Classical Language Criteria

 The Government of India tracks the following criteria to define the eligibility of language to be considered for classification as “classical language”:

• Extraordinary antiquity of its early transcripts or verified history over a period of 1500-2000 years.

• A body of ancient literature or texts, which is considered a valuable heritage by generations of speakers.

• The literary tradition should be original and unique, and certainly not hired from another language community.

• The classical language and literature being diverse from modern, there may also be a discontinuity among the classical language and its later forms or its sprouts.

Classical Languages

• In 2004, the Government of India declared Tamil as the Classical Language of India.

• In 2005, right after Tamil, the government declared Sanskrit as a Classical Language of India. These two languages are undeniably parental sources for several languages belonging to the Indo-European family and the Dravidian family of language groups.

• The government gave the classical language status to Kannada and Telugu in 2008.

• Malayalam was declared as a classical language in 2013 and in 2014, Odia was also given the status of the Classical language.

Source: Google