The word 'Pali' is used as a name for the language of the Theravada canon. The word appears to have its origins in commentary traditions, in which the Pali (in the sense of the line quoted from the original text) was distinguished from the commentary or vernacular translation that followed it in the manuscript. K. R. Norman suggests that his rise was based on a misunderstanding of the compound pāli-bhāsa, interpreting pāli as the name of a particular language.
The Pali name does not appear in canonical literature and is sometimes replaced in commentary literature by tanti, meaning chain or lineage. This name appears to have originated in Sri Lanka in the early 2nd millennium AD. during a revival of the use of Pali as a courtly and literary language.
As such, the name of the language has sparked some debate among scholars throughout the ages; The spelling of the name also varies and is found with both long "ā" [ɑː] and short "a" [a], and also with a retroflex or non-retroflex "l" sound. Both long ā and retroflex ḷ can be seen in the ISO 15919/ALA-LC, Pāḷi view; However, to this day there is no single standard spelling for the term and all four possible spellings can be found in textbooks. RC Childers translates the word as "sequence" and states that the language "bears the epithet as a consequence of the perfection of its grammatical structure."
