The Middle Indo-Aryan languages (or Middle Indic languages, sometimes conflated with the Prakrits, which are a stage of Middle Indic) are a historical group of languages of the Indo-Aryan family. They are the descendants of Old Indo-Aryan (OIA; attested through Vedic Sanskrit) and the predecessors of the modern Indo-Aryan languages, such as Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu), Bengali and Punjabi. The Middle Indo-Aryan (MIA) stage is thought to have spanned more than a millennium between 600 BC and 1000 AD, and is often divided into three major subdivisions. The early stage is represented by the Ardhamagadhi of the Edicts of Ashoka (c. 250 BC) and Jain Agamas, and by the Pali of the Tripitakas. The middle stage is represented by the various literary Prakrits, especially the Shauraseni language and the Maharashtri and Magadhi Prakrits. The term Prakrit is also often applied to Middle Indo-Aryan languages (prākṛta literally means 'natural' as opposed to saṃskṛta, which literally means 'constructed' or 'refined'). Modern scholars such as Michael C. Shapiro follow this classification by including all Middle Indo-Aryan languages under the rubric of "Prakrits", while others emphasise the independent development of these languages, often separated from Sanskrit by social and geographic differences. The late stage is represented by the Apabhraṃśas of the 6th century AD and later that preceded early Modern Indo-Aryan languages (such as Braj Bhasha). History The Indo-Aryan languages are commonly assigned to three major groups: Old Indo-Aryan languages, Middle Indo-Aryan languages and Early Modern and Modern Indo-Aryan languages. The classification reflects stages in linguistic development, rather than being strictly chronological. The Middle Indo-Aryan languages are younger than the Old Indo-Aryan languages but were contemporaneous with the use of Classical Sanskrit, an Old Indo-Aryan language used for literary purposes. According to Thomas Oberlies, a number of morphophonological and lexical features of Middle Indo-Aryan languages show that they are not direct continuations of Vedic Sanskrit. Instead they descend from other dialects similar to, but in some ways more archaic than Vedic Sanskrit. Early phase (3rd century BC) Ashokan Prakrits (regional dialects of the 3rd century BC) Gandhari (a Buddhist canonical language) Pali (a Buddhist canonical language) early Ardhamagadhi (language of the oldest Jain sutras) Middle phase (200 BC to 700 AD) Niya Prakrit Ardhamagadhi (later Jain canon) Dramatic Prakrits (Maurya period) Magadhi Maharashtri Shauraseni Sinhalese Prakrit Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit (later texts) Late phase: Apabhraṃśa (700–1500) Abahatta (Magadhi Apabhraṃśa) General characteristics The following phonological changes distinguish typical