Hi Dmytro,
Standard
Epigraphic Prakrit is not that much different from standard Pāli, as Norman has
pointed out. The Oldest Pali manuscript is Pali and dates to around the 9th
century AD, approx. 1000 years older than the earliest epigraphic records.
There are words we don’t quite understand, but most of it if fairly standard,
as one would have expected at his time, centuries after the standardization of
the commentaries by Buddhaghosa.
Pali as a language is fairly phonologically advanced (most
conjuncts have been retained or restored, lost or weakened intervocalic
consonants have been replaced, absolutive has been Sanskritized to –tvā, instead of Prk. –ttā, ssome consonant clusters, like brāhmaṇa, br- have been restored, etc., ). It is a mixed language and often
contains both eastern, western and
Sanskritized forms, like ayya and ariya for Skt. ārya (“noble”).
In my research I argue tht Pali is an
adaptation/translation of an earlier language which I identify as a koine, that is a trade or administrative
language common to north India, an inter-dialect language which
reduced linguistic variability by dialect levelling and simplification, through
elimination of interdialect phonological differences which impede understanding,
and harmonization of the different dialects
to a common language intelligible across all dialects. This dialect can be
discovered by comparing different recensions with cognate forms that have come
down to us, and reconstructing the underlying form. A synopsis of the main
points of my theis may be found in the journal article “The language of early Buddhism”
which may be found here:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/296633207_The_language_of_early_Buddhism.
The earliest manuscripts that we have
of Buddhism are from Gāndhāri (around the first century BCE to the first
century CE, and almost a millennium older than the Nepalese Vinaya ms).
Gāndhāri is an earlier language than Pali in phonological terms as it drops or
weakens a lot of intervocalic consonants, changes aspirates to stops, etc., and
is probably the language closest to this Middle Indic koine which I argue was the earliest recoverable language of
Buddhism.
The language of the earliest Buddhist
radition and by extension the language(s) that the Buddha spoke is a very
complex problem, because of the complicated dialect geography in north India at the time the Buddha lived, and because of the presence of several
other non-Indic languages (proto-Dravidian, proto-Munda, and proto Tibetan to
name only three) whose different phonology influenced the Indo Aryan Prakrits. I discuss
some of the issues in the paper above,
Best wishes,
Bryan
From: "aavuso@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, March 1, 2017 5:57 AM
Subject: Re: [palistudy] Paali
Dear Pali friends,
---In palistudy@yahoogroups.com, Lance Cousins <selwyn@...> wrote :
At some point the texts were written down, some probably already in the reign of Asoka. But the oral collections as a whole were put into writing somewhat later. At this point we are talking about a written language, which is an entirely different matter. At present we know of only one such language — the 'standard Epigraphic Prakrit' used for almost all inscriptions in the second century B.C. until the first century A.D. and continuing in use in some areas for a number of centuries. Pali is a somewhat developed and slightly Sanskritized form of that.
One specimen of 'standard Epigraphic Prakrit' is the language of Hāthigumphā inscription, transcribed by Benimadhab Barua in the article:
Old Brahmi Inscriptions In The Udayagiri And Khandagiri Caves
http://www.dli.ernet.in/handle/2015/529293?show=fullKenneth Norman wrote:
The language of the Hāthigumphā inscription, although it agrees with Pāli in the retention of most intervocalic consonants and in the nominative singular in -o, nevertheless differs in that the absolutive ending is -(t)tā, and with two doubtful exceptions there are no consonant groups containing -r-.
While it is not impossible that there existed in India in the third century B. C. an unattested dialect of Middle Indo-Aryan which had all the features of Pāli, the fact that some of the consonant clusters found in Pali are unhistoric and must therefore represent incorrect attempts at backformation, e.g. disvā (which cannot be from dṛṣṭvā) and atraja (which cannot be from ātmaja), makes it more likely that by the third century B.C. the dialect of the canonical texts of the Theravādins conformed to the general pattern of Middle Indo-Aryan dialects of that time, and all consonant clusters had either been assimilated or resolved. It is probable that this represented the form of the language of the Theravādin canon at the time of the reign of Asoka, which was perhaps the lingua franca of the Buddhists of Eastern India, and not very different from the language of the Hāthigumpha inscriptions.
What is closer to the "the Earliest Recoverable Language of Buddhism" - 'standard Epigraphic Prakrit' or the language of "Oldest Pāli Manuscript"?
Metta,
Dmytro