Tamil Nadu to work for official status to all Schedule 8 languages: MK Stalin

Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on Sunday said that his government would work to get official language status for all the languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.

The DMK government would work tirelessly and relentlessly to include all languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution as the official language of the Union government, he said, in a statement.

While the Eight Schedule lists 22 languages, Tamil, Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam are among the languages that are declared as classical in India.

Stalin said that it was on this day in 2014 that the Central government declared Tamil as a classical language under the Eighth Schedule, and this was made possible after the relentless efforts of his father, and late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi.

According to Article 343 of the Constitution, the official language of the Union government is Hindi in Devanagiri script, while Article 345 states that a state legislature may by law adopt any one or more language for all or any of the official purposes of that state.

Stalin said that his government would continue to work for raising the level of the Tamil language.