mischievous magician who was easily able to evade Pantaloon and his servants to woo Columbine. Harlequin used his magic batte or "slapstick" to transform the scene from the pantomime into the harlequinade and to magically change the settings to various locations during the chase scene. As the Harlequinade portion of English pantomime developed, Harlequin was routinely paired with the character Clown.

Two developments in 1800, both involving Joseph Grimaldi, greatly changed the pantomime characters. Grimaldi starred as Clown in Charles Dibdin's 1800 pantomime, Peter Wilkins: or Harlequin in the Flying World at Sadler's Wells Theatre. For this elaborate production, Dibdin and Grimaldi introduced new costume designs. Clown's costume was "garishly colourful ... patterned with large diamonds and circles, and fringed with tassels and ruffs," instead of the tatty servant's outfit that had been used for a century. The production was a hit, and the new costume design was copied by others in London. Later the same year, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in Harlequin Amulet; or, The Magick of Mona. Harlequin was modified to become "romantic and mercurial, instead of mischievous", leaving Grimaldi's mischievous and brutish Clown as the "undisputed agent" of chaos, and the foil for the more sophisticated Harlequin, who retained and developed stylized dance poses during the 19th century. The most influential pair playing Harlequin and Clown in Victorian England were the Payne Brothers, active during the 1860s and 1870s, who contributed to the development of 20th-century "slapstick" comedy.

Popular culture
Representations of or characters based on Arlecchino in contemporary popular culture include Harley Quinn, an American comic book character originally serving as a sidekick to the Joker, and Arlekin, a puppet from Karabas Barabas' theatre in the Soviet children's film and the novel it was based on, The Adventures of Buratino. Video game representations of the character include the Knave from Genshin Impact, Fourth of the Eleven Fatui Harbingers and Father of the House of the Hearth, Arlecchino, King of Riddles from Lies of P, and Arlecchino from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, a French Army soldier from the commedia della morte.

title: Harlequin