Is Telugu a classical language?

[gaddeswarup]

Recently, there is some clamour in A.P. to declare Telugu a classical language. One writer returned his award in protest. In this context, I posted the following message in a telugu site. Please let me know if you have any comments since some of the things i learnt about Tamil are from this site. My post in Telugudamam:
"I am a bit puzzled at this preoccupation with Telugu as a classical language. I looked for the definition and found in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_language
“A classical language is a language with a literary tradition that can be judged as "classical" —ie. "it should be ancient, it should be an independent tradition that arose mostly on its own not as an offshoot of another tradition, and it must have a large and extremely rich body of ancient literature."1 (George L. Hart)”
As far as I can see Tamil fits this definition (admittedly a subjective one) and even today many educated Tamils quote from sangam literature which is at least 1000 years older than earliest recorded and remembered telugu literature (Nannaya). Moreover Telugu literary tradition seems heavily influenced by Samskrit literature. If there was some literature before, it vanished and even poets like Srinadha seemed to have ridiculed indigenous “pada sahityam “ whereas Tamils preserved it (this is what a more literary person wrote to me).
Undoubtedly, Telugu can be a sweet language when it is not too adulterated by words from other languages (as evinced by the poems and songs of Annanmacharya, Tyagaraja and others) and most South Indians, particularly Tamils pay tribute to it by singing in many Telugu keertanas. I feel that if we can preserve this aspect of the language and adopt it the modern times, that itself will be a big achievement. Tamils have already made efforts to find Tamil equivalents or adaptations of many technical words whereas we still look up to Samskrit for this and if the Telugu academy work is any indication, this is still in a very fragmentary form.
Just my two cents. I am fairly ignorant of Telugu literature and history and if there are strong reasons for declaring Telugu a classical language, I would like to know.
Swarup"

[Lambretta]

Well, frankly I'm surprised tat Telugu shud be declared as a classical language, considering tat its still widely spoken/read/written thru'out the length & breadth of AP....??
In fact I rem. tat Chandrbabu Naidu had intended to make Telugu a compulsory subject for State syllabus schools in AP.....'not sure if tat had materialised tho....

[gaddeswarup]

I think that it is a reaction to Tamil being declared a classical language. I think that the definition adopted is "having a an independent literary tradition that is old". It can be continuing, though in most cases, the delared classical languages are 'dead' languages.
Swarup

[Idiappam]

For a language to be classical it has to meet at least 'a few' of these eleven criterias. Sanskrit met only 7. Tamil scored on all eleven.

Can someone tell how many hits Telegu has..

Criteria
1. Antiquity leadership
2. Special features or Characteristics tradition
3. Universality of intrinsic quality
4. Impartiality
5. Quality as a mother to other languages.
6. Exhibit qualities of culture, art and knowledge through experience
7. Readiness to dispense with influence of foreign languages
8. Rich literature
9. High thinking
10. Remarkable quality in expressing and participating in the arts and literature
11. A language theory.

[Lambretta]

Swarup garu,
I jus cheked the link in wikipedia.. I noticed Tamil mentioned there as a classical language, whic h can't be right...they shud've mentioned it as classical tamil (they'd mentioned 'classical chinese' in the list!), as tats more or less obsolete, except for literary/poetical purposes......but Tamil, as in the present-day colloquial Tamil def. cudn't be termed as classical!

[gaddeswarup]

Lambretta,
Idiappam mentioned some criteria above; I do not know how measurable some of them are. Hart's criterion seems easy to check. Perhaps, there is enough continuity in Tamil (Aravindhan mentioned somewhere that with some effort, one can read some of the Tamil classics) to just say Tamil instead of Tamil. I do not know. One reason I posted here is that some may clarify these.
That Tamil literature is independent of other influences (like Samskrit) in the early days seems to be true. There were many women poets early in Tamil where as in Samskrit and other Indian languages they came later ( though I remember reading somewhere that two of the writers of vedas were probably women). I think that this presence so early of women poets shows also the independence from more patriarchal cultures.
But this is all a vague feeling on my part from internet reading. I wait for more expert opinions.
Swarup

[Raghu]

Well telugu does go well with Carnatic based music, compared to tamil and Malayalam,take Shankaraparanam songs 4 eg!

[Raghu]

any way, kavignar Kanadhasan said it in a Tamil song

'Sinthu nathiyin........Sundara telunginil patisaithu'

[Lambretta]

Well telugu does go well with Carnatic based music, compared to tamil and Malayalam,take Shankaraparanam songs 4 eg!

U mean the old telugu movie Shankarabharam?

[Raghu]

Well telugu does go well with Carnatic based music, compared to tamil and Malayalam,take Shankaraparanam songs 4 eg!

U mean the old telugu movie Shankarabharam?

Ji Huh, DR.SPB & KVM combo, which fetched the GREATEST singer That INDIA had EVER PRODUCED 'Padmashree Dr.SPB' his first ever NATIONAL AWARD