Maharastri or Maharastri Prakrit, SIL

Ethnologue

Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International , a Christian linguistic service organization, which studies lesser-known languages, to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language and support their efforts in language development.The Ethnologue...

: Mahārāṣṭri Prākrit (Devanagari

Devanagari

Devanagari |deva]]" and "nāgarī" ), also called Nagari , is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal...

:महाराष्ट्री प्राकृत), is a language of ancient and medieval India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 which is the ancestor of Marathi

Marathi language

Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are over 68 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India and is the fifteenth most...

, Konkani

Konkani language

KonkaniKonkani is a name given to a group of several cognate dialects spoken along the narrow strip of land called Konkan, on the west coast of India. This is, however, somewhat an over-generalisation. Geographically, Konkan is defined roughly as the area between the river Damanganga to the north...

, Sinhala and the Maldivian language as well. It is one of the many languages (often called dialects) of a complex called Prakrit

Prakrit

Prakrit is the name for a group of Middle Indic, Indo-Aryan languages, derived from Old Indic dialects. The word itself has a flexible definition, being defined sometimes as, "original, natural, artless, normal, ordinary, usual", or "vernacular", in contrast to the literary and religious...

, and the chief Dramatic Prakrit

Dramatic Prakrit

Dramatic Prakrits were those standard forms of Prakrit dialects that were used in dramas and other literature in medieval India. They may have once been spoken languages or were based on spoken languages, but continued to be used as literary languages long after they ceased to be spoken...

. Maharashtri was spoken for 1000 years (500 BC to 500 AD). It was used in numerous works of literature, and its literary use was made famous by the Sanskrit playwright Kālidāsa

Kalidasa

Kālidāsa was a renowned Classical Sanskrit writer, widely regarded as the greatest poet and dramatist in the Sanskrit language...

.

Demographics

Maharashtri was the most popular amongst all Prakrit

Prakrit

Prakrit is the name for a group of Middle Indic, Indo-Aryan languages, derived from Old Indic dialects. The word itself has a flexible definition, being defined sometimes as, "original, natural, artless, normal, ordinary, usual", or "vernacular", in contrast to the literary and religious...

 languages. It was spoken from Malwa and Rajputana

Rajputana

Rājputāna was the pre-1949 name of the present-day Indian state of Rājasthān, the largest state of the Republic of India in terms of area. George Thomas was the first in 1800 A.D., to term this region as Rajputana...

 (north) to the Krishna

Krishna River

The Krishna River , is one of the longest rivers in central-southern India, about . It is also referred to as Krishnaveni in its original nomenclature...

 and Tungabhadra River

Tungabhadra River

The Tungabhadra River is a sacred river in southern India that flows through the state of Karnataka to Andhra Pradesh, where it serves as the chief tributary of the Krishna River...

 region (south). Sanskrit lost its status as a "communication language" somewhere around 500 B.C., when Prakrit came into use. Historians agree that Maharashtri and other Prakrit languages prevailed in what is now modern Maharashtra

Maharashtra

Maharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...

.
Maharashtri was widely spoken in western India and even down south in the parts which speak Kannada.

Early literature

The ruler Hāla

Hala

Hala can refer to:* Hala , an Arabic given name meaning "sweetness"* An informal salutation or greeting in the Arabic language* Hāla, an Indian king of the Satavahana dynasty* Hala , a clan of India and Pakistan...

 (r. 20-24 CE) mentioned in the Puranas as a member of the Satavahana dynasty, used Maharashtri, then popular, to write the Gāhā Sattasaī, Setubandh and Karpurmanjari (कर्पुरमंजरी). It was used by Vakpati or Vakpatiraj to write the peom Gaudavaho. It is also used in the dialogue and songs of low-class characters in Sanskrit plays, especially the famous dramatist Kālidāsa.

Royal patronage

Maharashtri was(literally, the "Language of the Empire"), which was the official language of the Satavahana Empire in the early centuries of the Common Era. Under the patronage of the Satavahana Empire, Maharashtri became the most widespread Prakrit of its time, and also dominated the literary culture amongst the three "Dramatic" Prakrits of the time, Maharashtri, Sauraseni and Magadhi. A version of Maharashtri, called the Jaina Maharashtri, also was employed to write sections of Jain scripture. The Satavahana Emperor Hala's

Hala

Hala can refer to:* Hala , an Arabic given name meaning "sweetness"* An informal salutation or greeting in the Arabic language* Hāla, an Indian king of the Satavahana dynasty* Hala , a clan of India and Pakistan...

Sattasai, an anthology of over 700 love poems, has been established as the most famous work of literature in Maharashtri.