Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c8.s2.t2.5

c8.s2.t2.5

This still leaves unanswered the question of the historical origins of the epigraphic (and Buddhist) hybrid dialect. In general, opinions on the controversial question of the motivations and mechanics of the semi-Sanskritization of MIA fall into two camps. The first is the school which holds that the hybrid is little more than a bad imitation of Sanskrit, that is, that its incomplete and imperfect Sanskritization reflects incompetence and ignorance on the part of the composers of the documents. Thus T. Burrow says that "such a mongrel language was actually employed by those who wished to employ the superior Sanskrit language but were not able to master its grammar." K. R. Norman elaborates this view: "They [the donors] would presumably dictate in Pkt, and once it had become fashionable to write inscriptions in Skt, the scribes would 'translate', to the best of their ability, into that language. The correctness of the Skt depended, therefore, on the scribes' competence."