The term apabhramsa was used in medieval Sanskrit texts to denote

1. The term Apabhramsa literally means 'corrupt' or 'deviated'. 2. In the context of linguistics and literature in medieval India, Apabhramsa refers to the dialects that emerged from the Prakrits around the 6th century CE onwards. 3. These Apabhramsa dialects represented a transitional stage between the Middle Indo-Aryan languages (Prakrits) and the modern Indo-Aryan languages (like Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, etc.). 4. Therefore, medieval Sanskrit texts used the term Apabhramsa to denote these early forms of some of the modern Indian languages.