Prime Minister Narendra Modi, chairing the union cabinet, approved conferring “classical language” status to Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese, and Bengali on October 3, 2024, recognising their historical and cultural significance. This decision has brought the total number of classical languages in India to eleven, adding to the existing six languages: Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Odia, and Sanskrit.
The Central Government created a new category of languages known as “classical languages” in 2004. Under this initiative, Tamil was declared the first to be designated as a classical language on October 12, 2004. The Ministry of Culture under Sahitya Akademi constituted a Linguistic Experts Committee (LEC) in November 2004. This committee was responsible for examining the proposals for granting classical language status, adhering strictly to selection criteria that were revised periodically.
Criteria for Selection
The Linguistics Experts Committee revised the criteria for selecting classical language status in a meeting on 25/07/2024. The criteria are as follows:
- High Antiquity of (its) is early texts/recorded history from 1500 through 2000.
- A body of ancient literature/texts considered a heritage by generations of speakers.
- Knowledge texts, especially prose texts, in addition to poetry, epigraphical, and inscriptional evidence.
- Classical languages and literature could be distinct from their current form or discontinuous with later forms of their offshoots.
Proposals by State Governments for their Languages
In 2013, the Maharashtra government sent a proposal to the ministry requesting the status of the classical language for the Marathi language. The ministry then forwarded this proposal to LEC, who recommended Marathi as a classical language. During the inter-ministerial consultations, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) issued an advisory to revise the selection criteria and implement stricter guidelines. The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) also agreed with these directions and stated that the ministry may exercise to determine if any languages qualify for the eligibility criteria.
During this time, the state governments of Bihar, Assam, and West Bengal also proposed recognising Pali, Prakrit, and Bengali as classical languages. After deliberate discussion, the committee concluded that Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese, and Bengali fulfilled the criteria and could be called classical languages.
New Classical Languages
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Assamese
Assamese is an eastern Indo-Aryan language, the official language of the state of Assam. Assamese has been influenced in vocabulary, phonetics, and structure due to its close association with Tibeto-Burman dialects in the region. The Assamese literature dates back to the 13th century. Notably, in the late 20th century, the number of Assamese speakers stood at more than 15 million. Assamese communication forms the backbone of the culture of Assam. The evolution of this language from its ancient dialects to the present-day literature depicts the endurance of the language in the region and its importance.
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Bengali
The Bengali language belongs to the Indo-Aryan group of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. Countries like Bangladesh, West Bengal, Assam, and Tripura in India have approximately 85 million speakers of this language. Bangladesh has notably recognised Bengali as its state language, with over 100 million speakers. With many speakers and rich literature, Bengali greatly influences linguistically and culturally within the South Asian peripheries, highlighting communication as the key form of literature meaningful to millions of individuals.
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Marathi
The Marathi language, an Indo-Aryan language, is spoken in western and central India. Maharashtra made it its official language in 1966. Speakers stretch from North of Mumbai down the western coast past Goa and eastward across the Deccan.
In Maharashtra and the adjoining areas, Marathi is a language that facilitates communication and anchors cultural identity. The history of the Marathi language and literature, its rich body of works, and even its peculiarities indicate how important this language is for the landscape of languages in India.
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Pali
Buddha used the Pali language as a vehicle for his teachings and encouraged his followers to use vernacular dialects. Although the Pali dialect seems closely related to Sanskrit and the old Indo-Aryan Vedic dialects, it has not descended from either. Pali is a middle Indo-Aryan language of North Indian origin. The Buddhist doctrine could not express itself without the medium of the Pali. Its expansion from regional speech varieties to a unified version holds significance in understanding the regions in which the teachings of Buddha were propagated.
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Prakrit
The Prakrit language has inscriptions, literary works, and descriptions by grammarians. It is related to Sanskrit but differs from it in several ways. ‘Prakrit’ originates from ‘Prakriti,’ meaning ‘source’ or ‘origin.’ Prakrit is a group of closely related Indo-Aryan languages known for their simplicity and accessibility to the masses, as opposed to Sanskrit, the language of the elites. Grammarians hold the inscriptions, the works of the Prakrit, and accounts of the language.
Impact of this decision
The classical languages of India demonstrate India’s deep-rooted and prominent ancient cultural heritage. These languages will create job opportunities in academics and research. Furthermore, these languages will generate employment in the preservation, documentation, and digitisation of ancient texts of these languages.
The Ministry of Education established three central universities for Sanskrit in 2020 and the central institute of Classical Tamil in 2008 to translate ancient texts and offer courses. Additionally, the ministry created centres of excellence for Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, and Odia in Mysuru. Several national and international awards recognise the efforts of people who work exceptionally in classical languages. Organisations will also extend these benefits to the newly included languages, leading to more people promoting this language using different methods.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Union Cabinet has acknowledged the prominent languages of Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese, and Bengali as classical languages, significantly impacting the development of these languages nationally and internationally. This decision represents a major achievement in appreciating our country’s linguistic diversity. The granting of the ‘classical language’ status shows respect for these languages and encourages their learning and preservation for future generations.
The government intends to promote the service of these languages that have added to the literary and cultural wealth of the country. In this way, every individual in the country will be able to appreciate the linguistic plurality of the country better. Additionally, it may push for other policy measures to promote and protect regional languages that still await recognition. As a nation that seeks to embrace modernity while remaining rooted in traditions, considering classical language status as a partial justification reminds individuals of factors like linguistic grandeur that bind a country. Overall, this resolution narrows the gap in fostering the appreciation and acceptance of the various languages in Indian society.
