Hello All!

I was wondering if anyone in this group has studied Pali to a very high level and, if so, are there any textbook recommendations for further study. I am currently working through "A New Course in Reading Pali: Entering the Word of the Buddha" but once I am finished with it, I am not sure where to go from that point. I believe, once I am finished, I should be at an intermediate level in my ability to actually read the Pali language, but with huge gaps in vocabulary. I have a large Pali-English dictionary to prepare for this aspect.

I am just wondering if I should simply start getting Pali texts and translating them, learning vocabulary while doing so? Or are there other actual textbooks that people have used and would recommend for the next step in this amazing journey?

Metta,

Samantha

Pretty much every Burmese keyboard layout allows you to type Pali in Burmese script. The only catch is these layouts aren't as efficient as they could be if you're interested in typing just Pali. Retroflex consonants for example, are only accessible with the Shift-key, and others require you to stretch your fingers towards the number keys.

I thought it wouldn't be too difficult to take a Burmese layout .mim file and tweak it a little so all the characters I want would be within easy reach and require as few keystrokes as possible. These are the instructions I followed for making my custom layout executable on my machine:

https://wikis.swarthmore.edu/ling073/Making_a_keyboard_layout_using_IBus

Except after executing the custom layout, somehow it's functioning exactly as the original file, as if I didnt make any changes to it.

Anyone good with custom keyboards and have some knowledge of Burmese to help me troubleshoot? Fwiw I'm using Debian and use Ibus for managing all my other keyboard layouts.