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A classical language, is a language with a literature that is "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." (George L. Hart of UC Berkeley)

In another sense of the word, an important criterion is that a language should have a broad influence over an extended period of time, even after it is no longer a colloquial mother tongue in its original form. If one language uses roots from another language to coin words (in the way that many European languages use Greek and Latin roots to devise new words such as "telephone" etc.), this is an indication that the second language is a classical language. Also, the writing system of such a classical languages will often have spread to be used by other languages.

Thus classical languages tend to be either dead languages, or show a high degree of diglossia, as the spoken varieties of the language diverge further and further away from the classical written language over centuries.

Note that the judgment as to whether a language is "classical" is made on the basis of external factors, and not the nature of the language itself.

Classical studies

In a most restricted meaning, in the inherently Eurocentric context of Classical studies, "the Classical Languages" are the Greek and Latin literary languages of Classical Antiquity, foundational to Western culture.

In terms of worldwide cultural importance, Edward Sapir in Language (1921) would extend the list by Chinese, Arabic and Sanskrit:

"When we realize that an educated Japanese can hardly frame a single literary sentence without the use of Chinese resources, that to this day Siamese and Burmese and Cambodgian bear the unmistakable imprint of the Sanskrit and Pali that came in with Hindu Buddhism centuries ago, or that whether we argue for or against the teaching of Latin and Greek our arguments are sure to be studded with words that have come to us from Rome and Athens, we get some indication of what early Chinese culture, Buddhism, and classical mediterranean civilization have meant in the world's history. There are just five languages that have had overwhelming significance as carriers of culture. These are classical Chinese, Sanskrit, Arabic, Greek, and Latin. In comparison with these, even such culturally important languages such as Hebrew and French sink into a secondary position."

General usage

The following languages are generally taken to have a "classical" stage. Such a stage is limitited in time, and is considered "classical" if it comes to be regarded as a literary "golden age" retrospectively. Thus, Classical Greek is the language of 5th to 4th century BC Athens, and as such only a small subset of the varieties of the Greek language as a whole. A "classical" period usually corresponds to a flowering of literature following an "archaic" period, such as Classical Latin succeeding Old Latin, Classical Sumerian succeeding Archaic Sumerian, Classical Sanskrit succeding Vedic Sanskrit, Classical Persian succeeding Old Persian. This is a partly a matter of terminology, and for example Old Chinese is taken to include rather than precede Classical Chinese. In some cases, such as those of Arabic and Tamil, the "classical" stage corresponds to the earliest attested literary variant.

• Classical Sumerian (literary language of Sumer, ca. 26th to 23rd c. BC)
• Middle Egyptian (literary language of Ancient Egypt from ca. the 20th century BC to the 4th century AD)
• Classical Hebrew (the language of the Tanakh, in particular of the prophetic books of ca. the 7th and 6th c. BC)
• Classical Chinese (based on the literary language of the Zhou Dynasty from ca. the 5th c. BC)
• Classical Greek (Attic dialect of the 5th c. BC)
• Classical Tamil (the language of Sangam literature, 3rd c. BC to 3rd c. AD)

• Classical Latin (literary language of the 1st c. BC)
• Classical Mandaic (literary Aramaic of Mandaeism, 1st c. AD)
• Classical Syriac (literary Aramaic of the Syriac church, 3rd to 5th c.)
• Classical Armenian (oldest attested form of Armenian from the 5th c. and literary language until the 18th c.)
• Classical Persian (court language of the Sassanid empire, 3rd to 7th c.)
• Classical Maya (the language of the mature Maya civilization, 3rd to 9th c.)
• Classical Sanskrit (Vedic literature, not before 5th c.)
• Classical Arabic (based the language of the Qur'an, 7th c.)
• Classical Kannada (language of the Rashtrakuta literature, 9th to 10th c.)
• Classical Japanese (language of Heian period literature, 10th to 12th c.)
• Classical Icelandic (the language of the Icelandic sagas, 13th c.)
• Classical Gaelic (language of the 13th to 18th c. Scottish Gaelic literature)
• Classical Quechua (lingua franca of the 16th c. Inca Empire)
• Classical Nahuatl (lingua franca of 16th c. central Mexico)
• Classical Quiché (language of 16th c. Guatemala)
• Classical Tupi (language of 16th -18th c. Brazil)
• Classical Ottoman Turkish (language of poetry and administration of the Ottoman empire, 16th to 19th c.)

Notes

1. http://tamil.berkeley.edu/Tamil%20Chair/TamilClassicalLanguage/TamilClassicalLgeLtr.html : According to UC Berkeley linguist George L. Hart, " qualify as a classical tradition, a language must fit several criteria: 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."
2. Historian Kamil Zvelebil among others has stressed that the use of 'Sangam literature' to describe this corpus of literature is a misnomer and Classical literature should be used instead; Kamil Zvelebil, The Smile of Murugan.
3. http://www.ciil-classicaltamil.org/project1.html

See also

• Classics
• Classicism
• Literary language
• Sacred language
• Official language
• Standard language
• World language
• Sanskrit
• List of languages by first written accounts

References

• Flood, Gavin (1996), An Introduction to Hinduism, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-43878-0 {{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

• Classical languages