Thiruvananthapuram:
Kerala has stepped up its pressure for conferment of classical language status to
Malayalam with an expert committee of scholars set up by the state government claiming that the language meets all the parameters set by the Centre for granting the coveted honour.
Malayalam, spoken by over 30 million people, is the only South Indian language that has been denied the classical status, which Tamil, Telugu and Kannada enjoy.
The panel headed by Jnanpith laureate O N V Kurup, in the report submitted to Education Minister M A Baby yesterday, said Malayalam met all criteria of a classical language like
antiquity, centuries of oral and written literary tradition and epigraphical and grammatical systems.
The report claimed that Malayalam has a history of 2300 years against the norm that a language should be at least 2000 years old to claim the classical position.
The language would also meet other norms set by the Centre like evidences to prove its history and evolution and the literary tradition and works that served as cultural guidances
for generations.
The report claimed that one of the earliest references to Kerala and its language could be found in the edicts dating of Emperor Ashoka. There are many other concrete evidences like the inscriptions of the rock cave at Edakkapl in Wayanad district which corroborated the antiquity of Malayalam.
The language had over the centuries developed with scholars enriching its written form by rendering all major literary, scientific and political classics into it.
For instance,Kautilya's "Arthasastra",considered a master piece on state craft, had been translated into Malayalam as back as the 10th century AD and the Hindu philosophic classic Bhagavad Geeta in 14th century, the report said.
The state Government had last year submitted a memorandum to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh urging his intervention for granting classical status to Malayalam.
Academic, writers and researchers from the state have said it is gross injustice to have denied the status to Malayalam alone among the south Indian languages.
Following this, the experts panel was set up to reinforce the claim with concrete historical, linguistic and cultural evidences.
Other members of the committee included linguist Naduvattam Gopalakrishnan, writer and academic Pudussery Ramachandran and poet Sugathakumari.