Andrew Ollett received the Infosys Prize 2025 in Humanities and Social Sciences for expertise in which field?
- Islamic maritime trade networks in the Indian Ocean
- Vedic Sanskrit grammar and its evolution into classical Sanskrit
- Colonial legal history of South Asia and British administrative texts
- Prakrit languages — ancient South Asian literary and religious texts
Answer: Prakrit languages — the family of ancient South Asian spoken languages in which significant Buddhist, Jain, and secular Indian literary heritage was composed
Andrew Ollett of the University of Chicago is the world's leading scholar of Prakrit languages — the ancient South Asian spoken languages distinct from Sanskrit, including Pali, Ardhamagadhi, and Maharashtri. His work covers Prakrit grammar, the cultural history of why authors chose Prakrit over Sanskrit, and the circulation of Prakrit texts across the subcontinent. He is the first Prakrit language scholar to win the Infosys Prize Humanities category.