GUWAHATI: The central government on Thursday approved conferring classical language status to five Indian languages including Assamese and said that the government is taking steps to 'preserve their rich heritage'.
Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said to the media, "Today, 5 languages Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali have been approved as classical languages…"
“By now, we had Tamil, Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Odia were the notified classical languages… The government is taking many steps to conserve and promote the classical languages and to preserve the rich heritage of these languages…,” he added.
It said that in the meanwhile, proposals from Bihar, Assam and West Bengal was also received for conferring status of classical languages in which Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali have been approved.