Indian Linguistics -a Quarterly Bulletin of the Linguistic Society of India

The higher the level of thinking the lesser will be the number of words used. [...] The voicing of intervocalic -which was sporadic in Asokan was quite established in the first century A. D. The loss of intervocalic -and the reduction of intervocalic -kto `-h-' was practically complete except in some dialects (as in the case of intervocalic --dh-) by the end of the fourth century A. D. Between the voicing (if unvoiced) and the loss or the reduction to '-h-' of an int [...] the Dhauli and Jaugada Rock Edicts all the Minor Rock Edicts and Pillar Edicts the Cave inscriptions of the Mauryas the Mahasthän Stone Plaque Inscription the Sohgaurd Copper-plate Inscrition and the Hathigumphd inscriptions of Khdravela and his queens.) The main peculiarities that distinguish the Eastern dialect-group from the Middle Eastern are as follows. [...] These are (i) the dialect of the Rogue (dusta) (ii) the dialect of the Courtesan (ganika) and the Jester (vidfisaka) and (iii) the dialect of Gobham-. [...] The following are the characteristics of the dialect-group of the Kharosthi documents.