Bhubaneswar: #ClassicalOdia is trending with the twitterati celebrating the fourth anniversary of Odia language being conferred with the classical status, today. The Odisha government also observes this day as ‘Shastriya Odia Bhasa Dibas’.

Billed as the first language from the Indo-Aryan linguistic group, Odia is now in the same league as Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.

On the 11th of March ‘2014, Odia received its Govt. of India gazette notifications of being a Classical Language .Do join in to commemorate today as #ClassicalOdia language day ଶାସ୍ତ୍ରୀୟ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ଦିବସ 

Swelling with pride, the tweets celebrated the language, tracing its roots to recorded documents of 2nd century BC and Hathigumpha inscriptions at Khandagiri in Odisha capital, which give glimpse of Old Odia. The twitterati also flooded the social media with Odia classics.

Oldest known Odia Inscription #Hatigumpha at #Udayagiri , #Bhubaneswar by King Kharabela in 2nd century BC#ClassicalOdia pic.twitter.com/Y5L9dYFDlS

Classical language is defined as - “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.” #ClassicalOdia

Odia has 28 consonant phonemes, two semivowel phonemes and six vowel phonemes. Odia is the only language where ‘ଳ’ is still being used while it has been abandoned by other Indian languages including Sanskrit. Jayadev had extensively used ‘ଳ’ in Geeta Gobinda, written in Sanskritised Odia.

The ‘ଳ’ of Odia is special in that it is still used in Odia while its lost in many Indian Languages including Sanskrit. #ClassicalOdia

Subrat Prusty, member secretary of Institute of Odia studies and reserch, in his paper 'Evolution of Odia Language, its Struggle for Existence and Excellence' has mentioned about revival of the language under the Ganga dynasty rule, which made Odia its official language.

I just love my mother tongue #ClassicalOdia

After the period of Kharabela, Odisha or Kalinga empire gradually disintegrated and the golden period of Guptas saw the influence of Sanskrit on age-old Odia. Having received royal and administrative patronage during Ganga rule, Odia thrived and this trend continued during the reigns of the Gajapati, it said.

A language which influenced the language in indonesia, bali, philipines, thailand is today shackled by Urdu.#ClassicalOdia

While Odia continued to be used as official language during Muslim and Maratha rule, the British occupation put check on its popularity, rise and spread, it added.

Odia is widely spoken in Jharkhand, so much so that it has been adopted as one of its official languages since 2011.#ClassicalOdia

Notwithstanding its struggle for existence, Odisha was the first state in India to be formed on linguistic basis (April 1, 1936) and passed the Official Language Act way back in 1954.

From "Udiya ekta bhasha noe" to Classical status we have come a long way. Now it's time to move further. Be proud Odiya. #ClassicalOdia

To promote research in Odia language, the Odisha Government has established Odia chairs in two reputed universities – JNU in New Delhi and BHU in Varanasi.

Recently, during mother language conclave, #LangFest2018 in Delhi, linguist Dr Panchanan Mohanty, who headed a committee of six linguists that worked on standardizing Odia alphabets, released the list https://t.co/maf2Bf3abk #ClassicalOdia

In December last year, the government split the tourism and culture department and renamed the latter as Odia Language, Literature and Culture Department. It also decided to introduce a slew of measures, including setting up of an Odia Language Commission, to spread and popularise the state language.

Odia is oldest surviving language and got classical status through struggle and spoken by 4.2% people of India termed as Indo Aryan Language in Eastern India about 33 million native speakers globally .

All shops and business establishments in the state will now have to display signboards in Odia language. Plans are afoot to hold State level and district level book fairs, besides setting up 'smart libraries' with Odia books in all district headquarters and high schools.

The curved appearance of Odia script is result of the practice of writing on palm leaves, that tend to tear if you use too many straight lines #ClassicalOdia

Here's to the beauty of the Odia language!