Chapter PALAVERAM to PALI of P by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

birth-time of a new literary language was imminent. Then came Dante, and choosing for his immortal Commedia the finest and most cultivated of the vernaculars, raised it at once to the position of dignity which it still retains. Read Sanskrit for Latin, Magadhese for Tuscan, and the Three Baskets for the Divina Commedia, and the parallel is complete.…Like Italian Pali is at once flowing and sonorous; it is a characteristic of both languages that nearly every word

ends in a vowel, and that all harsh conjunctions are softened down by assimilation, elision, or crasis, while on the other hand both lend themselves easily to the expression of sublime and vigorous thought.”—Childers, Preface to Pali Dict. pp. xiii-xiv.