Click to play videoHyderabad: For Andhraiites, the prayer of Maa Telugu Talli venerates their love for their homeland and its language and they want it officially recognised.
Telugu is in the running, along with Kannada, for getting a classical language status, so far given to Tamil and Sanskrit.
Says scholar Dr C Narayan Reddy, "It's a status symbol for us."
The state government is lobbying hard with the Centre for the accolade.
It's basing its arguments on 2,000 years of literary history and the fact that Telugu is the most widely spoken language after Hindi in the country as also the number of Telugu speaking people across South Africa, United States and Asia.
While the DMK government used the Tamil language card in its election manifesto, the AP government is hoping that this recognition for Telugu not only gets them some political mileage but brings them funds to the tune of Rs 100 crore.
Says Osmania University's Professor Vishweshwar Rao, "It is all politics of language. Not just Telugu but if you see the recorded history of Kannada, Malayalam, they too are 2,000 years old."
The State Official Languages Commission has already chalked out plans to aggressively promote the use of Telugu across colleges and schools and now it eagerly awaits the Prime Minister's nod.
(With inputs from Shweta Ganesh Kumar)
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