Talk:Prakrit

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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

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 folly compatible with the editing form -- AnonMoos

[edit] 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 Kraus e 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 Kraus e 11:09, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

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