How Many Classical Languages are There in India

Introduction

There are six classical languages in India: Tamil, Telugu, Sanskrit, Kannada, Malayalam and Odia. Whenever a person in any corner of the world hears the name India the first thing that comes into their minds is tradition and culture. India is a very large country and it’s no surprise that different regions of India have their own language. India has more than 19500 languages or dialects that are spoken as the mother tongue. If we talk about the classical language in India there are six languages.

The classical languages have their own unique text and origin in Indian history. A large portion of ancient texts is written in classical languages. These are typically dead languages because as society is developing people speak and write modern languages and we have been driven further from classical languages.

Every year two major international awards are given to scholars of eminence in classical Indian languages. A centre of excellence is set up for the studies of classical languages.

Origin of Languages

The beginnings of language are a mystery. The fragments of this history can be reconstructed, though. It is generally accepted that the invention of language coincided with the discovery of the art of toolmaking in the history of social evolution. It makes sense that the earliest tool-making groups relied on highly coordinated cooperation between various group members.

Through the use of language, this would have been possible. Therefore, the development of languages must have followed that of material cultures. The evolution of tool-making techniques started out slowly but later picked up, as evidenced by the history of material cultures. The same rate of evolution was seen in language. As time went on, expressions grew more and more intricate.

Classical Languages

A language that has a significant and lengthy body of written literature, as well as its own distinct literary tradition, is said to be classical. As spoken varieties of a language move further away from its classical written form over time, classical languages are frequently dead languages or exhibit a high degree of diglossia.

Tamil was the first language that the government of India declared as the first classical language in 2004. In 2005, the government of India declared Sanskrit as the classical language. These languages are considered the parental sources for several languages belonging to the Indo-European family and the Dravidian family of language groups. In 2008, the Government of India declared Telugu and Kannada as classical languages. Malayalam was also declared as the classical language by the government of India in 2013 and in 2014, Odia also got the title of classical language by the Government of India.

Conclusion

Indian culture has several languages and each of them represents its culture in its own way. Only six out of these languages enjoy the title of Classical language.