Andhra Pradesh   

YSR renews plea for classical status to Telugu

HYDERABAD: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy on Saturday dashed off yet another letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh renewing the State’s plea for according “classical language” status to Telugu. He said “nothing short of this will do justice to the sentiments of Andhra Pradesh people”. Any laxity in this respect might be construed as ignoring the sentiments. He requested Dr. Singh to consider the far-reaching implications of this burning issue and expedite the process.

Referring to the eligibility criteria, specified by the Home Ministry to get the classical status such as “a high antiquity of early texts/recorded history of over 1,000 years”, the Chief Minister said records suggested that Telugu antiquity dated back to more than 2,000 years.

He said “agonising delay” in according status to Telugu is causing heartburn to over 10 crore Telugu-speaking people in the world today. “Telugu is the largest spoken language in the country, next only to Hindi,” he added. He told the Prime Minister that the numismatic, scriptural and epigraphical evidences dating back to the second and third century BC and from 4th to 6th century AD clearly established Telugu as one of the oldest Dravidian languages. He said literary giants praised Telugu for its beauty and mellifluousness. Indira Gandhi specified Telugu as “one of the oldest languages spoken by large number of people. Former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. G. Ramachandran observed that Telugu grew along with Tamil.

Tamil poet Subramanya Bharatiyar admired it as “Sundara Telugu”. And celebrated French linguist Daniel Negers observed that French and Telugu had a lot of commonalities, but while French grew into an international language, Telugu remained confined to a small corner.

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