With the word normally being spelled "samsara" in English, somehow I never realized that the Pali is "saṃsāra" and it is pronounced "sangsara." Thanks to John Peacock's talks for this revelation.

Nice one. What about 'aniccaNG' which I hear Thai monks use. Is the NG a grammatical word ending from Pali, or some sort of sonorous addition to facilitate the tonal quality of chanting?

I think this is just the difference between the Pali word anicca and the Thai word อนิจจัง (anitjang). If chanting, I would have expected them to use the Pali, but I've never really noticed.

The m with the dot under used at the ends of some words marks the singular accusative case in Pali. It's used to mark the objects of prepositions or the direct objects of verbs. (referring to post #2) It's not set in stone though - Pali has alot of things that can change (my head is starting to hurt), but it's somewhat general.

A good one is the 'Buddham. saranam. gacchami' - I go (gacchami) to the Buddha (Buddham.) for refuge (saranam.)

There are pali words all through the Thai language; Annicam. is one of them but rarely used in everyday speech - nonetheless, it is Pali, just using a different case ending.

My teacher would be thrilled to see this on an English language forum, by the way.

Happy Awk Pansaa to my fellow monks, maechis, and laypeople!!! Hope it was a great one!

Thanks a lot guys, that sheds some light on the subject. Or, should I say

On the subject sheds some light that does.

Is there a connection between the words Sangsara and Sangha? As in is Sang the root of both?

Is there a connection between the words Sangsara and Sangha? As in is Sang the root of both?

It's a pity John Peacock isn't available to us for not only grammatical/phonetical issues of the Pali and Sanskrit languages, but also to their correctly translated meanings.

Its just that in the Visuddhimagga where the earth kasina is being described, among the different names for earth are Vasudha (provider of wealth) and Vasudhara (bearer of wealth). Could be a grammatical connection.

Is there a connection between the words Sangsara and Sangha? As in is Sang the root of both?

In the original Sanskrit (from which Pali borrowed the term), the first is संसार (saṃ-sāra). The main root of the term is sara, which describes a state of non-stop flowing, as in water and other liquids. The prefix evokes 'in association with' or 'bound to'. Same prefix (sam) appears in the P/S name for each limb of the Eightfold Path. Not pronounced like 'sang' but quite distinctly as 'sam' in the original Sanskrit, changes to 'sang' in Pali. So Skrt is samsara, Pali sangsara,

Similarly the original Sanskrit संघ saṃgha becomes सन्घ saṅgha in Pali. It's usually translated as 'association'. Same root as the prefix on samsara, evoking a binding-together quality.

Nice one. What about 'aniccaNG' which I hear Thai monks use. Is the NG a grammatical word ending from Pali, or some sort of sonorous addition to facilitate the tonal quality of chanting?

Thai pronunciation of aniccam, a nominative declension as appears in phrases such as yad aniccam tam dukkham (whatever is impermanent is suffering ).

Learning pali chanting through romanized pali is not very difficult. For Thai system of chanting just change 'ṃ' to 'ng'. eg. saṃsāra to sangsara, arahaṃ to arahang.