It was definitely some kind of Prakrit though , with many languages having the same terms and similar pronunciations . It was probably not Pali Prakrit , but we know he could speak Magadhi Prakrit despite it not being his native tongue . So I think knowing any Prakrit language , or Sanskrit , is close enough to knowing the Buddha ' s native language . I reckon any differences from Pali or Gandhari Prakrit would be more cosmetic slightly different suffixes , or conjugations , or pronunciations for specific characters and they were all mutually intelligible , like dialects in Vietnamese , or like SpanishPortugueseCatalan . Knowing the specific language would clear up some ambiguities , but I ' m not sure how much new material or understanding we might actually get from it .