- Alternate meanings: see Gandhari
Gāndhārī was a north-western prakrit spoken in Gāndhāra. Like all prakrits, it is thus descended from either Vedic Sanskrit or a closely related prior language. Gāndhārī has been found written in the Kharoṣṭhī script. Scholars believe that the language featured elements from the languages native to the area (pre-Indo-European population), as well as Dardic and East-Iranian ethnic languages, which are related to the Indo-Aryan family to which all prakrits belong.
Further Reading
Yu. V. Gankovsky, The Peoples of Pakistan: An Ethnic History. Translated from the Russian by Igor Gavrilov (Lahore: Peoples' Publishing House, 1964)
Reference
Rahman, Dr. Tariq, Peoples and Languages in Pre-Islamic Indus Valley. Available online (http://asnic.utexas.edu/asnic/subject/peoplesandlanguages.html) via The University of Texas.
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