The middle stage is represented by the various literary Prakrits, especially the Shauraseni language and Maharashtri and Magadhi Prakrits. The term Prakrit is also often applied to Middle Indo-Aryan languages. 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 by social and geographic differences.
The late stage is represented by the Apabhraṃśas of the 6th century and later that preceded early Modern Indo-Aryan languages.
History
The Indo-Aryan languages 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, an Old Indo-Aryan language used for literary purposes. According to Thomas Oberlies, a number of morphophonological and lexical features of Middle Indo-Aryan languages show that they are not direct continuations of Vedic Sanskrit. Instead they descend from other dialects similar to, but in some ways more archaic than Vedic Sanskrit.
A Middle Indo-Aryan innovation are the serial verb constructions that have evolved into complex predicates in modern north Indian languages such as Hindi and Bengali. For example, भाग जा 'go run' means run away, पका ले 'take cook' means to cook for oneself, and पका दे '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 and parasmaipadi verbs. For example, पका दे 'give cook' has the result of the action going to someone else, and पका ले 'take cook' to the one who is doing the cooking.
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. Early Pāli texts, such as the Sutta-nipāta contain many "Magadhisms". Pāli continued to be a living second language 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 found in what is now Bihar.
Gāndhārī
Many texts in Kharoṣṭhi script have been discovered in the area centred on the Khyber Pass in what was known in ancient times as Gandhara 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.
Apabhramsa
An apabhramsa was a language developed from Prakrits. Modern Provincial languages developed from different apabhramsas. Patanjali was the first to use the term apabhramsa in his Mahabhasya. The term is derived from the Sanskrit word Apabhrasta, and means a corrupted form of Sanskrit. Mostly Jainreligious language and spiritual literature of Siddhas was composed in Apabhramsa language. When the Romani people migrated from Rajasthan, Punjab, Sindh and Afghanistan in the 1st century AD, they were speaking an apabhramsa language pertaining to the Western part of India. They spread to Western countries around the 12th century AD.
