Marathi, Bengali among five new ‘classical languages’ approved by Union Cabinet
The decision to grant the status to Marathi came ahead of the Maharashtra Assembly elections.
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The Union Cabinet on Thursday granted the classical language status to Marathi, Bengali, Assamese, Pali and Prakrit.
With this, the number of languages under the classification has risen from six to eleven.
In 2004, the Centre created a new category of “classical languages”. Tamil was the first language to be given the title. Other languages that were subsequently added to the list were Sanskrit in 2005, Telugu and Kannada in 2008, Malayalam in 2013 and Odia in 2014.
For a language to be included in the category, it needs to meet a criteria that includes high antiquity of its early texts or recorded history over 1,500 years to 2,000 years, a body of texts written in it that is considered “valuable heritage” and the originality of its literary tradition.
The decision to grant Marathi the status of a classical language comes ahead of the Assembly elections in Maharashtra. The polls are expected to take place this year, but the dates are yet to be announced.
The proposal to confer the status to Marathi was received from the Maharashtra government in 2013, the Centre said in a statement. The proposal was forwarded to the Linguistic Experts Committee.
The committee, which was formed by the Ministry of Culture in November 2004, examines proposals for languages to be given...
