Demand for classical status to Telugu

Hyderabad: Telugu linguistic groups, cultural organisations and political parties Tuesday demanded a classical status for Telugu to mark International Mother Tongue Day.

While literary groups charged the government with failure to get the classical status for Telugu and accused it of neglecting the language, a senior cabinet minister announced that the state assembly during the ongoing budget session would pass a resolution urging the centre to accord Telugu the classical language status.

"The language is spoken by 15 million people in India and various countries and holds 15th position among the most spoken languages in the world," said M. Satyanarayana Rao, minister for culture.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Communist Party of India (CPI) also asked the government to make a strong case before the centralo government for the status, as the language is spoken by 76 million population of Andhra Pradesh.

Bhashudyamma Samakhya, which is fighting for the promotion of Telugu, held a massive rally in the state capital demanding that the same yardstick that was applied to recognise Tamil as a classical language be applied to Telugu.

The rally was attended by writers, poets, film and television artistes and linguistic activists. The speakers said Telugu was a 1,000-year-old language and deserved the classical status.

Telugu-speaking people are spread over several countries including the United States, Britain, Mauritius, Malaysia and Singapore.

Courtesy: NewKerala

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