Friday, January 13, 2023

Sanskrit and Prakrit languages

The colonial era mandated English as the administrative language in India. Before them the Sultanates and the Mughals mandated Persian (or Arabic) as the official language in much of India they controlled (Flynn and Flynn (1976), in Language and Politics). In either era, the elite literate Indians learnt the official language for jobs. As a result, classical Sanskrit and classical Prakrit languages declined in India. 

We hear strange criticism of these historic languages, neither of which now mainstream in India. We should ask, how similar or different are Sanskrit and Prakrit languages? Here are some answers:
  1. Sanskrit and Prakrit languages are related to each other, just like standard English and colloquial, grammar-ignoring English respectively.
  2. Grammar and structure is necessary when ideas or facts need to be stated clearly and accurately. But whenever we add rules, it means there will be more learning curve, work. 
  3. Archaic Vedic language is closer to Prakrit (Walter Petersen, Vedic, Sanskrit and Prakrit, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 32(4), pp. 414–428). Both archaic Vedic and Prakrit can be understood, also misunderstood. Confusing interpretations possible. 
  4. Classical Sanskrit developed its grammar and rules over centuries. This effort was by many ancient scholars, capped by Panini's Sanskrit. 
  5. Like Sanskrit, many world languages developed their grammar and structure by a similar process: Accademia della Crusca of Firenzi for Italian (16th century), Academie Francaise of Paris for French (17th century), Academia EspaƱola of Madrid for Spanish (18th century). 
  6. English language developed in parallel to Italian and French in the same centuries, starting with a claim by William Bullokar. 
  7. Most of us are unable to read or understand pre-18th century English manuscripts with ease. Because that is what we may call "Prakrit English". 
  8. Buddhists and Jains in India adopted Sanskrit-style grammar and structure for their Prakrit languages. By c. 1st century, Buddhist and Jain scholars adopted Sanskrit or hybrid Sanskrit for same reasons. 
  9. Chinese Buddhist pilgrims to India learnt Sanskrit and predominantly carried Sanskrit texts back to China. Same reasons. Sanskrit and hybrid Sanskrit was as popular amongst the monks and scholars in much of ancient Asia, as English is in modern world. 
  10. Sanskrit is a precise, phonetic language. Sanskrit has been written in many scripts including Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu, Odiya, Marathi, Bengali, Assamese, Punjabi, Sharada, Devanagari, Nepali, SE Asian scripts etc. 
  11. Some say Sanskrit is the language of elites, Prakrit was the language of the masses. Well they are as accurate as those who say, "standard proper English is the language of elites, colloquial English is the language of the masses".
  12. Historic Hindu drama and poetry manuscripts survive in prakrit languages such as Sauraseni, Marathi. They provide objective comparisons of word and sentence similarities, plus their simpler grammar versus standard Sanskrit. Here is a table that compares the two Prakrit languages with Sanskrit. You decide how similar they are: