There is persistent confusion as to the relation of Pāḷi to the vernacular spoken in the ancient kingdom of Magadha, which was located in modern-day Bihar and around modern-day Bengal.

Childers translates the word as 'series' and states that the language 'bears the epithet in consequence of the perfection of its grammatical structure'. Both the long ā and retroflex ḷ are seen in the ISO 15919/ ALA-LC rendering, Pāḷi however, to this day there is no single, standard spelling of the term, and all four possible spellings can be found in textbooks. : 1Īs such, the name of the language has caused some debate among scholars of all ages the spelling of the name also varies, being found with both long 'ā' and short 'a', and also with either a retroflex or non-retroflex 'l' sound. : 1 This name seems to have emerged in Sri Lanka early in the second millennium CE during a resurgence in the use of Pali as a courtly and literary language. The name Pali does not appear in the canonical literature, and in commentary literature is sometimes substituted with tanti, meaning a string or lineage. Norman suggests that its emergence was based on a misunderstanding of the compound pāli-bhāsa, with pāli being interpreted as the name of a particular language. The word seems to have its origins in commentarial traditions, wherein the Pāli (in the sense of the line of original text quoted) was distinguished from the commentary or vernacular translation that followed it in the manuscript. The word 'Pali' is used as a name for the language of the Theravada canon. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist Pāli Canon or Tipiṭaka as well as the sacred language of Theravāda Buddhism. Pali ( / ˈ p ɑː l i/) is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language on the Indian subcontinent.

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