Classical languages of India

This article contains Indic text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks or boxes, misplaced vowels or missing conjuncts instead of Indic text.

The Indian Classical languages, or the Śāstrīya Bhāṣā or the Dhrupadī Bhāṣā (Bengali, Assamese) or the Abhijāta Bhāṣā (Marathi) or the Cemmoḻi (Tamil), is an umbrella term for the languages of India having high antiquity, and valuable, original and distinct literary heritage.^[1] The Government of India declared in 2004 that languages that met certain strict criteria could be accorded the status of a classical language of India.^[2] It was instituted by the Ministry of Culture along with the Linguistic Experts' Committee. The committee was constituted by the Government of India to consider demands for the categorisation of languages as Classical languages. In 2004, Tamil became the first language to recognised as a classical language of India. As of 2024, 11 languages have been recognised as classical languages of India.

In the year 2004, the tentative criteria for the age of antiquity of "classical language" was assumed to be at least 1000 years of existence.^[2]

The criteria were kept revising from time to time by the authorities.