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 languages long after they ceased to be spoken. Dramatic Prakrits are important for the study of the development of Indo-Aryan languages, because their usage plays and literature is always accompanied by a translation in Sanskrit.
The phrase "Dramatic Prakrits" often refers to three most prominent of them: Sauraseni, Magadhi, and Maharashtri. However, there were a slew of other less commonly used Prakrits that also fall into this category. These include Pracya, Bahliki, Daksinatya, Sakari, Candali, Sabari, Abhiri, Dramili, and Odri. There was an astoundingly strict structure to the use of these different Prakrits in dramas. Characters each spoke a different Prakrit based on their role and background; for example, Dramili was the language of "forest-dwellers", Sauraseni was spoken by "the heroine and her female friends", and Avanti was spoken by "cheats and rogues".
Maharashtri, the root of modern Marathi, is a particularly interesting case. Maharashtri was often used for poetry and as such, diverged from proper Sanskrit grammar mainly to fit the language to the meter of different styles of poetry. The new grammar stuck, which leads to the unique flexibility of vowels lengths, amongst other anomalies, in Marathi.
The three principal Dramatic Prakrits and some of their descendant languages:
- Maharashtri Prakrit
- Maharashtri was used in the southwestern regions of Ancient India, later evolving into the Southern Indo-Aryan languages, including Marathi, Konkani, Sinhala, and Dhivehi.
- Shauraseni language
- Shauraseni was used in north-central India, later evolving into the Hindi languages, viz. the varieties of Hindi, the Central Zone of modern Indic, including Hindustani and Punjabi.
- Magadhi Prakrit
- Magadhi was used in eastern India, later evolving into the Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, including Bengali, Assamese, Oriya, and the Bihari languages (Bhojpuri, modern Magahi, Maithili, etc.), among others.
References
- Woolner, Alfred C. Introduction to Prakrit. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, India, 1999.
- The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica: Sanskrit
- Banerjee, Satya Ranjan. The Eastern School of Prakrit Grammarians : a linguistic study. Calcutta: Vidyasagar Pustak Mandir, 1977.
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