Pali is a Prakrit language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of much of the earliest extant literature of Buddhism as collected in the "Pali Canon" or "Tipitaka" and is the sacred language of some religious texts of Hinduism and all texts of "Theravada" Buddhism.

The word Pali is used as a name for the language of the Theravada canon. According to the Pali Text Society's Dictionary, the word seems to have its origins in commentarial traditions, wherein the "Pali" (in the sense of the line of original text quoted) was distinguished from the commentary or vernacular translation that followed it in the manuscript. As 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 "a" and short "a" , and also with either a retroflex or non-retroflex "l"sound. Both the long a and retroflex l are seen in the ISO 15919/ALA-LC rendering, Pali; however, to this day there is no single, standard spelling of the term, and all four possible spellings can be found in textbooks. R.C.Childers translates the word as "series" and states that the language "bears the epithet in consequence of the perfection of its grammatical structure".

Now, provide a numbered list of answers to these questions:

1. What sort of dialect is being discussed?
2. What is it used as?
3. Where is it from?
4. Are there books you might find it in?
5. Like what?
6. Any others?
7. Such as?
8. Do any specific religions use it?
9. Such as?
10. Who says it comes from commentary tradition?
11. Do all academics agree about the naming?
12. What about how it's spelled?
13. How many ways is it spelled?
14. What are two differences?
15. Do you know of any other differences?
16. What are they?
17. Who offers an alternate render of it?
18. Is there a person who names it a different way too?
19. What naming does he give it?
20. What does he have to say about the dialect?
1. Pali
2. the sacred language of some religious texts
3. the Indian subcontinent
4. Yes
5. the "Pali Canon"
6. Yes
7. "Tipitaka"
8. Yes
9. Hinduism
10. the Pali Text Society's Dictionary
11. No
12. the spelling of the name also varies
13. Four
14. both long "a" and short "a" can exist
15. Yes
16. either a retroflex or non-retroflex "l"sound
17. the ISO 15919/ALA-LC
18. R.C.Childers
19. he translates the word as "series"
20. it bears the epithet in consequence of the perfection of its grammatical structure