The Middle Indo-Aryan languages (or Middle Indic languages, sometimes conflated with the
Prakrit
Prakrit ( ) is a group of vernacular classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages that were used in the Indian subcontinent from around the 5th century BCE to the 12th century CE. The term Prakrit is usually applied to the middle period of Middle Ind ...
s, 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; attested through
Vedic Sanskrit
Vedic Sanskrit, also simply referred as the Vedic language, is the most ancient known precursor to Sanskrit, a language in the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. It is atteste ...
) and the predecessors of the modern
Indo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages, or sometimes Indic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. As of 2024, there are more than 1.5 billion speakers, primarily concentrated east ...
, such as
Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu),
Bengali and
Punjabi.
The Middle Indo-Aryan (MIA) stage is thought to have spanned more than a millennium between 600 BCE and 1000 CE, and is often divided into three major subdivisions.
* The early stage is represented by the
Ardhamagadhi of the
Edicts of Ashoka
The Edicts of Ashoka are a collection of more than thirty inscriptions on the Pillars of Ashoka, as well as boulders and cave walls, attributed to Emperor Ashoka of the Maurya Empire who ruled most of the Indian subcontinent from 268 BCE to 2 ...
(c. 250 BCE) and
Jain Agamas
Jain literature () refers to the literature of the Jain religion. It is a vast and ancient literary tradition, which was initially transmitted orally. The oldest surviving material is contained in the canonical ''Jain Agamas'', which are wri ...
, and by the
Pali
Pāli (, IAST: pāl̤i) is a Classical languages of India, classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages, Middle Indo-Aryan language of the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pali Canon, Pāli Can ...
of the
Tripitakas.
* The middle stage is represented by the various literary
Prakrit
Prakrit ( ) is a group of vernacular classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages that were used in the Indian subcontinent from around the 5th century BCE to the 12th century CE. The term Prakrit is usually applied to the middle period of Middle Ind ...
s, especially the
Shauraseni language and the
Maharashtri and
Magadhi Prakrits. The term Prakrit is also often applied to Middle Indo-Aryan languages (''prākṛta'' literally means 'natural' as opposed to ''saṃskṛta'', which literally means 'constructed' or 'refined'). Modern scholars such as Michael C. Shapiro follow this classification by including all Middle Indo-Aryan languages under the rubric of "Prakrits", while others emphasise the independent development of these languages, often separated from
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
by social and geographic differences.
[Shapiro, Michael C. (2001), "Hindi", in: ''Facts About the World's Languages: An Encyclopedia of the World's Major Languages, Past and Present'', eds. Jane Garry and Carl Rubino: New England Publishing Associates.]
* The late stage is represented by the
Apabhraṃśas of the 6th century CE and later that preceded early
Modern Indo-Aryan languages
(such as
Braj Bhasha
Braj is a language within the Indo-Aryan language family spoken in the Braj region in Western Uttar Pradesh centered on Mathura. Along with Awadhi, it was one of the two predominant literary languages of North-Central India before gradually ...
).
History
The
Indo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages, or sometimes Indic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. As of 2024, there are more than 1.5 billion speakers, primarily concentrated east ...
are commonly assigned to three major groups:
Old Indo-Aryan languages, Middle Indo-Aryan languages and Early Modern and Modern Indo-Aryan languages. The classification reflects stages in linguistic development, rather than being strictly chronological.
The Middle Indo-Aryan languages are younger than the Old Indo-Aryan languages but were contemporaneous with the use of
Classical Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest ...
, an Old Indo-Aryan language used for
literary
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, plays, and poems. It includes both print and digital writing. In recent centuries, ...
purposes.
According to Thomas Oberlies, a number of
morphophonological
Morphophonology (also morphophonemics or morphonology) is the branch of linguistics that studies the interaction between morphological and phonological or phonetic processes. Its chief focus is the sound changes that take place in morphemes (m ...
and
lexical features of Middle Indo-Aryan languages show that they are not direct continuations of
Vedic Sanskrit
Vedic Sanskrit, also simply referred as the Vedic language, is the most ancient known precursor to Sanskrit, a language in the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. It is atteste ...
. Instead they descend from other dialects similar to, but in some ways more archaic than Vedic Sanskrit.
Early phase (3rd century BCE)
*
Ashokan Prakrits (regional dialects of the 3rd century BCE)
*
Gandhari (a Buddhist canonical language)
*
Pali
Pāli (, IAST: pāl̤i) is a Classical languages of India, classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages, Middle Indo-Aryan language of the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pali Canon, Pāli Can ...
(a Buddhist canonical language)
*
Early Ardhamagadhi (language of the oldest Jain sutras)
*
Elu (an ancient Sri Lankan prakrit. It was ancestral to the
Sinhalese and
Dhivehi languages)
Middle phase (200 BCE to 700 CE)
*Niya Prakrit
*Ardhamagadhi (later Jain canon)
*
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 langu ...
s (
Maurya period)
**
Magadhi
**
Maharashtri
**
Shauraseni
*
Sinhalese Prakrit
*
Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit (later texts)
Late phase: Apabhraṃśa (700–1500)
*
Abahatta (Magadhi Apabhraṃśa)
General characteristics
The following phonological changes distinguish typical MIA languages from their OIA ancestors:
# The replacement of vocalic liquids ''ṛ'' and ''ḷ'' by ''a'', ''i'' or ''u''
# The OIA diphthongs ''ai'' and ''au'' became the monophthongs ''e'' and ''o'' which were long in open syllables and short in closed syllables.
# Long vowels become short in overweight and later pre/post-tonic heavy syllables.
# The three sibilants of OIA are reduced to one, either ''ś'' (Magadhi) or ''s'' (elsewhere).
# OIA clusters either became geminates through assimilation (deletion if the output would violate phonotactics) or were split by vowel epenthesis.
# Initially, intervocalic aspirated stops spirantised. Later, all other intervocalic stops were deleted, weakened, or voiced.
# Dentals (and sometimes retroflexes) are palatalised if directly preceding /j/.
# Most final consonants delete except in
sandhi
Sandhi ( ; , ) is any of a wide variety of sound changes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries. Examples include fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of one sound depending on nearby sounds or the grammatical function o ...
junctions. Final ''m'' became ''ṃ'' instead, which was preserved.
Note that not all of these changes happened in all MIA languages. Archaisms persisted in northwestern Ashokan Prakrits like the retention of all 3 OIA sibilants, for example, retentions that would remain in the later Dardic languages.
The following morphological changes distinguish typical MIA languages from their OIA ancestors:
# The dual number in nominal declensions was lost.
# Consonantal stems were thematicised.
# The ''i-/u-'' and ''ī-/ū-'' declensions were merged into one ''ī-/ū-'' declension.
# The dative was eliminated and the genitive took on its former functions.
# Many different case-endings could be used for one verbal paradigm.
# The middle voice eventually disappeared.
# ''mahyaṃ'' and ''tuhyaṃ'' became used for genitives and ''me'' and ''te'' for instrumentals.
# New verbal forms based on the present stem coexisted with fossilized forms from OIA.
# Active endings replaced passive endings for the passive voice.
A Middle Indo-Aryan innovation are the
serial verb constructions that have evolved into
complex predicates in modern north
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
n languages such as
Hindi
Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...
and
Bengali. For example, भाग जा (bhāg jā) 'go run' means run away, पका ले (pakā le) 'take cook' means to cook for oneself, and पका दे (pakā de) 'give cook' means to cook for someone. The second verb restricts the meaning of the main verb or adds a shade of meaning to it.
Subsequently, the second verb was
grammaticalised further into what is known as a
light verb, mainly used to convey
lexical aspect distinctions for the main verb.
The innovation is based on Sanskrit atmanepadi (fruit of the action accrues to the doer) and parasmaipadi verbs (fruit of the action accrues to some other than the doer). For example, पका दे (pakā de) 'give cook' has the result of the action (cooked food) going to someone else, and पका ले (pakā le) 'take cook' to the one who is doing the cooking.
Attested languages
Pāli
Pali is the best attested of the Middle Indo-Aryan languages because of the extensive writings of early Buddhists. These include canonical texts, canonical developments such as
Abhidhamma, and a thriving commentarial tradition associated with figures such as
Buddhaghosa
Buddhaghosa was a 5th-century Sinhalese Theravādin Buddhist commentator, translator, and philosopher. He worked in the great monastery (''mahāvihāra'') at Anurādhapura, Sri Lanka and saw himself as being part of the Vibhajyavāda schoo ...
. Early Pāli texts, such as the Sutta-nipāta contain many "Magadhisms" (such as ''heke'' for ''eke''; or masculine nominative singular in ''-e''). Pāli continued to be a living
second language
A second language (L2) is a language spoken in addition to one's first language (L1). A second language may be a neighbouring language, another language of the speaker's home country, or a foreign language.
A speaker's dominant language, which ...
until well into the second millennium. The
Pali Text Society was founded in 1881 by
T. W. Rhys Davids to preserve, edit, and publish texts in Pāli, as well as English translations.
Ardhamāgadhī
Known from a few inscriptions, most importantly the pillars and edicts of
Ashoka
Ashoka, also known as Asoka or Aśoka ( ; , ; – 232 BCE), and popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was List of Mauryan emperors, Emperor of Magadha from until #Death, his death in 232 BCE, and the third ruler from the Mauryan dynast ...
found in what is now
Bihar
Bihar ( ) is a states and union territories of India, state in Eastern India. It is the list of states and union territories of India by population, second largest state by population, the List of states and union territories of India by are ...
.
[South Asian folklore: an encyclopedia : Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, By Peter J. Claus, Sarah Diamond, Margaret Ann Mills, Routledge, 2003, p. 203]
Gāndhārī
Many texts in
Kharoṣṭhi script have been discovered in the area centred on the
Khyber Pass
The Khyber Pass (Urdu: درۂ خیبر; ) is a mountain pass in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, on the border with the Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan. It connects the town of Landi Kotal to the Valley of Peshawar at Jamrud by tr ...
in what was known in ancient times as
Gandhara
Gandhara () was an ancient Indo-Aryan people, Indo-Aryan civilization in present-day northwest Pakistan and northeast Afghanistan. The core of the region of Gandhara was the Peshawar valley, Peshawar (Pushkalawati) and Swat valleys extending ...
and the language of the texts came to be called Gāndhārī. These are largely Buddhist texts which parallel the Pāli Canon, but include Mahāyāna texts as well. The language is distinct from other MI dialects.
Elu
Elu (also Eḷa, Hela or Helu Prakrit) was a
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...
n Prakrit of the 3rd century BCE. It was ancestral to the
Sinhalese and
Dhivehi languages. One major source of sample is from
Thonigala Rock Inscriptions, Anamaduwa.
References
External links
Gāndhārī Languageentry in the Encyclopædia Iranica
{{DEFAULTSORT:Middle Indo-Aryan Languages
Medieval languages
Languages of India
Indo-Aryan languages
Languages attested from the 6th century BC
6th-century BC establishments
Languages extinct in the 10th century
10th-century disestablishments in Asia