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DIALECT AND SUB-DIALECTS OF PRAKRIT
Dr. SATYA RANJAN BANERJEE
Prākrta, europeanised as Prakrit, or linguistically Middle Indo-Aryan (=MIA), belongs to the middle period of the Indic group of the Indo-Iranian sub-branch of the IndoEuropean family of languages It is, therefore, intimately connected with the Old Indo-Aryan (=OIA), ie, with the Vedic and classical Sanskrit on the one hand, and remotely with the Iranian, and still more remotely with the IndoEuropean on the other.
The world Prākrta is used to include a number of languages or dialets, traces of which are found in the religious, literary and dramatic literature of the Jains and non-Jains, beginning from about the 6th or 5th century BC down to the 10th or 11th century A.D, covering a period of over fifteen centuries It is very difficult to say whether the term Prāksta as employed by the Indian grammarians and rhetoricians in their respective treatises included Pāli and Inscriptional languages It is normally considered that the Indian authorities, perhaps, excluded them from their considerations As a result, the linguists have employed the term Middle Indo-Aryan as opposed to Indian term Prakrit, by maintaining a parity with the Old and New stages of Indo-Aryan languages Hence the Middle Indo-Aryan does not only include Prakrit as described by the grammarians and rhetoricians, but also Pāli and other Inscriptional languages, such as, the edicts of Asoka, the pillar edicts of Kāluvāki and Heliodora, the copper plate Inscription of Kalawan and the Hathigumpha Inscription of Khẩravela, the Kharosthi documents from Niya region and the Khotan Dhammapada from Chinese Turkestan, etc The Middle Indo-Aryan also
