Robert Caesar Childers was a British Orientalist and the compiler of the first Pali–English dictionary to be published. He was the father of the Irish nationalist Erskine Childers and the paternal grandfather of the fourth president of Ireland, Erskine Hamilton Childers.

Pāli is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language on the Indian subcontinent. 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.