Question

Which of the following is true about Pali language ?
A) Long and short vowels are only contrastive in open syllables
in closed syllables, all vowels are always short.
B) 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.
C) Short and long e and o are therefore not distinct phonemes
D) All of the above

Answer 1

Pali (/ˈpɑːli/; Pāli) or Magadhan is a Middle Indo-Aryan language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Pāli Canon or Tipiṭaka, and is the sacred language of some religious texts of Hinduism and all texts of Theravāda Buddhism. The earliest archaeological evidence of the existence of canonical Pali comes from Pyu city-states inscriptions found in Burma dated to the mid 5th to mid 6th century CE.[3]