THE DRAVIDIAN LANGUAGES.
Their Prakritic Character
THE term Prakrit is generally used as opposed to Sanskrit, and Prakrit words and forms are attempted to be traced to Sanskrit originals. But this does not seem to be the procedure to be adopted considering the history of the Indo-Iranian dialects, although in most cases parallelforms for Prakrit ones may be found in Sanskrit. Sanskrit, however, seems to be only one of the many Indo-Aryan dialects, the dialect of the Midland of Aryavarta, raised to the position of a standard literary language and maintaining its position as such in a crystalized form, although even in it there is to be found a change, however imperceptible it may be. But the history of the Prakrits takes us back into Indo-Iranian times. As pointed out in the pre-
