The Pali Trap

In his 1990 study Traditions of Buddhist Practice in Burma, Gustaaf Houtman provides some helpful notes on the use of Pali loanwords in contemporary Myanmar language.

Houtman warns against falling into the 'Pali Trap'. By this he means:

the unquestioned acceptance of the meanings of particular Pali loanwords in the vernacular context as being of the same order as that attributed to it in the Buddhological and Indological literature or, indeed, in the work of other anthropologists. [p.21]

He goes on:

This 'Pali trap' of habitual use of romanised Pali for Pali loanwords in the vernacular as pursued in most prominent works on Buddhism in Thailand and Burma (e.g. Spiro and Tambiah) is problematic. It is doubtful that even terms such as tha-tha-na, the way used in Burmese, correspond in all contexts to what we reconstruct as being the scriptural/commentarial 'Pali' meanings we attribute to P. sasana. [p.74-75]

And finally:

we must get away from the 'Pali trap' which misleads people into believing that Pali loanwords have 'universal' meanings even across vernaculars. The anthropologist's treatment of Pali loanwords in the vernacular is symptomatic of their textual orientation; they have used the Indologist's romanised spelling in preference to treating the words as part of the vernacular language. Unfamiliarity with context has been sacrificed for familiarity with text. [p.253]