What is the oldest form of Bengali language?
What is the oldest language in Bengal?
Although Sanskrit has been spoken by Hindu Brahmins in Bengal since the 3rd century BC, the local Buddhist population spoke varieties of the Prakrit. These varieties are generally referred to as "eastern Magadhi Prakrit", as coined by linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterji, as the Middle Indo-Aryan dialects were influential in the first millennium when Bengal was a part of the Greater Magadhan realm.