Art & Culture
LANGUAGES OF THE PAST
Classical languages are those that are centuries old, self-contained, and not derived from any other heritage.
The following are the criteria for classifying a language as 'Classical':
- Its early texts/recorded history are extremely old, spanning a period of 1500-2000 years.
- A corpus of ancient literature/texts that has been regarded as a valued legacy by successive generations of speakers.
- The literary heritage must be unique and not copied from another language group.
The list of Classical Languages now includes six languages:
- Tamil V.Imp for Exam (since 2004)
- Sanskrit is an ancient Indian language (since 2005)
- Telugu is a language spoken in India (since 2008)
- Kannada is a language spoken in India (Since 2008)
- Malayalam is a South Indian language (since 2013)
- Odiya, Odiya, Odiya (since 2014).