Old Gujarātī (; also called
Gujarātī bhākhā or
Gurjar apabhraṃśa, 1100–1500 CE), the ancestor of modern Gujarati and Rajasthani, was spoken by the Gurjars, who were residing and ruling in
Gujarat, Punjab, Rajputana and central India. The language was used as literary language as early as the 12th century. Texts of this era display characteristic Gujarati features such as direct/oblique noun forms, postpositions, and auxiliary verbs. It had three
genders as Gujarati does today, and by around the time of 1300 CE a fairly standardized form of this language emerged. While generally known as Old Gujarati, some scholars prefer the name of
Old Western Rajasthani, based on the argument that Gujarati and Rajasthani were not yet distinct. Factoring into this preference was the belief that modern Rajasthani sporadically expressed a neuter gender, based on the incorrect conclusion that the [ũ] that came to be pronounced in some areas for masculine [o] after a
nasal consonant was analogous to Gujarati's neuter [ũ]. A formal grammar of the precursor to this language,
Prakrita Vyakarana, was written by
Jain monk and eminent scholar
Hemachandra Suri in the reign of
Solanki king Siddharaj Jayasinh of
Anhilwara (Patan).