Cabinet approved Odia as Classical Language

Who: Odia language
What: classified as a classical language
When: 20 February 2014
Why: It has no resemblance to Hindi, Bengali, Telugu and Sanskrit language

Union Cabinet on 20 February 2014 gave its nod for classifying Odia, the official language of Odisha as a classical language to give impetus to scholarships in the language. Odia is the first language from the Indo-Aryan linguistic group to be billed in the list of classical language. The proposal to give Odia a status of classical language was moved by the Culture Ministry.

Odia being one of the oldest languages has been declared as classical language because of the demands and also because it has no resemblance to Hindi, Bengali, Telugu and Sanskrit.
Odia is the sixth language to become the classical language of the country. Other languages that have been declared as the classical languages of which four are Dravidian languages
• Sanskrit was classified in 2005
• Tamil was classified in 2004
• Telugu was classified in 2008
• Kannada was classified in 2008
• Malayalam was classified in 2013

Background
Once any language is declared as a classical language then it gets a financial assistance to set-up a centre for excellence for the study of the language and also opens up an avenue for two major awards for scholars of eminence.

This declaration also brings the facility to request the University Grants Commission for creation of a certain number of professional chairs for classical languages for scholars of eminence in the language at least in Central Universities.

Expert Committee of Sahitya Akademi has mentioned four Criteria on which the language is classified as a classical language
• High antiquity of its early or ancient texts or literature of recorded history over a period of 1500 to 2000 years
• Originality of the literary tradition and an assurance that the language has not been borrowed from another speech community
• Considered as the valuable heritage in form of ancient literature/texts by generations of speaker
• Distinction of the literature and classical language from the modern  and may not be a discontinuity between the classical language and its later forms or its branch