New Delhi:

In a major decision, the Union Cabinet on Thursday approved giving the status of “classical language” to five more languages –  Marathi, Bengali, Pali, Prakrit and Assamese. With this cabinet decision, the number of languages that have the status will nearly double from six to 11. 

The languages that had the tag earlier were Tamil, Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Odia. Tamil was granted the status in 2004 and the last language to get it was Odia, in 2014.