Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Telugu scholars differ on Malayalam’s claim

A.B.K. Prasad: Malayalam enjoys a rich literary tradition dating back to 9th Century.

Bh. Krishnamurthi: Malayalam does not have a recorded history of 1,500-2000 years.

C. Narayana Reddy: Malayalam has a history of only about 1,000 years.

HYDERABAD: Andhra Pradesh Official Languages Commission chairman A.B.K. Prasad has supported the concept of conferring classical language status on Malayalam also on the ground that it also enjoyed a rich literary tradition dating back to 9th Century and beyond.

Speaking to The Hindu, Mr Prasad, a scholar in Telugu, said the Union government must positively clear the case of Malayalam also at the earliest.

“Malayalam has a clear 10 centuries of existence as is evident from the Vazhapalli inscription in Kerala. Its literary history, spanning over 1,000 years, fits into the criterion fixed by the Union government for a language to get classical status,” he added.

He spoke about the unique and distinct features of Malayalam which made it quite different from other southern languages. One such feature was ‘Manipravaalam,’ an (early) experimentation by which a mixture of Malayalam and Sanskrit words were used to convey a message.

Gangisetty Lakshminarayana, former Vice-Chancellor, Dravidian University, expressed the view that all Dravidian languages, including Malayalam, were ancient languages. “The status is for language and not for literary traditions. Malayalam is among the well developed Dravidian languages which are most ancient and accultured languages in the sub-continent,” he said.

Jnanpith award winner C. Narayana Reddy and Bh. Krishnamurthi, Member, Committee of Linguistic Experts appointed by the Centre, did not, however, favour according classical status to Malayalam.

Dr. Narayana Reddy said Malayalam literature and language had a history of only about 1,000 years, as against over 2,000 years in the case of Telugu.

Prof. Krishnamurthi said that to be eligible for the classical status, a language should have early texts and a recorded history of 1,500-2,000 years and high quality of literature to set a model for future generation. Malayalam did not have a recorded history as it originated in the 11th century and literary masterpiece ‘Ramacharitam’ was published in the 12th century. Malayalam was separated from Tamil around the 10th century and it did not have the texts and recorded history, whereas there was evidence of early text inscriptions in the case of Telugu and Kannada, he observed.

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