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Studies in Jainology, Prakrit
Ponna (c.950 A.D.), possibly Nāgavarma's contemporary senior literary figure, also refcrs, without any specification, to thrce-and-a half languages: “nodire pelva muruvare bhāsegalam”22 – indeed the threc and a half languages that are told about. Here Ponna too is obviously referring to the four literary languages Sanskrit, Prakrit, Apabhramsa and Paisaci. From this it appears that in the tench century A.D, in Karnataka there was in voguc, among the literary circle of poets like Ponna, Nāgavarma etc.,23 a jargaonized number, 'three and a hall' to denote the four prominent literary languages with Paisací as a half one. Moreover we do not sce, so far my knowledge goes, such qucer numcrical denotation any where in Sanskrit, Prakrit or any other Indian literature. Paisací was called a half language in such literary circles possibly because it was half dead by that time, its literary wealth being buried under the passage of Time24 and it remained with its formal existence mainly proved and preserved by the Prakrit grammarians.
To conclude, Nägavarma makes this statement as a prosodian and nut a linguistician. To denote all the so called daughter languages or the respective divisions of the country, he uses the number fifty-six following a tradition which prevailed in Karnataka as well in other parts of ancient and medieval India, but the roots of which appear to have been outside India i.c, Central Asia. To denote the so-called mother languages viz., Sanskrit, Prakrit, Apabhramsa and Paisaci, he picks up a jargonized number viz., three- and-a hall, a half being used for Paisacī, that was possibly in vogue in the poet's literary circle. The statement has no linguistic value from the derivative point of view. However, it is significant of the fact that in it Nagavarma has lightly left behind a contemporary belief that Kannada, Telugu, Tamil etc., are derived from Sanskrit, Prakrit Apabhramsa and Paisaci, the prominent litcrary languages of his time and such belief appcars to have taken its root because of the substantial lexical contribution of the latter group to the former one.
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