Page:The history of the Bengali language (1920).pdf/215

Rh Prākṛta is the speech, in which the babies commence to lisp and which the people very naturally learn untaught. The oriental scholars of Europe however, make a sharp distinction now between the modern vernaculars and the obsolete Prākṛtas, to secure some definiteness in the matter of classification. In this classification, the scholars have followed those Prākṛta grammarians, who have appropriated the name prākṛta for an artificial standard literary speech, and have given the term অপভ্রংশ, to the vernacular speeches of their time; I should notice in this connection, that Apabhranśa as reported by the grammarians is also an unreal apabhranśa speech. That the term apabhranśa should now only be used to denote phonetic decay, has been my suggestion in the foregoing lecture. We have to again notice with reference to the use of the term prākṛta by the modern scholars, that where a prākṛta ends and a vernacular begins, is not at all easy to determine and demarcate; it will not help us in the matter of classification, nay it will create anomaly and confusion, if the obsolete forms of our present day vernaculars be all designated as prākṛtas. If the term prākṛta be applied to signify those remote forbears of the modern vernaculars of Northern India, as may not be quite directly traced to be such forbears, a workable definition may be obtained. Practically speaking, this definition does not militate against the current definition of the scholars. I need hardly point out, that by the phrase 'remote forbear' in this definition, I do not refer either to Chhāndasa, which is the source-head of all our Aryan speeches, or to Classical Sanskrit, which has made from time to time some contributions to the Aryan Vernaculars.

Pāli defined.—Pāli, I have all along designated as an early Māgadhi prākṛta, on the authority of Buddha Ghoṣa, who has called it 'Magadha Bohāra.' The capital town