What does the term "classical languages" signify, and which are India's five new ones?

Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese, and Bengali were added to the list of languages considered "classical" by the Union Cabinet on Thursday. This position is already held by Tamil, Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, and Odia.

How and when did the idea of "classical language" come about?

The UPA-1 government decided to establish a classification of Indian languages known as "classical languages" and set forth a number of requirements for this status in response to demands from different states.

Tamil was the first Indian language to be designated as "classical" on October 12, 2004, because of its great antiquity and extensive literary heritage.

The next month, the Ministry of Culture established the Linguistic Experts Committee (LEC) within the Sahitya Akademi to review state and organization submissions for the designation of language as a "classical language."

Sanskrit was designated as a classical language on November 25. Later on, Telugu (2008), Kannada (2008), Malayalam (2013), and Odia (2014) were granted this status.

Which standards for "classical languages" are the most recent?

The LEC unanimously updated the requirements for classical status on July 25 of this year. The current set of requirements comprises:

• high antiquity of early manuscripts and a 1500–2000 year history span covered by recorded history;
• a corpus of antiquated writings or texts that successive generations of speakers see as their legacy;
• evidence from inscriptions and epigraphy;
• texts of knowledge, particularly those written in prose in addition to poetry; and
• The literature and languages of the classical era may differ from what it is today or cease to exist in later iterations.
• After that, the group suggested adding the five new classical languages, whose ideas the Center had been considering for a while. The Union Cabinet gave its approval to this on Thursday.

Why have there been additions recently?

Marathi: The addition of Marathi comes more than ten years after the state administration initially submitted the petition to the Center in 2013, and the state Assembly elections are scheduled just a few weeks from now.

Maharashtri Prakrit, a Prakrit dialect spoken in western India and the official language of the Satvahanas, is the ancestor of modern Marathi. Although this is disputed, some Marathi academics have asserted that this was the first of the Prakrit languages. The earliest known use of Maharashtri Prakrit is recorded in a first-century BCE stone inscription in the Pune area. An inscription discovered at Satara on a copper plate, dated to 739 CE, is the first indication of the more contemporary Marathi language.

Bengali and Assamese: The state governments of West Bengal and Assam had also pushed for the designation of their respective languages as "classical."

The roots of both of these languages can be found in Magadhi Prakrit, which is the official language of the Magadha court and a variant of Prakrit that is prevalent in East India. There is disagreement over the precise time of their emergence, with some researchers dating their emergence from the sixth to the twelfth century. They evolved well into the second millennium CE into a form that would yet be recognizable today. The renowned linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterji proposed that Assam was probably where the Indo-Aryan dialect first distinguished itself before Bengal.

Pali and Prakrit: There isn't just one Prakrit language. As opposed to Sanskrit, which was reserved for the aristocracy and great literature, the phrase really refers to a group of closely related Indo-Aryan languages, whose defining characteristic was that they were the language of the masses. In The Wonder that was India (1954), historian A. L. Basham wrote: "Most people spoke languages far simpler than Sanskrit by the time of the Buddha." These were the Prakrits, of whom there are known to be various dialects.

Thus, popular heterodox religions that arose in the first millennium BCE also spoke these vernaculars.

The Jain agamas and the Gatha Saptashati are written in Ardhamagadhi, a Prakrit dialect that is regarded by some academics as the language of ultimate authority. As a result, the Jain community still finds resonance in this Prakrit and uses it in ritualistic activities.

Pali, which was the language of the Tipitakas, the canonical texts of Theravada Buddhism, was probably a kind of Sanskritized Magadhi Prakrit. Pali, thought to be the language of the Buddha himself, endured in Theravada-heavy regions like Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia.

What does the term "classical" apply to these languages?

According to officials, this classification will have a wider cultural and scholarly influence both domestically and abroad.

The promotion of classical languages is a priority for the Ministry of Education. In 2020, three Central Universities were founded with the goal of advancing Sanskrit. Established in 2008, the Central Institute of Classical Tamil provides Tamil courses and aids in the translation of old Tamil writings. Similar Centres of Excellence have also been set up for the study of Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, and Odia.

The National Education Policy also mandates that classical languages be taught in schools. The Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Culture (via its different academies), and the corresponding state governments will collaborate to increase knowledge exchange and research in these languages. Additionally, according to the officials, documents written in these languages would be digitalized for easier access by academics.