Middle Indo-Aryan languages

The Middle Indo-Aryan languages (or Middle Indic languages, sometimes conflated with the Prakrits, which are a stage of Middle Indic) are a historical group of languages of the Indo-Aryan family. They are the descendants of Old Indo-Aryan (OIA; attested through Vedic Sanskrit) and the predecessors of the modern Indo-Aryan languages, such as Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu), Bengali and Punjabi.

The Middle Indo-Aryan (MIA) stage is thought to have spanned more than a millennium between 600 BCE and 1000 CE, and is often divided into three major subdivisions.

• The early stage is represented by the Ardhamagadhi of the Edicts of Ashoka (c. 250 BCE) and Jain Agamas, and by the Pali of the Tripitakas.
• The middle stage is represented by the various literary Prakrits, especially the Shauraseni language and the Maharashtri and Magadhi Prakrits. The term Prakrit is also often applied to Middle Indo-Aryan languages (prākṛta literally means 'natural' as opposed to saṃskṛta, which literally means 'constructed' or 'refined'). Modern scholars such as Michael C. Shapiro follow this classification by including all Middle Indo-Aryan languages under the rubric of "Prakrits", while others emphasise the independent development of these languages, often separated from Sanskrit by social and geographic differences.
• The late stage is represented by the Apabhraṃśas of the 6th century CE and later that preceded early Modern Indo-Aryan languages (such as Braj Bhasha).