Territory made Prairie du Chien his temporary headquarters. During the Black Hawk War (1832) Zachary Taylor, then a lieutenant-colonel, was in command of Fort Crawford, and to him Black Hawk was entrusted after his capture. The Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul railroad was completed to Prairie du Chien in 1857. The city was chartered in 1872.
PRAIRIE-MARMOT, a zoological emendation for the American name “prairie-dog,” applied to a small North American rodent allied to the squirrels and marmots, and technically known as Cynomys ludovicianus (see Marmot). In a great degree prairie-marmots, of which there are several species in North America, ranging as far south as Mexico, are intermediate between marmots and sousliks (see Souslik), having the cheek-pouches much smaller than in the latter, and the first front-toe, which is rudimentary in marmots and sousliks, well developed. The cheek-teeth are more complex than those of marmots, and the two series converge behind. In their slender build and small size, prairie-marmots are much more like sousliks than marmots. In habits these rodents are very like marmots, the typical species inhabiting the open prairies, while the others are found in mountains. The prairie species (C. ludovicianus) makes a raised, funnel-shaped entrance to its burrow. All feed on the roots of grass; and when disturbed, like marmots, utter a whistling cry. Rattlesnakes, owls and weasels are commonly found in the burrows; but their presence is no indication of the existence of a kind of “happy family” arrangement, the snakes, at any rate, preying on the young marmots. The hibernation of these rodents is only partial, and confined to seasons of intense cold. (See Rodentia.)
PRAKRIT (pr̥ākrta, natural), a term applied to the vernacular languages of India as opposed to the literary Sanskrit (saṁskr̥ta, purified). The place which the Prakrits occupy in regard to the Indo-European languages (q.v.), ancient and modern, is treated under that head. There were two main groups of ancient Indo-Aryan dialects, or Primary Prakrits, viz. the language of the Midland or Ārydvārta, and that of what is called the Outer Band. The language of the Midland became the language of literature, and was crystallized in the shape of literary Sanskrit about 300 B.C. Beside it all the Primary Prakrits continued to develop under the usual laws of phonetics, and, as vernaculars, reached a secondary stage marked by a tendency to simplify harsh combinations of consonants and the broader diphthongs, the synthetic processes of declension and conjugation remaining as a whole unaltered. The process of development closely resembles that of old Italian from the Italic dialects of Latin times. It should be noted that although the literary dialect of the Midland became fixed, the vernacular of the same tract continued to develop along with the other Primary Prakrits, but owing to the existence of a literary standard by its side its development was to a certain extent retarded, so that it was left somewhat behind by its fellows in the race.
The Secondary Prakrits, in their turn, received literary culture. In their earliest stage one of them became the sacred language of Buddhism, and under the name of Pali (q.v.) has been widely studied. In a still later stage several Secondary Prakrits became generally employed for a new literature, both sacred and profane. Not only were three of them used for the propagation of the Jaina religion (see Jains), but they were also dealt with as vehicles for independent secular works, besides being largely employed in the Indian drama. In the last-named Brahmans, heroes and people of high rank spoke in Sanskrit, while the other characters expressed themselves in some Secondary Prakrit according to nationality or profession. This later stage of the Secondary Prakrits is known as the Prakrit par excellence, and forms the main subject of the present article. A still further stage of development will also be discussed, that of the Apabhraṁśa, or “corrupt language.” The Prakrit par excellence, which will throughout the rest of this article be called simply “Prakrit,” underwent the common fate of all Indian literary languages. In its turn it was fixed by grammarians, and as a literary language ceased to grow, while as a vernacular it went on in its own course. From the point of view of grammarians this further development was looked upon as corruption, and its result hence received the name of Apabhraṁśa. Again in their turn the Apabhraṁśas received literary cultivation and a stereotyped form, while as vernaculars they went on into the stage of the Tertiary Prakrits and become the modern Indo-Aryan languages.
In the Prakrit stage of the Secondary Prakrits we see the same grouping as before—a Midland language, and the dialects of the Outer Band. The Prakrit of the Midland was known as Śaurasēnī, from Śūrasēna, the name of the country round Mathurā (Muttra). It was the language of the territories having the Gangetic Doab for their centre. To the west it probably extended as far as the modern Lahore and to the east as far as the confluence of the Jumna and the Ganges. Conquests carried the language much further afield, so that it occupied not only Rajputana, but also Gujarat. As stated above, the development of Śaurasēnī was retarded by the influence of its great neighbour Sanskrit. Moreover, both being sprung from the same original—the Primary Prakrit of the Midland—its vocabulary, making allowances for phonetic changes, is the same as in that language.
The Prakrits of the Outer Band, all more closely connected with each other than any one of them was to Śaurasēnī, were Māgadhī, Ardhamāgadhī, Māhārāṣṭrī, and an unknown Prakrit of the North-west. Māgadhī was spoken in the eastern half of the Gangetic plain. Its proper home was Māgadha, the modern South Bihar, but it extended far beyond these limits at very early times. Judging from the modern vernaculars, its western limit must have been about the longitude of the city of Benares. Between it and Śaurasēnī (i.e. in the modern Oudh and the country to its south) lay Ardhamāgadhī or “half-Māgadhī.” Māhārāṣṭrī was the language of Māhārāṣṭra, the great kingdom extending southwards from the river Nerbudda to the Kistna and sometimes including the southern part of the modern Bombay Presidency and Hyderabad. Its language therefore lay south of Śaurasēnī. West of Śaurasēnī, in the Western Punjab, there must have been another Prakrit of which we have no record, although we know a little about its later Apabhraṁśa form. Here there were also speakers of Paiśācī (see Indo-Aryan Languages), and the local Prakrit, if we are to judge from the modern Tertiary vernacular, was a mixed form of speech. We have a detailed description of only one Apabhraṁśa—the Nāgara—the Apabhraṁśa of the Śaurasēnī spoken in the neighbourhood of Gujarat, and therefore somewhat mixed with Māhārāṣṭrī. We may, however, conclude that there was an Apabhraṁśa corresponding to each Prakrit, so that we have, in addition to Śaurasēna, a Māgadha, an Ardhamāgadha and a Māhārāṣṭra Apabhraṁśa. Native writers describe more than one local Apabhraṁśa, of which we may mention Vrācaḍa, the ancient dialect of Sind. There were numerous Prakrit subdialects to which it is not necessary to refer.
Of all these Prakrits, Māhārāṣṭrī is that which is best known to us. It early obtained literary pre-eminence, and not only was the subject of long treatises by native grammarians, but became the language of lyric poetry and of the formal epic (kāvya). Dramatic works have been written in it, and it was also the vehicle of many later scriptures of the Jaina religion. We also know a good deal about Ardhamāgadhī, in which the older Jaina writings were composed. With Māgadhī we have, unfortunately, only a partial acquaintance, derived from brief accounts by native grammarians and from short sentences scattered through the plays. We know something more about Śaurasēnī, for it is the usual prose dialect of the plays, and is also employed for the sacred writings of one of the Jaina sects.
The materials extant for the study of the Prakrit are either native grammars or else literary works written in accord with Language. the rules laid down therein. Originally real vernaculars with tendencies towards certain phonetic changes, the dialects were taken in hand by grammatical systematizers, who pruned down what they thought was overluxuriant growth, trained errant shoots in the way they thought
