Editing Pali (section)

==Relationship to other languages==
===Paiśācī===
{{main|Paishachi}}
{{IAST|[[Paisaci|Paiśācī]]}} is a largely [[unattested]] literary language of classical India that is mentioned in [[Prakrit]] and Sanskrit grammars of antiquity. It is found grouped with the Prakrit languages, with which it shares some linguistic similarities, but was not considered a spoken language by the early grammarians because it was understood to have been purely a literary language.<ref name="Konow">{{cite web |url=http://menadoc.bibliothek.uni-halle.de/dmg/periodical/pageview/56372 |title=181 [95] – The home of the Paisaci – The home of the Paisaci – Page – Zeitschriften der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft – MENAdoc – Digital Collections |website=menadoc.bibliothek.Uni-Halle.de |access-date=14 April 2019}}</ref>

In works of Sanskrit poetics such as [[Daṇḍin]]'s ''[[Kavyadarsha]]'', it is also known by the name of {{IAST|Bhūtabhāṣā}}, an epithet which can be interpreted as 'dead language' (i.e., with no surviving speakers), or {{IAST|bhūta}} means past and {{IAST|bhāṣā}} means language i.e. 'a language spoken in the past'. Evidence which lends support to this interpretation is that literature in Paiśācī is fragmentary and extremely rare but may once have been common.

The 13th-century Tibetan historian [[Buton Rinchen Drub]] wrote that the [[early Buddhist schools]] were separated by choice of [[sacred language]]: the [[Mahāsāṃghika]]s used Prakrit, the [[Sarvastivada|Sarvāstivādins]] used Sanskrit, the [[Sthavira nikāya|Sthaviravādins]] used Paiśācī, and the Saṃmitīya used [[Apabhraṃśa]].<ref>Yao, Zhihua. ''The Buddhist Theory of Self-Cognition.'' 2012. p. 9</ref> This observation has led some scholars to theorize connections between Pali and Paiśācī; [[Sten Konow]] concluded that it may have been an Indo-Aryan language spoken by [[Dravidian people]] in South India, and Alfred Master noted a number of similarities between surviving fragments and Pali morphology.<ref name=Konow/><ref name=Master>{{cite web |url=https://www.scribd.com/document/186271058/An-Unpublished-Fragment-of-Paisachi |title=An Unpublished Fragment of Paisachi – Sanskrit – Pali |via=Scribd |access-date=14 April 2019}}</ref>

===Ardha-Magadhi Prakrit===
{{main|Ardhamagadhi Prakrit}}
Ardhamagadhi Prakrit was a Middle Indo-Aryan language and a Dramatic Prakrit thought to have been spoken in modern-day Bihar & Eastern Uttar Pradesh and used in some early Buddhist and Jain drama. It was originally thought to be a predecessor of the vernacular Magadhi Prakrit, hence the name (literally "half-Magadhi"). Ardhamāgadhī was prominently used by Jain scholars and is preserved in the Jain Agamas.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Constance Jones |author2=James D. Ryan |title=Encyclopedia of Hinduism |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OgMmceadQ3gC&pg=PA42 |year=2006 |publisher=Infobase Publishing |isbn=978-0-8160-7564-5 |pages=42}}</ref>

Ardhamagadhi Prakrit differs from later Magadhi Prakrit in similar ways to Pali, and was often believed to be connected with Pali on the basis of the belief that Pali recorded the speech of the Buddha in an early Magadhi dialect.

===Magadhi Prakrit===
{{main|Magadhi Prakrit}}
Magadhi Prakrit was a [[Middle Indo-Aryan languages|Middle Indic language]] spoken in present-day Bihar, and eastern Uttar Pradesh. Its use later expanded southeast to include some regions of modern-day Bengal, Odisha, and Assam, and it was used in some Prakrit dramas to represent vernacular dialogue. Preserved examples of Magadhi Prakrit are from several centuries after the theorized lifetime of the Buddha, and include inscriptions attributed to [[Asoka Maurya]].<ref>Bashan A.L., ''The Wonder that was India'', Picador, 2004, pp.394</ref>

Differences observed between preserved examples of Magadhi Prakrit and Pali lead scholars to conclude that Pali represented a development of a northwestern dialect of Middle Indic, rather than being a continuation of a language spoken in the area of [[Magadha (Mahajanapada)|Magadha]] in the time of the Buddha.