>> Odia on Thursday became the sixth
language of the country to get “classical language’’ status after the Union
Cabinet conceded a long-pending demand for putting it in the same league as
Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.
>> Odia is billed as the first
language from the Indo-Aryan linguistic group and the case for making it a
classical language was also premised on the fact that it has no resemblance to
Hindi, Sanskrit, Bengali and Telugu. The proposal was moved by the Culture
Ministry.
>> Once a language is declared
classical,
1) It gets financial assistance for setting
up a centre of excellence for the study of that language and also opens up an
avenue for two major awards for scholars of eminence.
2) University Grants Commission can be
requested to create – to begin with at least in Central Universities – a
certain number of professional chairs for classical languages for scholars of
eminence in the language.
>> The criteria for declaring a
language as classical mandates high antiquity of its early texts/recorded
history over a period of 1,500-2,000 years, a body of ancient literature/texts
which is considered a valuable heritage by generations of speakers and a
literary tradition that is original and not borrowed from another speech
community.
>> Also since the classical language
and literature is distinct from the modern, there can also be a discontinuity
between the classical language and its later forms or its offshoots.
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