All four Southern languages – Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Odia are now the classical languages of India. Earlier, Sanskrit alone had this status. Demands have come to grant the classical status to Marathi as well. <br/><br/>Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma gave this information in the Lok Sabha today. He elaborated that any language to have a classical status must have high antiquity going back to 1500 to 2000 years. <br/><br/>Ancient texts and literature are also considered a valuable heritage. The literary traditions must be original and not borrowed from another speech community, he added.