New Delhi, Oct 3: Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese, and Bengali languages are now classical.
The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved to conferring the status of Classical Language to Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese, and Bengali.
The state-specific languages were enlisted as classical after the Linguistic Experts Committee (LEC), examined regarding its antiquity, texts, literary repositories and rich cultural inheritance.
While acrediting the languages of the states as Classical Modis said that, classical languages serve as custodian of Bharat’s profound and ancient cultural heritage, embodying the essence of each community’s historical and cultural milestone.
The languages approved recently join six others that have already been recognised as classical that include Tamil, Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, and Odia.
The Indian government decided to create a new category of languages as “Classical Languages” on October 12, 2004, declaring Tamil as a Classical Language and setting the following as criteria for the status of Classical Language: High Antiquity of its early texts/recorded history over a thousand years. Secondly, a body of ancient literature/ texts, which is considered a valuable heritage by generations of speakers. Third, the literary tradition must be original and not borrowed from another speech community.
A Linguistic Experts Committee (LEC) was constituted by the Ministry of Culture under the Sahitya Akademi in November 2004 to examine the proposed languages for the status of Classical Language. The criteria were revised in November 2005.
