Demands to declare Kannada as classical language

New Delhi, Aug 8: Only two languages, Tamil and Sanskrit, have been declared as 'Classical language' in view of their high antiquity and a rich corpus of literature, the government said today.

In a written reply in the Rajya Sabha, Culture Minister Ambika Soni said the Karnataka government and several other organisations had made representations to confer 'Classical Language' status on Kannada language.

''The requests were forwarded to the Sahitya Academy for the consideration of the Committee of Linguistic Experts,'' she said.

The minister said the government had created a new category of languages as ''Classical Languages'' and charted out some criteria to determine the eligibility of languages to be considered for classification in this category.

The eligibility criteria include high antiquity of its early texts and recorded history over a period of 1500-2000 years and a body of ancient literature/texts, which is considered a valuable heritage by generations of speakers.

Also, the literary tradition of a language must be original and not borrowed from any other ''speech community''. The classical language and literature being distinct from modern, there may also be a discontinuity between the classical language and its later forms or its offshoots.

UNI