Talk:Prakrit

old talk

Changed "The original crude language from which Sanskrit was derived could be Prakrit" to "Some have suggested that the original crude language from which Sanskrit was derived could be Prakrit, but this contradicts the findings of comparative linguistics, which are that Sanskrit is closer to earlier Indo-European linguistic forms than Prakrits are". -- AnonMoos 06:58, 29 July 2004

Moved that whole paragraph to a "Traditional accounts" and did a little cleaning up. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 16:32, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Sorry that my edit apparently messed up the formatting -- I was using an older version of Netscape which was apparently not fully compatible with the editing form -- AnonMoos 06:46, 30 July 2004

Serious error in definition

I wish you wiki-people would read a book before they write these definitions.

It is quite false to define a Prakrit as a vernacular: these were artificial, poetic and literary languages that were *never* anyone's "mother tongue". It is true that Sanskrit grammarians pour scorn on Prakrits --but that is because Prakrits are not "The language of the gods", but are considered secular and imperfect by contrast to the language of the Vedas (the lattering being supposed to be of divine origin). Naturally, this was disputed by members of rival religions --e.g., Jain Prakrit is certainly considered sacred by the Jains.

Various prakrits were associated with various ruling dynasties, each of which respectively patronized the given prakrit as a literary language, and for certainly highly ritualized forms of communication from the state --e.g., the inscriptions of Ashoka (which are in Prakrit, by the way).

Thank you for your suggestion regarding [[: regarding [[:{{{1}}}]]]]! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to…) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. - Nat Krause 08:06, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In reply to "sofixit" --apparently you didn't bother to notice that I completely re-wrote the article. Thanks for your non-reply, telling me to edit the article rather than complain. I did both; and my complaints are hardly without justification. I hope I don't have to re-write the thing again, after the next generation of proud graduates to "Intro to Hindi 100" decide to reduce the article to their level of understanding.

I've seen recent academic references use prakrit as a synonym for vernacular. The issue of purely literary vs. vernacular languages seems to be far from settled scholarship. I'm certainly open to the idea that the vernacular == prakrit equation is incorrect or incomplete if there is compelling evidence otherwise, but so far we have nothing other than a blanket statement that the belief that prakrit was vernacular language is a novice error. Please provide some references so that people can assess the foundation of your contribution- otherwise, the result is 'to the obstinate go the spoils' as the reverts and counter-reverts pile up. --Clay Collier 08:42, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm hardly qualified to correct the situation, but I'd like to point out that the current definition we have at the beginning of this article is incoherent. This intro, consisting half of which was written by anon and half of which was there previously, says "Prakrit ... refers to the broad family of the Indic languages and dialects spoken in ancient India. The Prakrits were literary languages, generally patronized by kings identified with the ksatriya caste ..." If it really refers to broad family of Indic languages, then it can't be just a group of artificial, literary languages, right?

Furthermore, Clay is correct that what the situation calls for is citations, rather than snide remarks. - Nat Krause 11:09, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

I actually find opinions valuable when it come to such esoteric scholarship and it’s hard to understand the argument going on here. 71.178.33.122 (talk) 00:42, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

The word prakrt or prakrit never means vulgar. Further defining "prakrit" as vulgar creates unnecessary negative and demeaning connotations. Abhijna

According to Sinhala usage, I mean as Sinhalese understand, who mix Sanskrit in speech often 50/50, prakRta means natural (as it appears) as against saMskRta means made (formed). This seems to suggest that Sanskrit was of those who wanted to manage the language in a precise way like the snobs nowadays and Prakrit is what generally everybody used? I may be totally wrong (and don't mean to offend anyone) but, the meanings of the words, I give are correct to the best of my knowledge. JC 06:02, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, definately. Prakrit means natural(from prakruthi- nature). Sanskrit on the other hand means refined or scholarly(from samskruthi).117.99.85.33 (talk) 08:07, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Arhamagadhi Dictionary

It wiill be great if a Ardhamagadhi dictionary can be setup.

The Prakrits became literary languages, generally patronized by kings identified with the Kshatriya caste, but were regarded as illegitimate by the Brahmin orthodoxy.

The statement is very offending - Brahmin Orthodoxy - who these people are? do they really have origion? do they really maintain family history? do they ever respect the nation? do they ever have love for Dharma? what dharma principles they are following or ever followed? There are no brahmins neither their legitimates. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.80.57.2 (talk) 11:49, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

It means that for many centuries Brahmins would have regarded the idea of a non-Sanskrit holy book as absurd, at the same time that Buddhists were enthusiastically developing Pali... AnonMoos (talk) 13:41, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

---

prakrit language is ancient. In acient time prakrit language was talking language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.96.55.46 (talk) 08:10, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Prakrits were distinct by the time of Asoka, but from a comparative Indo-European perspective, Sanskrit (especially Vedic Sanskrit) represents a much earlier stage of linguistic history... AnonMoos (talk) 13:41, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

---

|^^^ What is the definite proof of this? Aren't the earliest Indo-Iranian inscriptions written in India all Prakrits?|CormanoSanchez (talk) 07:46, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

The proof is that historical linguists use Vedic Sanskrit as a basis for proto-Indo-European comparison/reconstruction more often than prakrits... AnonMoos (talk) 17:06, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

The lead

Dear editors of this article. I am no expert in this subject and hence can't do the changes myself, and that is why am posting this message (because I often hear people saying- if you dont find it ok, just do it yourself rather than passing comments!). Well, my concern is about the lead. The lead doesn't say that it is a broad family of the Indic languages untill you read till the third line (although the same sentence). Can the lead be changed a bit for ease of the reader? Thanks Wiki San Roze ^†αLҝ 12:31, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

inline references

this article needs more references as notes...--Esteban Barahona (talk) 03:30, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm assuming that this is simply the result of lacking citations rather than lacking sources, hence the {{Nofootnotes}}. We may need to change it to {{refimprove}} if we feel that the sources listed at the bottom aren't cutting it. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 04:40, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

X3nodox

Hi, as a reader I find the opening paragraph could be more clear to what Prakrit is. The sentences throughout the article are also a little long and convoluted. Breaking some of the longer sentences into two would be helpful. Secondly, how do these vernaculars differ linguistically? There are articles linked to each one but a brief mention would be good.Rofflebuster (talk) 14:05, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

The opening sentences are wordy and confusing. Possibly split the two interpretations up, and also give a general definition. I also found the last paragraph of forms to be vague, and lacking details. Including more details of how each Prakrit is used (with references!) would be useful, and interesting. (The existing examples are interesting already!) Also explanations of the differences between Prakrits could add to this article. Scatter89 (talk) 02:27, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

128.253.110.123 is me, for the record ... X3nodox (talk) 20:54, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Prakrit did not derive from "Classical Sanskrit", a form that was not formed until 1st century, and there are may questions regarding PRakrits relation to what is now called Vedic Sanskrit, they probably both share a parent language, the Prakrit can also be compared to slang, street or common talk with all sorts of allowable simplifications, while the Sanskrit was highly ARYA-sticratic —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.38.215.42 (talk) 12:18, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Parallels with other language groups?

If Prakrits are vernaculars as opposed to "classical" Sanskrit, are there parallels with vernaculars around classical Latin? The contemporary Indic vernaculars I'm most familiar with -- Hindi and Nepali -- have substituted prepositions for declensions. The same holds for most Romance languages, except Romanian apparently retains declension to some extent. LADave (talk) 21:45, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

You can analogize Sanksrit to Latin, but there's a greater time-depth in the case of Sanskrit -- Prakrits/Pali were already distinctive languages being written down for some purposes at a time when Latin was rarely spoken outside the Italian peninsula. Technically, Hindi has "postpositions"... AnonMoos (talk) 05:36, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Apart from the fact that the time periods in question do not run in parallel, but that the Indo-Aryan developments are earlier than the Latin/Romance ones, you can view Vedic Sanskrit (probably very close to at least some Indo-Aryan dialects spoken in the 2nd millennium BC) and Old Latin (the Latin of Plautus apparently being close to spoken Latin in 200 BC – except for the spelling, which in some ways reflects even older stages of Latin recorded only in inscriptions, while some archaic, pre-Plautine, texts, such as the Carmen Saliare, the laws of the Twelve Tables or the Carmen Arvale, are known to modern scholars only in partly updated, modernised versions, i. e., spelt more like Classical or Plautine Latin at best; indeed, even Plautus is known to us only in manuscripts which use a spelling more like Classical Latin than the inscriptions of the 3rd/2nd century BC, the inscriptions displaying even more archaic spellings that were not in tune with the spoken language at the time and often disappear in the Classical period) as analogous, while Classical Sanskrit is analogous to Classical Latin in that both are based on stages (Vedic and Old Latin respectively) that were more archaic than any contemporary dialect. At the time when Panini codified Classical Sanskrit (largely) on the basis of Vedic Sanskrit, spoken Indo-Aryan dialects must already have been in the Middle Indo-Aryan stage, hence many Prakritisms in Classical Sanskrit, some of which even crop up in Vedic literature (which continued to be written in the 1st millennium BC). Similarly, at the time of Classical Latin, spoken Latin (Vulgar Latin) must already have been splitting into regional dialects and was on its way to the modern Romance languages. In the 1st millennium AD, Latin was basically used to write incipient Romance (Late Latin), or full-blown early Romance dialects (Middle Latin), in some cases at least. Similarly, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit is essentially artificially Sanskritised Middle Indo-Aryan. The Sanskrit case is even more complicated in that Vedic Sanskrit, Panini's Classical Sanskrit (both reflecting spoken Old Indo-Aryan dialects) and the Prakrits (all reflecting Middle Indo-Aryan dialects) all appear to go back to Old Indo-Aryan dialects (spoken in the late 2nd millennium BC) which were not identical, but slightly different; yes, even Vedic Sanskrit and Classical Sanskrit are different in some details which seem to be this old. Hence, spoken "Proto-Vedic", "Proto-Classical-Sanskrit", "Proto-Pali", "Proto-Ardhamagadhi", and the Old Indo-Aryan stages of other Prakrits, all were different, but only in details. Contemporary with Vedic, they were probably fully mutually intelligible with Vedic, merely slight regional varieties, but all of them were different, independent continuations from Proto-Indo-Aryan (which itself was probably spoken in the early to mid 2nd millennium BC). This would all be much easier to show in a diagram. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:45, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

What is this Jain Tirthankar reference?

The first paragraph says "But there are scholars who believe that Prakrit is older than Sanskrit, and it is on the base of Prakrit (original) that the Sanskrit (refined) language was made. This also is in tune with the Jain religion, where the first Tirthankar is Adinath himself." It is not at all clear what the relation of the second sentence to the first is. Could someone in the know clarify this please? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sundaryourfriend (talk • contribs) 22:51, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Where is the language?

Sorry for criticism, but nothing in the article talks of the language, all material is about and around the language. Neither morphology, nor phonology, nor typology are even mentioned. Anybody knows anything about the language to add meat to the bluff? Barefact (talk) 20:30, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Prakrit is more of a language classification than a single language (though Magadhi can be considered the most important prakrit by Hindus, and Pali by Buddhists). There's some discussion at Magadhi Prakrit... AnonMoos (talk) 17:05, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Timescale!

1. When were the Prakrit languages spoken?

2. If Sanskrit was never written down until "way after the Prakrits" (as the Sanskrit article claims), then what alphabet were the Vedas written in?

Thanks! BigSteve (talk) 21:26, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Bigzteve -- You can say very roughly 500 B.C - 500 A.D. Anything before about 500 B.C. would be more of an (unattested) precursor to Prakrit than a Prakrit as such, while anything much after 500 A.D. would be called "Apabhramsa". Of course, some prakrits remained in literary use long after 500 A.D. And the Vedas were originally transmitted orally. Writing was unknown in India until many centuries after the Vedas started to take shape, and Brahmins scorned writing as a medium for preserving sacred texts for additional centuries after Indic alphabets came into use... AnonMoos (talk) 01:05, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Wow, that's great! Now that you explain it I have found the relevant passages in the articles. Thank you! BigSteve (talk) 12:17, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Capitalization

Why is "Prakrit" capitalized in this article? Isn't it a common noun akin to "dialect" or "variety"? Largoplazo (talk) 02:13, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

It only applies to a select group of languages. If "Middle Indic" is capitalized, then "Prakrit" probably should be also. AnonMoos (talk) 09:50, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

It seems the term is a very special case. One doesn't normally speak of Middle Indic languages as "the Middle Indics" or of one of them as "a Middle Indic". I see your point if one thinks of them as a family called Prakrit, which I guess is pretty much the case given the definition in the article, but the primary usage gives the impression that it's a common noun comparable to "language", "dialect", "tongue", though the scope of its use is limited to that particular family. Largoplazo (talk) 11:22, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Contradictory use of quotation to support claim about the ancestry of the Prakrits

This is to the IP user 223.186.108.17 who restored their addition to the infobox, asserting Vedic Sanskrit to be the ancestor of the Prakrits. The source says If in 'Sanskrit' we include the Vedic language and all dialects of the Old Indian period, then it is true to say that all the Prakrits are derived from Sanskrit. If on the other hand 'Sanskrit' is used more strictly of the Panini-Patanjali language or 'Classical Sanskrit,' then it is untrue to say that any Prakrit is derived from Sanskrit, except that Sauraseni, the Midland Prakrit, is derived from the Old Indian dialect of the Madhyadesa on which Classical Sanskrit was mainly based. I had removed this because the quote is a conditional, not a firm statement, but you restored it.

You claim the quote supports the ancestry of Vedic Sanskrit over all the Prakrits. The quote draws conclusions about the derivation of the Prakrits from Sanskrit for two specific interpretations of "Sanskrit". Those interpretations are:

• Vedic-language-and-all-dialects-of-the-Old-Indian-period
• Classical Sanskrit

Neither of these interpretations is "Vedic Sanskrit". Further, if the author of the quote understood Vedic Sanskrit to be the ancestor of all the Prakrits, then the author would have written "Vedic language" instead of "Vedic language and all the dialects of the Old Indian period", correct? The implication is that "and all the dialects of the Old Indian period" is necessary for the statement to be true; without those words, it isn't. Thus, the quotation contradicts your understanding of the ancestry of the Prakrits. Largoplazo (talk) 15:21, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Vedic language and all dialects of the Old Indian period is called Vedic Sanskrit.-- Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}#top|talk]] o [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

Vedic Sanskrit is the language of the Vedas, that is, Vedic language. It seems unlikely to me that X + Y = X. Largoplazo (talk) 17:51, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Languages consist of many dialects and Vedic Sanskrit had many dialects. That is not arithmetic but similar to set theory. Linguistics is not arithmetic.Relic1234 (talk) 12:43, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

@Relic1234: Fine. It's set theory. X ∪ Y ≠ X, given the clear premise behind having mentioned Y explicitly, which is that Y ≠ ∅. (I'm puzzled as to why you thought that identifying it as a set theory problem was going to change the outcome.) Your interpretation continues to contradict what the source you supplied says. And as I've pointed out to you in the warning I just left on your talk page, achieving consensus is required, not responding and then going back and doing what you want again. Largoplazo (talk) 13:32, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

I said similar to set theory. Not same. Linguistics isn't set theory also. My real response was "Languages consist of many dialects and Vedic Sanskrit had many dialects." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Relic1234 (talk • contribs) 13:41, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

In other words, "I'm going to keep making arguments, and then weaseling out of them by pointing out my own vagueness when you hold them back up to me." And, yes, it is set theory. We're talking about dialects and languages, and sets and subsets and members of families of dialects and languages. Set theory is applicable just as arithmetic is applicable to numbers. And, thus, you still haven't answered the question about why the author explicitly referred to dialects in addition to "Vedic language", if not to convey that they are separate from it. If the author meant for "all dialects of the Old Indian period" to be understood as included in "Vedic language", then mentioning them explicitly preceded by "and" would make as much sense as reading "the Seven Sister States and and all Indian states" and claiming it should be understand to mean that all Indian states are Seven Sister States. Largoplazo (talk) 15:05, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

This sort of POV pushing where they claim Vedic Sanskrit is ancestor of Prakrit with dubious references is the work of Hindu nationalists. Even I can find scholarly articles that suggest the opposite to what they claim. "It follows that Vedic and Prakrit are sister dialects instead. " of being related as mother to daughter." Article source:https://archive.org/stream/jstor-3087594/3087594_djvu.txt Bodhiupasaka (talk) 09:50, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Technically Vedic Sanskrit is not the direct linguistic ancestor of Prakrits (just as technically Classical Latin is not the direct linguistic ancestor of the Romance languages), but Vedic Sanskrit is structurally more archaic than the Prakrits, and is not strongly distinct from the ancestor of Prakrits, so the technical issue is unlikely to be of much interest to non-linguists. AnonMoos (talk) 02:42, 9 August 2020 (UTC)`

I agree . Unfortunately the user with his IP address visible does not want to accept reality. Their political groups have started to rewrite history ,claiming that the oldest Indian civilization is a Hindu civilization called the Saraswati Civilization which does not even exist ! Bodhiupasaka (talk) 06:02, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

And you should see the early forms section in the Hindi language article in Wikipedia where they claim that Hindi is a Prakrit that descended from Classical Sanskrit ! Bodhiupasaka (talk) 06:04, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

I do not think the sources mentioning Sanskrit as origin of Indo-Aryan languages were written by "Hindu nationalists" since both were written by non-Indians. I don't think William Bright and Alfred C Woolner are Hindu nationalists. In the book by William Bright he says that he did two years of field work about Indian languages in the introduction.
https://books.google.co.in/books?id=TVa1BwAAQBAJ&pg=PA16&redir_esc=y
https://books.google.co.in/books?id=IwE16UFBfdEC&pg=PA3&lpg=PP1&focus=viewport

Also see the early forms section in the articles of Romance languages like French, Spanish, Italian where they have mentioned both Old Latin and Classical Latin as early forms and in the article of Vulgar Latin where the old form is mentioned as Old Latin. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Relic1234 (talk • contribs) 08:55, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

@AnonMoos Your argument is incorrect. You are comparing Vedic Sanskrit with Classical Latin while you should have compared with Old Latin. Classical Latin may not be direct linguistic ancestor of Romance languages but Old Latin is the real ancestor. Similarly Vedic Sanskrit is the ancestor of Indo-Aryan languages.Relic1234 (talk) 11:31, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

As the previous editors have said. Your previous references do not give concrete proof that 'Vedic Sanskrit is ancestor of all Prakrits' , it is simply a conditional statement. The scholars like Woolner are certainly not Hindu nationalists but the ones who twist his words for POV pushing certainly are. Please read your own references carefully. Bodhiupasaka (talk) 13:50, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

It seems you are a Buddhist nationalist who does not like the fact of Vedic Sanskrit being ancestor of Prakrits and who is repeatedly pushing to remove mention of Vedic Sanskrit or Sanskrit from Prakrit Wikipedia article.Relic1234 (talk) 14:01, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Vedic Sanskrit is the codified version of an older language used for the Vedas, much like Classical Latin is to old Latin. So your previous analogy is incorrect. Bodhiupasaka (talk) 14:02, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Classical Sanskrit is codified version of Sanskrit language just like Classical Latin is for Old Latin. The dialects used in the Vedas were not uniform.

Let me make this clear to you. Just as another editor had pointed out, there is NO mention of the term 'Vedic Sanskrit' in the interpretations made by the authors from whom you've quoted. Now you realise why your edit is wrong ? Bodhiupasaka (talk) 14:08, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

The sources mention Sanskrit as early form of Prakrit. Then change the early form to Sanskrit.

And accusing me of being a Buddhist nationalist will not validate your own position. And I am not the first editor to have removed your erroneous edit. I have never explicitly accused anyone , including you of being a nationalist. Bodhiupasaka (talk) 14:11, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Would you folks please use indentation so we can see who is responding to what? Please insert the appropriate number of colons in front of your previous comments so that we can all sort the discussion out. Normally I would to that for you but I already can't tell what's going on. Largoplazo (talk) 15:09, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Request for comment on stating that Vedic language/Vedic Sanskrit is the "early form" of the prakrits

One user (I think--a newly registered user who appears to have picked up where an IP user left off) has listed "Vedic Sanskrit" in the infobox as an early form of the prakrits. Question: Should the infobox present "Vedic language" or "Vedic Sanskrit" as the "early form" or as an ancestor of the prakrits? (I think it's fair for me to specify: not "some prakrits" or "any prakrits" but "the prakrits" as a whole, the subject of the article.) Largoplazo (talk) 15:23, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Due to narrow technical issues (of little interest to non-linguists), it would probably be better to avoid wording such as that Vedic Sanskrit is the ancestor of Prakrits, but it would be fine to use slightly looser wording which means almost the same thing (Vedic Sanskrit is very similar to what unattested ancestral forms of Prakrits would have been, etc). AnonMoos (talk) 15:50, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

The focus of this RFC is on designations in the infobox, which doesn't leave room for varying degrees of looseness. While the question and the variety of hypotheses and the nuances concerning its answer can be covered in the text of the article, I believe that the infobox should remain mute in the absence of a consensus that such a relationship is firmly established as true. Largoplazo (talk) 15:58, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

I know nothing about Sanskrit. However, the infobox is intended to be a quick summary of unambiguous fact. If the statement is in anyway wrong, disputed or ambiguous, it should not be in the infobox. Elinruby (talk) 17:45, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

The statement that Vedic Sanskrit is the ancestor of Prakrits is wrong, but it's wrong in a narrow technical way that would be of little interest to non-linguists (and in fact, most non-linguists would have difficulty even understanding the issue). There's no real dispute over the facts, but the importance of the facts is rather low in this context. I notice that the French language article includes "Classical Latin" in the infobox, even though that's also technically incorrect... AnonMoos (talk) 17:59, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

• As User:AnonMoos points out, Vedic Sanskrit is not the sole ancestor. If it has to be included in the box, then add a footnote (endnote?). It is not correct to say outright that Prakrits are directly and solely descended from Vedic Sanskrit. < Atom (Anomalies) 08:59, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

---

P.S. I'm not at all sure I understand the infobox parameters involved, but if the only choices are saying that Vedic Sanskrit is an "early form" of Prakrits and completely ignoring Vedic Sanskrit, then I would say include it. The technical linguistic issues mainly caution against claiming that Vedic Sanskrit is the one sole direct ancestor of Prakrits, and "early form" seems to be interpreted more loosely (it certainly is when Classical Latin is listed as an "early form" of modern French)... AnonMoos (talk) 03:09, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

• Nationalism aside, I think some confusion stems from sources using Sanskrit as a synonym for all of the Old Indic dialects, since Vedic Sanskrit is the only directly attested dialect. I would say that Old Indic is the best ancestor of Prakrit to include in the infobox- it's currently a redirect to Indo-Aryan_languages#Old_Indo-Aryan which is a reasonable target. --Spasemunki (talk) 03:16, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Hello, I've been asked for a comment on this topic on my talkpage. Unfortunately my knowledge en Sanskrit and Prakrits is far too shallow to help resolve the issue on what authoritative sources suggest. On a broad level, I agree with what AnonMoos seems to suggest, that is the article should not give the impression of unconsted fact about a topic which is subject of discussions among those active on its treatment. I suggest to find sources that suggest the most broadly stated points of view on the topic and link them to an idoine assertion. --Psychoslave (talk) 10:02, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Please refer to the Wikipedia article that shows list of languages by 'first written accounts.' It lists Prakrit as having preceded the inception of Sanskri by over 200 years. Moreover Prakrit means source , ironically in the Sanskrit language, while the latter means refined. From this we can surmise that Sanskrit, be it Vedic or classiical cannot be the 'direct' ancestor of Prakrit. Bodhiupasaka (talk) 16:33, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Bodhiupasaka -- Some of the issues you mention have been previously discussed on this page above, or on the talkpage (or talkpage archives) of the "Classical language" article. Alphabetic writing seems to have been introduced into India around 500 B.C., and the first inscriptions are found a few centuries later. These inscriptions are in prakrit because 1) They're Buddhist (or quasi-Buddhist) and Sanskrit was strongly associated with Hinduism. 2) At that time, Sanskrit had a strong oral tradition (including the memorization of texts in verse form), and Brahmin authorities did not usually see the value of writing, and were sometimes suspicious of writing. From a linguistic point of view, however, Vedic Sanskrit is structurally more archaic than Prakrits, and when linguists wish to make connections between Indic languages and Proto-Indo-European, they generally do so on the basis of Sanskrit, not Prakrits. Perfectly reputable linguists have estimated that Vedic Sanskrit has a level of archaism suitable to a date of 1500 B.C. The tradition that prakrits were polished and purified into Sanskrit does not agree with the findings of modern linguistics... AnonMoos (talk) 20:06, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

You do realise that those who spoke Prakrit were also mostly illiterate. And you do realise that those who spoke the language also only started to write them much later on ? Which means by your same logic , Prakrit is still older than Sanskrit since people who spoke them were once illiterate, and writing systems for them were developed much later on from Aramaic scripts. Bodhiupasaka (talk) 05:06, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Here are some 'modern linguistic findings' that one particular person finds it hard to accept:"It follows that Vedic and Prakrit are sister dialects instead of being related as mother to daughter". Source:https://archive.org/stream/jstor-3087594/3087594_djvu.txt Bodhiupasaka (talk) 05:08, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

And what makes you think that Buddhists did not want to use Sanskrit ? The Mahayana and Vajrayana sect use many Sanskrit terms. The 'first' Sanskrit poet was a Buddhist, Ashvaghosa. And there was no Hinduism at that time. The term Hindu was given by Islamic Invaders to any non Muslim during their conquest of Sindh in the AD era. Not BC era. Bodhiupasaka (talk) 05:11, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

And didn't buddhists have an oral tradition as well ? They only started to write down the Buddhist doctrine several if not hundreds of years after Buddha's death. Even during the schism, many Buddhist commentaries were actually written in Sanskrit ! Bodhiupasaka (talk) 05:30, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Since , by Varna, it is the Brahmins who are charged with preserving Brahmanical doctrine and knowledge and were the first to be given a formal education in Brahmanical society, weren't they the first ones to become literate in India ? And yet somehow the commoners started using writing systems before the Brahmans did ? Don't you find that odd ? Bodhiupasaka (talk) 05:33, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

The status of Vedic being the 'ancestor of all Prakrits' is disputed among scholars with some supporting it(with conditional statements )and some against it. Therefore making one sided edits will only mislead others. Something that 'Relic1234' doesn't comprehend. Bodhiupasaka (talk) 05:36, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

There is no mention of Sanskrit in the Vedas . The Vedic language was called Chandas in both Brahmanical (Ashtadhyayi) and Buddhist texts(Pali Canon) Even Panini who synthesised Sanskrit , referred to the Vedic language as Chandas, never as vedic sanskrit. Bodhiupasaka (talk) 05:39, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

And I agree that vedic is more archaic than other Indo aryan languages

But so are many prakrits that could have possibly died out . And one language being more archaic does make it the direct ancestor of others by default. Bodhiupasaka (talk) 05:43, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Italian is more archaic than french since it better preserves old latin's vocabulary , but does that make Italian the ancestor of French ? Bodhiupasaka (talk) 05:45, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

In my second last paragraph, I meant 'doesn't make it', not does. I apologise for the mistake. Bodhiupasaka (talk) 05:47, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Please understand that Buddhists had an oral tradition As well thst involved passing down the Buddhist doctrine in the Prakritic languages and they only started to write down the teachings(first in Pali, a Prakrit , and then in Sanskrit) hundreds of years after the Buddha's death (death date: 500-400 BCE) , around 1st century BCE. Bodhiupasaka (talk) 08:36, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

You're kind of partly missing the point -- at the time of the Asoka inscriptions, Prakrits were the ordinary daily speech of various regions of India (or very close to the ordinary daily speech, only slightly altered by a literary style), so that all you needed to write it was a knowledge of the commonly-spoken local language, and of the alphabet. By contrast, at that time Sanskrit was NOT an ordinary vernacular language -- it had to be learned by studying under Brahmins, and the Brahmins themselves (who were the custodians of Sanskrit) had no interest in writing it. Therefore a Sanskrit inscription would have served no purpose at that time.

And the relationship between Vedic Sanskrit and Prakrits is simply not like the relationship between Italian and French. For technical linguistic reasons, Vedic Sanskrit is not the one single direct ancestor of Prakrits -- but that doesn't change the fact that it's very similar to what unattested earlier historical stages of Prakrits would have been. The relationship between Vedic Sanskrit and Prakrits is very similar to the relationship between Classical Latin and the Romance languages -- and if Classical Latin is shown as an "earlier form" of French in the French Language article infobox, then I'm not sure why Vedic Sanskrit can't be shown as an "earlier form" of Prakrits (in both cases this is technically wrong if "earlier form" is interpreted as meaning direct linguistic ancestor, but useful under a slightly looser interpretation). AnonMoos (talk) 09:41, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Honestly I don't get that'earlier form' in the romance languages section as well . Still the status of Vedic Sanskrit (term was never used by it's speakers,native or otherwise) being the ancestor or even the 'earlier form' of Prakrits' is disputed. One of the links I gave is an example of that. So making one sided edits will only mislead readers. Bodhiupasaka (talk) 12:29, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

"The relationship between Vedic Sanskrit and Prakrits is very similar to the relationship between Classical Latin and the Romance languages " The relationship is similar but undisputably not the same. It is interesting to note that Latin is attested by written works at a much earlier date than all the other Romance languages while it is the 'exact opposite' for Prakrit and Sanskrit. In other words Latin preceded the other Romance languages in 'both spoken and written' forms while the same cannot be said for sanskrit and prakrit. Hence the analogy is false. Also there was no mention of the word Sanskrit until the 1st century BC. The language of the Vedas was called Chandas. Bodhiupasaka (talk) 12:35, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

And regardless of the reasons that Brahmins had in not writing the Vedic language down, there is no irrefutable evidence that the language written in the Vedas is the faithful reproduction of the language that was spoken much earlier. Just as Panini synthesised Sanskrit from Vedic , Vedic itself could be a modified form of an earlier language that 'could' have been the ancestor of all Prakrits'. There are Buddhists who claim Pali is Magadhi Prakrit and is the ancestor of all eastern prakrits but that is misleading because of grammatical differences between the two languages , especially case system which suggests the Buddhist monks modified and combined many Prakrits' to write down Buddhist doctrine.

Just saying that Vedic could be an earlier form of all prakrits is as misleading as saying Avestan(Indo Iranian) is the earlier form of Vedic , just because it is more archaic . It does not help the fact that Sanskrit and vedic are written at a much later time than the Prakrits' . We will never know the 'exact' ancestor of all Prakrits' , just as we don't know the exact ancestor of all Indo European languages. We just have an approximation called PIE. And I am aware that vedic is one of the languages that is used as it's base but that's because there was no other Indo Aryan language that was preserved as well as Vedic and could have been much older. That is why claiming Vedic as the 'earlier form' of Prakrit is misleading. Bodhiupasaka (talk) 13:09, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

You think that writing is very important, but the Brahmins who were the guardians of Vedic Sanskrit during the period between 500 B.C. and the early centuries A.D. thought that writing was very unimportant, and were somethimes suspicious of or antagonistic to writing. Also, in the Asoka period the people who were composing royal inscriptions and the people who were keeping the oral traditions of Sanskrit alive were separate groups. A little later on, you have upper-class gentlemen and men-about-town in Hindu kingdoms regarding a knowledge of classical Sanskrit (not Vedic Sanskrit) as necessary to their position, and plays and political treatises are written in Sanskrit etc., and that's when you get Sanskrit inscriptions. AnonMoos (talk) 21:04, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Well regardless of whether writing is important or not, it can atleast be another layer of proof to show that one language precedes another. Moreover I have found another reference on the wiki article's page itself that refutes 'Relic1234's claims: [7] Burde, Jayant (2004). Rituals, Mantras, and Science: An Integral Perspective. Motilal Banarsidass Publishe. p. 3. ISBN 978-81-208-2053-1. The Aryans spoke an Indo-European language ""sometimes"" called the ""Vedic"" language from which have descended Sanskrit and other Indic languages ... ""Prakrit was a group of variants which developed ""alongside"" Sanskrit."" This article mentions Vedic. So what exactly is this Vedic Sanskrit ? You can see here that the scholars are still trying to decide whether the common ancestor of all Prakrits' and Sanskrit, should be called Vedic or some other language. That is why making one sided edits on a disputed fact will only mislead others. You can see that the scholars support the notion that Prakrit is a language that developed alongside or parallely to sanskrit . I have given another reference that supports this notion,which you will find it being mentioned many times in the talk page. Bodhiupasaka (talk) 05:55, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

We've gone all through this above. Due to technical linguistic reasons, Vedic Sanskrit is not the direct ancestor of Prakrits, but it shows a level of structural archaism which means that it would have been rather similar to unattested earlier historical stages of Prakrits. Perfectly reputable linguists have said that Vedic Sanskrit displays a level of structural archaism compatible with a date of 1500 BC, but no reputable linguist has said that any Prakrit text dates from 1500 BC. Why did Buddhists choose Pali in the first place? Because they wanted to use a common everyday spoken vernacular language which was the property of all people -- while at the time when this choice was made, Sanskrit was not an everyday vernacular, but an archaic Hindu religious language which you had to go to Brahmins to learn. AnonMoos (talk) 12:31, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Prakrits are not 'everyday vernacular'- they are a distinct register of literary languages. There was a distinction drawn in traditional drama that used Prakrit between Sanskrit, Prakrit, and 'bhasa', with the latter being vernacular languages. Pali is believed by some scholars to be closer to what people spoke at the time of the Buddha and there is significant mutual comprehension in Indic dialects, but we really don't know why exactly people in Sri Lanka ended up using a northern dialect with some western and some unidentified features as their liturgical language. This is another reason why I think 'Old Indic' is a better choice than 'Vedic' or Sanskrit. Old Indic covers Sanskrit and all the parallel dialects that evolved into the Middle Indic languages. There is a reference/discussion about this at Talk:Pali#Lineage_of_Pali that discusses the specific relation between Pali and Sanskrit. 'Middle Indic languages/dialects' includes the literary/dramatic Prakrits like Pali, as well as the largely unattested 'bhasa' dialects of the Middle Ages that evolved into modern Indo-Aryan. For discussion of how Prakrits are not 'vernacular', see Andrew Ollett's 'Language of the Snakes'. Using Vedic or Sanskrit as a synonym for all of the Old Indic dialects does turn up in some sources, but I think it's needlessly confusing for the reader and suggests the incorrect conclusion that Vedic Sanskrit is the ancestor of all of the Middle Indic and modern Indian languages. It isn't. It's an exemplar of an Old Indic dialect, and it's siblings were the ancestors of Middle and modern Indic languages. --Spasemunki (talk) 22:41, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

arbitrary section break

(Outdent since this is a new section break)

Later on (in plays and such) they became codified literary languages, but when the Asoka inscriptions were being composed, and when the Buddhists were first choosing Pali, they were probably reasonably close to regional colloquial vernaculars (certainly far more so than Sanskrit was). Sorry if I oversimplified a little, but the contrast between the status of Sanskrit and Prakrit at that time is still clear... AnonMoos (talk) 00:22, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Quoting Ollett:

Another misunderstanding is that Sanskrit, Prakrit, and Bhas-.a somehow follow each other in history. Jacobi was careful to avoid this suggestion by referring to stages of development (Entwicklungsstufen) rather than stages of attestation. Indeed, against the general expectation that linguistically "later" forms of a language are historically attested "later" as well, the entire linguistic history of India pro- vides many striking counterexamples, including one that Louis Renou identified as the "great linguistic paradox of India": Middle Indic languages are attested in the inscriptional record centuries before Old Indic languages are. (pg. 12-13)

"Middle Indic" and "Prakrit" are not just the modern and premodern ways of picking out the same languages, or even the same kinds of languages. What underwrites this false equivalence is the idea that any language that deviates from Sanskrit in any way is and always was Prakrit. I will call this a "broad" definition of Prakrit. (pg. 12)

The broad definition is typically adopted by scholars concerned with the natural history of language: given the project of tracing the genealogical relation- ship between the ancient, medieval, and modern languages of India, a sufficiently broad term is needed to encompass all of the forms of speech that might figure in this genealogy. Hence "Prakrit" becomes a cover term for languages that were never called Prakrit in ancient India: the languages of Ashoka's inscriptions; the languages of later inscriptions in India ("Monumental Prakrit," "Len-.a Prakrit," or "Stupa Dialect") as well as in Sri Lanka ("Sinhalese Prakrit"); the language of the Theravada Buddhist canon, now commonly known as Pali; the popular Sanskrit of Buddhist literature in the early centuries ce ("Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit"); the language of birch-bark scrolls from northwestern India to Western China ("Gand- hari Prakrit" and "Niya Prakrit," both generally called "Gandhari" these days); essentially, any piece of the linguistic puzzle between the Vedas and the appearance of the modern vernaculars, which is to say, the entire linguistic puzzle. There are some good reasons for grouping these enormously diverse languages under the heading of "Middle Indic"; I am less sure that they should be grouped under the heading of "Prakrit." (pg. 13)

Ollett's is obviously only one opinion, but he's correct that the language used by Ashoka was never called 'Prakrit' in India, and the conclusion that it is 'vernacular' can only be speculative given that we have no attestation of language as used in everyday speech. While mutual intelligibility suggests that Ashoka's inscriptions might have been understandable to normal people, we can't conclude that they are synonymous with everyday speech- even today, language used in formal government documents and public proclamations differs from normal language in significant ways. None of the examples that we have of Prakrit in the broad sense are transcriptions of vernacular language- they are all language that was recorded in formal political and/or religious contexts, and most of what is Prakrit qua Prakrit- language that was recognized as Prakrit in ancient India- is from a specific literary context.

The issue of vernacular vs. formal/constructed is kind of departing from the issue at hand, though. The original question was whether Sanskrit or Vedic is correctly identified as the precursor language of one or more Prakrit languages (broadly construed), and I still maintain that that isn't correct. If we're going to identify an ancestor of the Prakrit languages, it would be 'various Old Indic dialects'. Vedic Sanskrit is one example of an Old Indic dialect, but I don't know that there is any Middle Indic or modern language (other than 'Classical Sanskrit' as a constructed formal language) that can be called a direct descendent of Vedic Sanskrit. --Spasemunki (talk) 02:03, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

OK, if you use "Prakrit" in a strict way that excludes Asoka inscriptions and Pali, then much of what I've said above is just flat-out wrong. However, I'm far from the only one. Maybe there should be a clear meaning distinction in the usage of "Prakrit" and "Middle Indic", but I'm not sure that this is frequently found in the common usage of linguistic scholars. Of course, if Pali is not included among Prakrits, then this article should be irrelevant to User:Bodhiupasaka. And the "great linguistic paradox of India" is not seen as much of a paradox by many, if you understand that Sanskrit was already an archaic limited-purpose special language at the time of the earliest inscriptions, and one which had no tradition of being written, and whose guardians were not early adopters of writing. Under those circumstances, there's no real reason to expect Sanskrit to be written before Middle Indic... AnonMoos (talk) 03:56, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

No one is right or wrong here. The only point I want to make is making one sided edits using a fact that is much disputed by scholars will only serve to mislead readers instead of enlightening them. That is all. Bodhiupasaka (talk) 07:16, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

We can all post scholarly references that support our own point of view as we have all done so on this talk page, but that won't resolve the impasse will it ? So that is why it is best not to make edits that are built on disputed facts . Bodhiupasaka (talk) 07:24, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Is there still a dispute at this point? While I think the article could be more precise regarding the uses of Prakrit vs. Middle Indic, I was primarily quoting at length for completeness. Regarding the issue raised by the RFC, earlier AnonMoos was suggesting that Vedic belonged as the precursor to Prakrit in the infobox but acknowledged that that wasn't completely accurate. Aside from an anonymous/IP user, does anyone object to leaving Vedic out of the infobox? --Spasemunki (talk) 02:16, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Spasemunki -- I wasn't a fervent advocate for including it in the infobox. I mainly pointed out that including Vedic Sanskrit as an earlier form of Prakrits is narrowly incorrect for technical linguistic reasons (always assuming that "earlier form" means "direct ancestor"), but that similar narrow technical incorrectness is being ignored on other Wikipedia articles on languages. I really would not have participated at any length in this discussion except that so many of Bodhiupasaka's arguments were unhelpful and ill-considered... AnonMoos (talk) 20:41, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't object . I support it. Leave Vedic out. The early forms in the English language wiki article is accurate though. Bodhiupasaka (talk) 10:21, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

@AnonMoos Indulging in subtle Ad Hominem are we ? Bodhiupasaka (talk) 11:24, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Inaccurate Language Tree Image

It has already been established in the talk section(not just in this article) that Vedic Sanskrit is not an ancestor of Prakrit and yet there is an image of a language tree in the article that still shows the same misconception. Hope someone will rectify it.

Bodhiupasaka (talk) 08:39, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Never mind , fixed it. Bodhiupasaka (talk) 08:50, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

@Bodhiupasaka: The Witty Warrior restored the graphic today, claiming that it isn't inaccurate. I removed it for a different reason: less than 10% of the graphic has anything to do with the Prakrits, which I explained in my edit summary, but The Witty Warrior restored it. Witty Warrior, why do you believe the graphic is suitable for this article? Largoplazo (talk) 16:17, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

I've been a little busy. Will reply to you regarding this as soon as possible. The Witty Warrior (talk) 12:29, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

@Largoplazo:The language tree that was recently included again is simply inaccurate since the relationship between Vedic(Sanskrit) and the Prakrits is hotly contested with some scholars stating that Vedic and Prakrit are sister languages , they don't have the relationship of being mother and daughter languages respectively. And this was also discussed in previous sections of this talk page . That's why I removed that misleading image.Bodhiupasaka (talk) 15:37, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Vedic and Prakrit are NOT "sister languages" in the sense of showing the same degree of archaism, or being equally useful in reconstructing Indo-European, so that part of your remarks is factually incorrect. As discussed in great deal previously, Vedic is not technically the direct ancestor of Prakrit, but it's a fairly close collateral ancestor, and depicting Vedic as the ancestor of Prakrit in a language tree is not any more inaccurate than other slight simplifications of linguistic trees which appear on a number of other Wikipedia articles (such as Classical Latin being the ancestor of modern Romance, etc etc). You take the prize for repeatedly forcefully insisting on something which is technically linguistically correct (Vedic is not the direct ancestor of Prakrit) but actually fairly irrelevant for practical article improvement. When you go beyond this into the "sister" stuff, then you're wrong (since "aunt" would be much more accurate). AnonMoos (talk) 16:18, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

@Bodhiupasaka The Attested Vedic Sanskrit is not claimed to be the direct ancestor of Prakrits.. But Prakrits are indeed derived from some unattested archaic form of Sanskrit, that can be a more closer to Indo-Iranian dialect too.. Since Mittani-Aryan, a dialect of Vedic Sanskrit retains all the features of Prakrits, including 'Double Consonantal joint between words' like 'Sapta' = 'Satta'..

but saying that 'Prakrits' are as archaic as Vedic Sanskrit, is laughable Hahahaha.. cuz no Prakrits existed at the time of Vedic period and it's already clear, people spoke The Vedic Language and not venicular corrupt speech languages like 'prakrits', Prakrits came to existence after 700BCE.. Arkam Knight (talk) 14:38, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

It isn't corrupt per se, just more divergent from the Old Indo-Aryan dialects than, say, Pali. 98.179.127.59 (talk) 19:32, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

There are tracea of Prakrit in the Rig Veda, moreover there is not attestation date for rigvedic and prakrit preserves certain features that have been lost even in Rigvedic/Vedic as is written in :https://www.jstor.org/stable/3087594

This is also cited as wiki reference. Bodhiupasaka (talk) 07:53, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

@AnonMoos, I'd like to see the reference where your claim is mentioned of Prakrit being derived from some unattended Sanskrit even though the term sanskrit was first used by Panini after he synthesized the language from Vedic, he himself called the vedic language as Chandas, there was no sanskrit before Panini. Besides this wiki language tree created by multiple authors shows that the Prakrits and Vedic are sister dialects instead of having the relationship of mother and daughter. Same is cited in a wiki reference. If you have trouble finding that reference please let me know. Language tree:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IndoEuropeanTree.svg Bodhiupasaka (talk) 08:01, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

First, just typing the literal characters "@AnonMoos" does not notify me in any way. Second, I don't want to get into extended debate about genealogical metaphors, but the plain and simple fact is that when comparative linguists take into account Indic languages in order to help reconstruct Proto-Indo-European, then Sanskrit is their starting point, and usually the more archaic the better. Some specific details of some later languages are certainly taken into account, but such details supplement the main picture which has already been established from Sanskrit. Panini's "classical" Sanskrit was more or less contemporary with somewhat early Pali, but at that time, Pali was probably close enough to the ordinary spoken language of some regions of India that it could be fairly easily understood, while "classical" Sanskrit was a slightly streamlined version of an ancient language. If Vedic Sanskrit is like Latin, then the prakrits are best analogized to Spanish, Italian, etc of roughly 1000 A.D. AnonMoos (talk) 09:43, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Prākṛta literally means "natural"?

The article currently says that Prākṛta literally means "natural". This is a common enough modern misinterpretation (not to be found in any ancient or medieval source and goes against the etymology of the name "prākṛta"), it also goes directly against the native definitions of the word Prākṛta (normally anglicized as Prakrit).

The word Prākṛta is a nominal derivative (called taddhita) i.e. a noun showing relationship to another noun, "Prakṛti". In other words, "Prākṛta" is something that is derived from "Prakṛti" (original).

Both sanskrit and prakrit grammarians (many of who wrote grammars of both sanskrit and prakrit) explain that Sanskrit is the Prakṛti (original language from which the prakrits are derived - for citations from these native ancient and medieval scholars see the etymology section.

Most of the native Prākṛta (prakrit) grammars take Sanskrit as the starting point and indicate the departures of each Prakrit therefrom. On the other hand, every singly native Sanskrit grammatical text treats Sanskrit as a pre-existing language and makes no attempt to derive-from or associate it with any prakrit.

Therefore while some modern scholars say Prakrit (i.e. prākṛta) means "natural" - that is an incorrect statement. Prākṛta etymologically means "originating from the natural/source (language)", and that original/natural language has been identified by most pre-modern native scholars as Sanskrit.

The point of terming one group as Prākṛta and its source as Prakṛti is to distinguish them from each other - so that the relations between the natural/original language and the languages derived from the natural/original language are understood properly.

This explanation of the premodern scholars broadly in line with mainstream modern philological research which also considers Sanskrit (including the dialects of Vedic Sanskrit) as Old-Indic, and Prakrits and other similar forms as direct descendants of Old-Indic (which are therefore termed Middle-Indic). Therefore I have marked the statement Prākṛta literally means "natural" as dubious, but it is not just dubious, it is diametrically the opposite of the correct meaning. However I didnt remove the statement because while it's a misunderstanding, the misunderstanding is expressed by some modern scholars in their works - so a two-sided view is required about why that is wrong. Srkris (talk) 12:07, 5 November 2023 (UTC)