Bhubaneswar, June 18: The state government wants Odia to be the next Indian language to join the exclusive “classical” club of Tamil, Sanskrit, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam.

By the end of this month, the state government will submit a report to the Centre seeking classical language status for Odia.

A committee of the Union ministry of culture will examine the state’s request. If accepted, Odia would be the first from the Indo-Aryan linguistic group to get the tag.

Sanskrit and four Dravidian languages — Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam — already feature in the elite list. Tamil was the first language to be crowned classical, while Malayalam received the honour earlier this year.

As far as the eligibility criteria for the status is concerned, Odia researchers and scholars are hopeful that the report will find success. The criteria include high antiquity value of the language’s early texts (recorded history over a period of 1,500 to 2,000 years), a body of ancient literature or texts that are considered valuable heritage by generations of speakers and an original literary tradition not borrowed from another “speech community”.

The report, which has already been prepared by the state culture department, has chronicled minute details of Odia’s pre-historic traditions, culture and maritime tradition, script, origin and development of literature. Historically, Odia literature is linked to all these features with its strong socio-religious role and evolution as a language used by a community expert in maritime trade sometime around the 3rd century BC.

The base paper of the report has been prepared mainly by a linguist and founding director of the Mysore-based Central Institute of Indian Languages, Debi Prasanna Pattanayak. Last year, Pattanayak prepared a report on classical status for Odia on behalf of Rajya Sabha member Ramachandra Khuntia. This report was submitted to the Union culture ministry.

“The ministry had written to the Odisha government to submit its view regarding the earlier report initiated by Khuntia,” said Pattanayak.

A source in the Union culture ministry confirmed that a request for Odia language to be granted classical status had reached them. “There is also a similar request for Marathi. We are considering both,” the source said.

The Odisha government’s proposal will be considered by the linguistic committee working under the Sahitya Kala Akademi. Once this committee decides on the proposal it will forward it to the culture ministry. However, the final nod has to come from the Union cabinet.

Malayalam, which the latest language to acquire the status, was at first rejected by the linguistic committee. The culture ministry, however, asked the committee to reconsider the proposal based on new evidence submitted by the Kerala government.

The report that the state government has now prepared contains proof of the origin of Odia script from the rock-cut edicts to copper-plate inscriptions, palm leaf writing traditions, discovery of archaeological findings on the evolution of Odia script from Pali type letters to the present-day circular font, oral tradition and evolution from the Sarala Mahabharat to modern Odia literature.

“We have included evidence of the use of Odia in Bharat’s Natya Sastra (4th century BC) to the present day literature showing an array of development through different eras and we hope that it will fulfil the eligibility criteria fixed by the central committee on classical status,” said culture and tourism secretary Ashok Kumar Tripathy.

He said there had been several efforts in the past decade to secure classical status for Odia. The Odia Bhasa Pratisthan has been engaged in preparing a report, while a Rajya Sabha member and another organisation working for a language-based university were also interested in doing the same.

“We unified all the efforts and produced this 545-page report of evidence of Odia having a history of over 2,500 years. While there are 304 pages of text-based evidence quoted from historians, linguists, epigraphists, archaeologists, the rest are photographic testimonials quantifying those claims,” the secretary said.

Odisha minister of culture and tourism Maheswar Mohanty told The Telegraph that the report was likely to be submitted to the Union culture minister and members of the central committee on classical status of languages by the end of this month.

If Odia is granted the status, the state government will receive a one-time grant of Rs 100 crore for research and development of the language and subsequently, Rs 5 crore grant every year.

Refuting claims that the report aims at seeking monetary benefits for the state on the classical status plea, Pattanayak said: “We have to popularise our own language as its use is becoming restricted. We are already suffering as Odia is hardly used in official work. There is neither any research nor any emphasis on its use in primary education. The status will definitely make a difference in increasing its popularity.”

He said there the Odisha government should prepare a language policy and make efforts to keep the standard of education at college and university level high. “In the past, we had Sanskrit, Pali and Prakruta papers in post-graduate Odia course, but they have disappeared from the curriculum. How can you expect students of today to develop an interest in multi-lingual studies or research?’’ he asked.

Additional reporting by Sobhana K. in New Delhi