Government to 'fight' for 'classical' tag to Malayalam

Jun 28, 2012 |

Thiruvananthapuram

Tags:

Expressing displeasure over moves to deny classical status to Malayalam language, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on Friday informed the assembly that Kerala would fight for it as it is the state's right.

"Granting classical status to Malayalam language is not charity given by anybody and government will continue to take up the issue with the Centre," he said while replying to a submission on the matter.

Minister for Culture and Rural Development K.C. Joseph said there was no justification for denying the classical tag to Malayalam. The issue was taken up by Palode Ravi (Congress).

Joseph said Malayalam language is also 1500 year old and was as old as other languages given classical status in South India, Joseph pointed out.

Meanwhile, academic and literary circles have resented the stand of the language panel of Kendra Sahitya Akademi against according classical status to Malayalam on the ground it is a 'younger' language compared to Tamil and other southern tongues.

Kerala has been pressing for classical tag for quite some time as it is the only South Indian language which does not have that status.

The previous LDF government stepped up efforts to get Malayalam elevated to the higher rank. A panel of scholars had drawn up a comprehensive report, citing the antiquity and tradition of the language spoken by Keralites.

A recent meeting of the Akademi's sub-panel headed by an eminent linguist at Hyderabad had rejected the claim, arguing that the tag was conferred only on those languages which are at least 1500-2000 years old.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/165871" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-d37950414d5c0584f2920d7bc58ed8c5" value="form-d37950414d5c0584f2920d7bc58ed8c5" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="80623181" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>