Old Kamrupi
| Kamarupi Prakrit | |
|---|---|
| Kamrupi Apabhramsa | |
| Old Kamrupi dialect | |
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| Pronunciation | Kāmrūpī |
| Region | Kamarupa (North Bengal and Assam) |
| Coordinates | 26°09′N 90°49′E / 26.15°N 90.81°E |
| Ethnicity | Kamrupi people |
| Era | First millennium |
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Indo-European
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Early form
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| Kamrupi script | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | None |
Kamarupi Prakrit is the unattested Middle Indo-Aryan (MIA) language used in ancient Kamarupa (5th–13th century). This language is the historical ancestor of the Kamatapuri lects and the Assamese language; and can be dated prior to 1250 CE, when the proto-Kamta language, the parent of the Kamatapuri lects, began to develop. This sort of Sporadic Apabhramsa is a mixture of Sanskrit, Prakrit and colloquial dialects of Assam.
The evidence of this MIA exist in systematic errors in the Sankrit language used in the Kamarupa inscriptions. A distinguishing characteristic of Kamarupa inscriptions is the replacement of ś and ṣ by s, which is contrary to Vararuci's rule, the main characteristic of Magadhi Prakrit, which warrants that ṣ and s are replaced by ś. Linguists claim this apabhramsa gave rise to various eastern Indo-European languages like modern Assamese and felt its presence in the form of Kamrupi and North Bengali.
The speech is known by different names, which generally consists of two words, prefix such as 'Kamrupi', 'Kamarupi', 'Kamarupa' referring to Kamarupa region and suffixes 'dialect', 'Apabhramsa', sometimes 'Prakrit'. Suniti Kumar Chatterji named it as Kamarupa dialect, as spoken in 'North Bengal and Western Assam' (Kamarupa).Sukumar Sen and others calls it as old Kamrupi dialect; the speech used in old Kamrup Some scholars termed it as Kamrupi Apabhramsa, Kamarupi language and proto-Kamrupa.
Though the epigraphs were written in classical Sanskrit in kavya style of a high degree, they abound in corrupt and unchaste forms.
Some linguists claim that there existed a Kamrupi apabhramsa as opposed to the Magadhi apabhramsa from which the three cognate languages---Assamese, Bengali and Odia and Maithili---sprouted. The initial motive comes from extra-linguistic considerations. Kamarupa was the most powerful and formidable kingdom in the region which provided the political and cultural influence for the development of the Kamrupi apabhramsa.
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