Classical Language status to Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese, & Bengali

The government of India has accepted the recommendation of the Linguistic Expert Committee and conferred the status of classical language to Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese, and Bengali languages. With the inclusion of these languages, the total number of classical languages in India is now 11.

The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, gave its approval to accord classical status to these languages on 3 October 2024.

Tamil was the first language to be accorded classical language status in India in 2004.

Criteria for being Classical Language 

The Union Ministry of Culture set up a Linguistic Expert Committee under Sahitya Akademi in 2004 to set the criteria for recognising an Indian language as a classical language. The criteria have been revised from time to time, and the present set of criteria are as follows: 

• Antiquity: Language’s early texts/recorded history must be 1500- 2000 years old.
• Language shall have ancient literature/texts considered a heritage by generations of speakers.
• Language must include knowledge texts, especially prose texts, poetry, and epigraphical and inscriptional evidence.
• Classical Languages and literature could be distinct from their current form or discontinuous with later forms of their offshoots.

Classical Languages in India 

Since 2004, the central government has declared eleven languages as classical languages.

Impact of being made a classical language

The likely impact after a language is declared as a classical language is as follows:

• The Union Ministry of Education institutes National Awards for the classical languages.
•  A University or Center is set up for classical languages, or the ministry sets up a dedicated chair for the language in Universities to promote classical languages.
• It also creates significant employment opportunities, especially in academics and research.
• The need for preservation, documentation, and digitisation of ancient texts in these languages will generate jobs in archiving, translation, publishing, and digital media.