On the completion of fiftieth year of Sahitya Akademi.

This Book Traces The Important Role Played By Prakrit Language And Narrative Literature In The Development Of Indian Languages And Literature. This Is Considered To Be The First Attempt Ever, By Any Indian Or Foreign Scholar In This Field. The Manifold Contributions Of Prakrit In The Field Of Ardhamagadhi, Sauraseni, Maharastri And Paisachi Language And Literature, Development Of Narrative Literature In Maharastri, Contributions In The Field Of Sanskrit Poetics And Drama Have All Been Incorporated In This Rare Publication.

This volume brings together eight contributions of Professor Madhav M. Deshpande relating to the historical sociolinguistics of sanskrit and Prakrit languages. The studies brought together here represent his continuing research in this field after his 1979 book: Sociolinguistic Attitudes in India: An Historical Reconstruction. The main thrust of these studies is to show that patterns of language, including grammatical theories are deeply influenced by political, religious, geographical, and other sociohistorical factors. This is true as much of ancient languages as it is for modern languages.

The Indo-Aryan languages are spoken by at least 700 million people throughout India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Maldive Islands. They have a claim to great antiquity, with the earliest Vedic Sanskrit texts dating to the end of the second millennium B.C. With texts in Old Indo-Aryan, Middle Indo-Aryan and Modern Indo-Aryan, this language family supplies a historical documentation of language change over a longer period than any other subgroup of Indo-European. This volume is divided into two main sections dealing with general matters and individual languages. Each chapter on the individual language covers the phonology and grammar (morphology and syntax) of the language and its writing system, and gives the historical background and information concerning the geography of the language and the number of its speakers.