Mleccha (Skt.), Milakku (Pali), a language of ocean/island-dwellers of Bharat
A large group of people frequently mentioned in the Great Epic, Mahabharata, are speakers of mleccha dialect, an apparent designation of a group of people from many parts, from many walks of life, within the country, Bharat.
This is substantiated by the facts that (1) two great heroes of the Epic, Vidura and Yudhishthira spoke mleccha vaak; and (2) Bhagadatta, the king of Pragjyotisha is referred to as mleccha and he is also said to have ruled over two yavana kings (MBh. 2.13).
Mleccha (Prakrit) was the language used to connote minerals, metals, furnaces and artifacts made by artisan guilds on Sarasvati Hieroglyphs found on over 5000 inscribed objects of Sarasvati Civilization (between circa 3300 and 1500 BCE).[Details in 7 volumes: S. Kalyanaraman, 2003, Sarasvati: Civilization, Rigveda, River, Bharati, Technology, Language, Epigraphs, Bangalore, Babasaheb Apte Smarak Samiti and on 30000 files on internet (including a comparative Indian lexicon of 25+ ancient languages of Bharat) http://www.hindunet.org/saraswati ]
The earliest recorded reference to mleccha is used in the sense of spoken language in S�atapatha Brahmana (dated to circa 2500 BCE): (S�Br. III.2.1.24). The passage equates asura speech with mleccha speech. The term (S�Br. VI.3.1.34) is explained by Sayana that the speech of deva (devasambandhi) is Samskritam and the speech of men (manushyasambandhi) is bhaasha. [daivam devasambandhi vaakyam samskritam maanusham ca manushyasambandhi bhaashaamayan ca vaakyam] This is temed as milakkhu in Pali and Ardhama_gadhi (Sam. N., V. 466: milakkha in Pali; Ac.S., II.3.8: milakkhu in Ardhamaagadhi). The use of mleccha vaac may refer to a Prakrit dialect. [A. Weber, History of Indian Literature, pp. 67-68. asuraya refers to �Prakritic
dialectical differences, assimilation of groups of consonants and similar changes peculiar to Prakrit vernaculars�.] It is no mere coincidence that the early inscriptions, those of As�oka for example, are in Prakrit, parole or the spoken vaak which is the synonym of mleccha. Prakrit was the term used in contradistinction to Samskritam: one denoted the early tongues and the other a refined, grammatically-correct, literary form of the spoken language of the people of Bharat, which was called bhaasha by Panini or des�i by Hemacandra. This could be cognate with Nahali (<Nagari) an "Indo-Aryan" language -- with Dravidian and Munda substratum semantics -- on the banks of River Tapati, not far from the Bhimbhetka caves.
Dr. S. Kalyanaraman
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