Shauraseni Prakrit (, ) was a

Middle Indo-Aryan language The Middle Indo-Aryan languages (or Middle Indic languages, sometimes conflated with the Prakrits, which are a stage of Middle Indic) are a historical group of languages of the Indo-Aryan family. They are the descendants of Old Indo-Aryan (OIA; ...

and a

Dramatic Prakrit Dramatic Prakrits were those standard forms of Prakrit dialects that were used in dramas and other literature in medieval India. They may have once been spoken languages or were based on spoken languages, but continued to be used as literary languag ...

. Shauraseni was the chief

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...

used in drama in northern

medieval India Medieval India refers to a long period of Post-classical history of the Indian subcontinent between the "ancient period" and "modern period". It is usually regarded as running approximately from the breakup of the Gupta Empire in the 6th cen ...

. Most of the material in this language originates from the 3rd to 10th centuries, though it was probably a spoken vernacular around the 2nd century BCE in the ancient state of

Surasena Kingdom of Surasena (or Sourasena) (Sanskrit: ) was an ancient Indian region corresponding to the present-day Braj region in Uttar Pradesh, with Mathura as its capital city. According to the Buddhist text '' Anguttara Nikaya'', Surasena was on ...

. Among the

Prakrit The Prakrits (; sa, prākṛta; psu, 𑀧𑀸𑀉𑀤, ; pka, ) are a group of vernacular Middle Indo-Aryan languages that were used in the Indian subcontinent from around the 3rd century BCE to the 8th century CE. The term Prakrit is usu ...

s, Shauraseni is said to be the one most closely related to

Classical Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the l ...

in that it "is derived from the Old Indian Indo-Aryan dialect of the Madhyadeśa on which Classical Sanskrit was mainly based." Its descendants include the languages of the

Hindi Belt The Hindi Belt, also known as the Hindi Heartland, is a linguistic region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern and western India where various Central Indo-Aryan languages subsumed under the term 'Hindi' (for example, by the ...

, the Central Zone of modern Indo-Aryan or

Hindi languages The Central Indo-Aryan languages or Hindi languages are a group of related language varieties Spoken across North India and Central India. These language varieties form the central part of the Indo-Aryan language family, itself a part of the ...

, the standard registers of the

Hindustani language Hindustani (; Devanagari: , * * * * ; Perso-Arabic: , , ) is the '' lingua franca'' of Northern and Central India and Pakistan. Hindustani is a pluricentric language with two standard registers, known as Hindi and Urdu. Thus, the lang ...

based on the

Delhi dialect Kauravi ( hi, कौरवी, ur, ), also known as Khaṛībolī is a set of Western Hindi varieties of Shauraseni Prakrit mainly spoken in Northwestern Uttar Pradesh. Standard Hindi and Urdu are based on Khariboli, specifically on its De ...

References

Languages attested from the 3rd century Languages extinct in the 10th century Indo-Aryan languages Medieval languages Prakrit languages North India {{IndoAryan-lang-stub

See also

References