artless", states Franklin Southworth. The relationship between Prakrit and Sanskrit is found in Indian texts dated to the 1st millennium CE. Patañjali acknowledged that Prakrit is the first language, one instinctively adopted by every child with all its imperfections and later leads to the problems of interpretation and misunderstanding. The purifying structure of the Sanskrit language removes these imperfections. The early Sanskrit grammarian Daṇḍin states, for example, that much in the Prakrit languages is etymologically rooted in Sanskrit, but involves "loss of sounds" and corruptions that result from a "disregard of the grammar". Daṇḍin acknowledged that there are words and confusing structures in Prakrit that thrive independent of Sanskrit. This view is found in the writing of Bharata Muni, the author of the ancient Natya Shastra text. The early Jain scholar Namisādhu acknowledged the difference, but disagreed that the Prakrit language was a corruption of Sanskrit. Namisādhu stated that the Prakrit language was the ('came before, origin') and that it came naturally to children, while Sanskrit was a refinement of Prakrit through "purification by grammar". History Origin and development Sanskrit belongs to the Indo-European family of languages. It is one of the three earliest ancient documented languages that arose from a common root language now referred to as Proto-Indo-European language: Vedic Sanskrit ( 1500–500 BCE). Mycenaean Greek ( 1450 BCE) and Ancient Greek ( 750–400 BCE). Hittite ( 1750–1200 BCE). Other Indo-European languages distantly related to Sanskrit include archaic and Classical Latin ( 600 BCE–100 CE, Italic languages), Gothic (archaic Germanic language, c. 350 CE), Old Norse ( 200 CE and after), Old Avestan (c. late 2nd millennium BCE) and Younger Avestan ( 900 BCE). The closest ancient relatives of Vedic Sanskrit in the Indo-European languages are the Nuristani languages found in the remote Hindu Kush region of northeastern Afghanistan and northwestern Himalayas, as well as the extinct Avestan and Old Persian – both are Iranian languages. Sanskrit belongs to the satem group of the Indo-European languages. Colonial era scholars familiar with Latin and Greek were struck by the resemblance of the Sanskrit language, both in its vocabulary and grammar, to the classical languages of Europe. In The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World, Mallory and Adams illustrate the resemblance with the following examples of cognate forms (with the addition of Old English for further comparison): The correspondences suggest some common root, and historical links between some of