Moldovan language
Encyclopedia
Moldovan is one of the names of the Romanian language
as spoken in the Republic of Moldova
, where it is official. The spoken language of Moldova is closer to the dialects of Romanian spoken in northeastern Romania
, and the two countries share the same literary standard. Written in Cyrillic, Moldovan is also the name of one of three official languages of the breakaway Moldovan territory of Transnistria
.
The Constitution of Moldova
(Title I, Article 13) states that the Moldovan language is the official language of the country. In the Declaration of Independence of Moldova, the state language is called Romanian
. The 1989 Language Law that proclaimed it the state language of Moldova, speaks in the preamble of a "Moldovan-Romanian linguistic identity". After political debate over the issue became inflamed again in the early 2000s, a group of Romanian linguists adopted a resolution stating that promotion of the notion of Moldovan language is an anti-scientific campaign.
The term Moldavian is also used to refer collectively to the north-eastern varieties of spoken Romanian
, spread approximately within the territory of the former Principality of Moldavia (now split between Moldova and Romania
). The Moldavian variety is considered one of the five major spoken varieties of Romanian, all five being written identically. There is no particular linguistic break at the Prut River, the border between Romania and Moldova.
In Moldova's schools, the discipline about the state language is called "Romanian language", though former Moldovan president Vladimir Voronin
asked for it to be changed into "Moldovan language".
The standard alphabet is Latin
(currently official in the Republic of Moldova). Before 1989, two versions of Cyrillic had been used: the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet in 1924–1932 and 1938–89, and the historical Romanian Cyrillic alphabet
until 1918. , the former remains in use only in Transnistria.
and the Soviet Union
influencing the language's name and (when Cyrillic script was in use) orthography
. From a linguistic perspective, this term is an alternative name for the varieties of the Romanian language
spoken in the Republic of Moldova
(see History of the Romanian language
).
Before 1918 and also after the union of Bessarabia with Romania
, it was not obvious nor universally accepted that Moldovans and the Romanians formed a single ethnic group. Missing out all the important moments in the creation of a pan-Romanian national consciousness, the Moldovan peasants referred to themselves and their language as "Moldovan" also in the period between the wars. This caused reactions from pan-Romanian nationalists. The concept of the distinction of Moldovan from Romanian was explicitly stated only in the early 20th century, and accompanied the raising of national awareness among Moldovans, and the Soviet placing heavy emphasis on Moldavians vs Romanians as a reaction to this awareness.
Major recent developments include the passing to a Latin script from Cyrillic in 1989 and several changes in the statutory name of the language used in Moldova. At one point of particular confusion about identity in the 1990s, all references to geography in the name of the language were dropped, and it was officially known simply as limba de stat - "the state language".
Moldovan was assigned the code
and code
and ISO 639-3
but these have been deprecated in November 2008, leaving
of the Moldavian SSR.
In the Declaration of Independence of Moldova
(27 August 1991), the official language was named "Romanian", but the 1994 constitution declared Moldovan the state language.
When in 1992 the Romanian Academy
changed the official orthography of Romanian language, the Institute of Linguistics at the Academy of Sciences of Moldova
did not make the changes, and the official orthography continued as before until 2001 when the changes introduced by the Romanian Academy were adopted by the Moldovan Academy.
A 1996 attempt by Moldovan president Mircea Snegur
to change the official language to "Romanian" was dismissed by the Moldovan Parliament as promoting "Romanian expansionism".
In 2003, a Moldovan-Romanian dictionary
(Dicţionar Moldovenesc-Românesc (2003), by Vasile Stati
) was published. The linguists of the Romanian Academy
in Romania declared that all the Moldovan words are also Romanian words, although some of its contents are disputed as being Russian loanword
s. In Moldova, the head of the Academy of Sciences
' Institute of Linguistics, Ion Bărbuţă, described the dictionary as "an absurdity, serving political purposes". Stati, however, accused both of promoting "Romanian colonialism".
In the 2004 census
, 16.5% (558,508) out of the 3,383,332 people living in Moldova declared Romanian as their native language, whereas 60% declared Moldovan. While 40% of all urban
Romanian/Moldovan speakers declared Romanian as their native language, in the countryside barely a seventh of the Romanian/Moldovan speakers indicated Romanian as their native language.
In October 2009, Vlad Filat
, the new Prime Minister of Moldova
, announced that he intends to propose changes in the Constitution regarding the name of the language, replacing "Moldovan" with "Romanian".
and Budjak
region of Ukraine
, and in eight counties of Romania
, territories that once made up the medieval Principality of Moldavia. The difference between the language spoken in Chişinău
and Iaşi
and the language spoken for example in Bucharest
could be roughly compared to that between Standard British and Scottish or American English. Others have argued that these differences might be found within any linguistic territory.
The matter of whether or not "Moldovan" is a separate language is a contested political issue within and beyond the Republic of Moldova.
The 1989 Language Law of the Moldavian SSR
, which is still in force in Moldova (according to the Constitution,) asserts the existence of a "linguistic Moldo-Romanian
identity". Article 13 of the Moldovan Constitution, names it "the national language
of the country" (the original uses the term limba de stat, which literally means the language of the state, or official language, thus avoiding the term national, whose sense is that of ethnicity).
In the breakaway region of Transnistria
, it is co-official with Ukrainian
and Russian
.
Despite the official nomenclature, standard
"Moldovan" is widely considered to be identical to the standard Romanian. Writing about "essential differences", Vasile Stati
, supporter of Moldovenism
, is obliged to concentrate almost exclusively on lexical rather than grammatical differences. Whatever language distinctions may once have existed, these have been decreasing rather than increasing: "... in the main, Moldovan in its standard form was more Romanian by the 1980s than at any point in its history".
In 2002, the Moldovan Minister of Justice, Ion Morei
, said that Romanian and "Moldovan" are the same language and that the Constitution of Moldova should be amended, not necessarily by changing the word Moldovan into Romanian, but by adding that "Romanian and Moldovan are the same language". Education Minister Valentin Beniuc said, "I have stated more than once that the notion of a Moldovan language and a Romanian language reflects the same linguistic phenomenon in essence." The President of Moldova, Vladimir Voronin
, acknowledged that the two languages are identical, but said that Moldovans should have the right to call their language "Moldovan".
In the 2004 census
, out of the 3,383,332 people living in Moldova, 60% chose Moldovan as their native language, whereas only 16.5% chose Romanian. While 37% of all urban
Romanian/Moldovan speakers chose Romanian as their native language, in the countryside barely one in seven Romanian/Moldovan speakers indicated Romanian as his native language. Independent studies found a Moldovan linguistic identity asserted in particular by the rural population and post-Soviet political class. In a survey conducted in four villages near the border with Romania, when asked about their native language the interviewees stated: Moldovan 53%, Romanian 44%, Russian 3%.
When reporting on EU Council deliberations regarding an agreement between the European Community and Moldova, the Romanian rapporteur Jean Marin Marinescu included a recommendation not to make references to the Moldovan language. This led to speculation in the Romanian press that supposedly the EU banned the usage of the term "Moldovan language." However, the European Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy, Benita Ferrero-Waldner
, denied these allegations and stated that the Moldovan language is referred to in the 1998 Cooperation Agreement between the EU and Moldova
and hence it is considered a part of the acquis, binding to all member states.
(based on the Old Church Slavonic
alphabet) before the 19th century. From then and until World War I
, both Old Cyrillic and Latin were used, at which point the Old Cyrillic alphabet fell out of use. In the interwar period
, Soviet authorities in Transnistria (Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic) alternately used Latin or Cyrillic for writing the language, mirroring the political goals of the moment. Between 1940 and 1989, i.e. during the Soviet rule, the new Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet replaced Latin as the official alphabet in Moldova (then Moldavian SSR
). In 1989, Latin script was adopted in Moldova again, along with the orthographic rules used in Romania
at the time, whilst officially Transnistria still uses the Cyrillic alphabet.
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
as spoken in the Republic of Moldova
Moldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...
, where it is official. The spoken language of Moldova is closer to the dialects of Romanian spoken in northeastern Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
, and the two countries share the same literary standard. Written in Cyrillic, Moldovan is also the name of one of three official languages of the breakaway Moldovan territory of Transnistria
Transnistria
Transnistria is a breakaway territory located mostly on a strip of land between the Dniester River and the eastern Moldovan border to Ukraine...
.
The Constitution of Moldova
Constitution of Moldova
The Constitution of the Republic of Moldova is that country's supreme law.The current Constitution of Moldova was adopted on July 29, 1994 and published in Monitorul Oficial al R. Moldova, N1, July 18, 1994.- Constitutions of Moldova :...
(Title I, Article 13) states that the Moldovan language is the official language of the country. In the Declaration of Independence of Moldova, the state language is called Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
. The 1989 Language Law that proclaimed it the state language of Moldova, speaks in the preamble of a "Moldovan-Romanian linguistic identity". After political debate over the issue became inflamed again in the early 2000s, a group of Romanian linguists adopted a resolution stating that promotion of the notion of Moldovan language is an anti-scientific campaign.
The term Moldavian is also used to refer collectively to the north-eastern varieties of spoken Romanian
Varieties of the Romanian language
The Romanian subdialects are the several varieties of the Romanian language, more specifically of its Daco-Romanian dialect. All linguists seem to agree on classifying the subdialects into two types, northern and southern, but further taxonomy is less clear, so that the number of subdialects...
, spread approximately within the territory of the former Principality of Moldavia (now split between Moldova and Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
). The Moldavian variety is considered one of the five major spoken varieties of Romanian, all five being written identically. There is no particular linguistic break at the Prut River, the border between Romania and Moldova.
In Moldova's schools, the discipline about the state language is called "Romanian language", though former Moldovan president Vladimir Voronin
Vladimir Voronin
Vladimir Nicolaevici Voronin is a Moldovan politician. He was the third President of Moldova from 2001 until 2009 and has been the First Secretary of the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova since 1994...
asked for it to be changed into "Moldovan language".
The standard alphabet is Latin
Romanian alphabet
The Romanian alphabet is a modification of the Latin alphabet and consists of 31 letters:The letters Q , W , and Y were officially introduced in the Romanian alphabet in 1982, although they had been used earlier...
(currently official in the Republic of Moldova). Before 1989, two versions of Cyrillic had been used: the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet in 1924–1932 and 1938–89, and the historical Romanian Cyrillic alphabet
Romanian Cyrillic alphabet
The Romanian Cyrillic alphabet was used to write the Romanian language before 1860–1862, when it was officially replaced by a Latin-based Romanian alphabet. Cyrillic remained in occasional use until circa 1920...
until 1918. , the former remains in use only in Transnistria.
History and politics
The history of the Moldovan language refers to the historical evolution of the glottonym Moldavian/Moldovan in Moldova and beyond, which is closely tied to the region's political status, with long periods of rule by RussiaRussia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
influencing the language's name and (when Cyrillic script was in use) orthography
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
. From a linguistic perspective, this term is an alternative name for the varieties of the Romanian language
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
spoken in the Republic of Moldova
Moldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...
(see History of the Romanian language
History of the Romanian language
-Dacia and Romanization:The Romanian territory was inhabited in ancient times by the Dacians, an Indo-European people. They were defeated by the Roman Empire in 106 and part of Dacia became a Roman province...
).
Before 1918 and also after the union of Bessarabia with Romania
Union of Bessarabia with Romania
On , the Sfatul Ţării, or National Council, of Bessarabia proclaimed union with the Kingdom of Romania.-Governorate of Bessarabia:The 1812 Treaty of Bucharest between the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empires provided for Russian annexation of the eastern half of the territory of the Principality...
, it was not obvious nor universally accepted that Moldovans and the Romanians formed a single ethnic group. Missing out all the important moments in the creation of a pan-Romanian national consciousness, the Moldovan peasants referred to themselves and their language as "Moldovan" also in the period between the wars. This caused reactions from pan-Romanian nationalists. The concept of the distinction of Moldovan from Romanian was explicitly stated only in the early 20th century, and accompanied the raising of national awareness among Moldovans, and the Soviet placing heavy emphasis on Moldavians vs Romanians as a reaction to this awareness.
Major recent developments include the passing to a Latin script from Cyrillic in 1989 and several changes in the statutory name of the language used in Moldova. At one point of particular confusion about identity in the 1990s, all references to geography in the name of the language were dropped, and it was officially known simply as limba de stat - "the state language".
Moldovan was assigned the code
mo in ISO 639-1ISO 639-1
ISO 639-1:2002, Codes for the representation of names of languages — Part 1: Alpha-2 code, is the first part of the ISO 639 series of international standards for language codes. Part 1 covers the registration of two-letter codes. There are 136 two-letter codes registered...
and code
mol in ISO 639-2ISO 639-2
ISO 639-2:1998, Codes for the representation of names of languages — Part 2: Alpha-3 code, is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. The three-letter codes given for each language in this part of the standard are referred to as...
and ISO 639-3
ISO 639-3
ISO 639-3:2007, Codes for the representation of names of languages — Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages, is an international standard for language codes in the ISO 639 series. The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages. It extends the ISO 639-2...
but these have been deprecated in November 2008, leaving
ro and ron (639-2/T) and rum (639-2/B) the current language identifiers to be used for the variant of the Romanian language also known as Moldavian and Moldovan in English, the ISO 639-2 Registration Authority said in the motivation of the decision.Reversion to Latin script, and beyond
In 1989, the contemporary Romanian version of the Latin alphabet was made the official scriptOfficial script
An official script is a writing system that is specifically designated to be official in the constitutions or other applicable laws of countries, states, and other jurisdictions. Akin to an official language, an official script is much rarer. It is used primarily where an official language is in...
of the Moldavian SSR.
In the Declaration of Independence of Moldova
Moldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...
(27 August 1991), the official language was named "Romanian", but the 1994 constitution declared Moldovan the state language.
When in 1992 the Romanian Academy
Romanian Academy
The Romanian Academy is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 acting members who are elected for life....
changed the official orthography of Romanian language, the Institute of Linguistics at the Academy of Sciences of Moldova
Academy of Sciences of Moldova
The Academy of Sciences of Moldova , established in 1946, is the main scientific organization of the Republic of Moldova and coordinates research in all areas of science and technology.- Presidents :...
did not make the changes, and the official orthography continued as before until 2001 when the changes introduced by the Romanian Academy were adopted by the Moldovan Academy.
A 1996 attempt by Moldovan president Mircea Snegur
Mircea Snegur
Mircea Ion Snegur was the first President of Moldova 1990-1996. Before that he was Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet 1989-1990 and Chairman of the Supreme Soviet from 27 April to 3 September 1990...
to change the official language to "Romanian" was dismissed by the Moldovan Parliament as promoting "Romanian expansionism".
In 2003, a Moldovan-Romanian dictionary
Moldovan-Romanian dictionary
The Moldovan–Romanian dictionary is a dictionary compiled by Vasile Stati and published in Chişinău, Moldova in 2003 that contains 19,000 Moldovan words that are explained in Romanian...
(Dicţionar Moldovenesc-Românesc (2003), by Vasile Stati
Vasile Stati
Vasile Stati is a Moldovan politician and linguist.- Biography :He studied history and philology at the Moldovan language Department of the State University of Chişinău....
) was published. The linguists of the Romanian Academy
Romanian Academy
The Romanian Academy is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 acting members who are elected for life....
in Romania declared that all the Moldovan words are also Romanian words, although some of its contents are disputed as being Russian loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s. In Moldova, the head of the Academy of Sciences
Academy of Sciences of Moldova
The Academy of Sciences of Moldova , established in 1946, is the main scientific organization of the Republic of Moldova and coordinates research in all areas of science and technology.- Presidents :...
' Institute of Linguistics, Ion Bărbuţă, described the dictionary as "an absurdity, serving political purposes". Stati, however, accused both of promoting "Romanian colonialism".
In the 2004 census
2004 Moldovan Census
The 2004 Republic of Moldova Census was carried between October 5 and October 12, 2004. The breakaway Transnistria failed to come into an agreement with the central government in Chişinău, and carried out its own census during between November 11 and November 18, 2004...
, 16.5% (558,508) out of the 3,383,332 people living in Moldova declared Romanian as their native language, whereas 60% declared Moldovan. While 40% of all urban
Urban area
An urban area is characterized by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it. Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations, but the term is not commonly extended to rural settlements such as villages and hamlets.Urban areas are created and further...
Romanian/Moldovan speakers declared Romanian as their native language, in the countryside barely a seventh of the Romanian/Moldovan speakers indicated Romanian as their native language.
In October 2009, Vlad Filat
Vlad Filat
Vladimir Filat is a Moldovan politician, the Prime Minister of Moldova since 25 September 2009.- Education and early career :...
, the new Prime Minister of Moldova
Prime Minister of Moldova
The Prime Minister of Moldova is Moldova's head of government. The prime minister is formally appointed by the President and exercises executive power along with the cabinet subject to parliamentary support.-Moldavian Democratic Republic :...
, announced that he intends to propose changes in the Constitution regarding the name of the language, replacing "Moldovan" with "Romanian".
Linguistic aspects
There are, however, regional differences in the colloquial spoken language. The Moldovan dialect/variety is common in the Republic of Moldova, as well as in Chernivtsi OblastChernivtsi Oblast
Chernivtsi Oblast is an oblast in western Ukraine, bordering on Romania and Moldova. It has a large variety of landforms: the Carpathian Mountains and picturesque hills at the foot of the mountains gradually change to a broad partly forested plain situated between the Dniester and Prut rivers....
and Budjak
Budjak
Budjak or Budzhak is a historical region in the Odessa Oblast of Ukraine. Lying along the Black Sea between the Danube and Dniester rivers this multiethnic region was the southern part of Bessarabia...
region of Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, and in eight counties of Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
, territories that once made up the medieval Principality of Moldavia. The difference between the language spoken in Chişinău
Chisinau
Chișinău is the capital and largest municipality of Moldova. It is also its main industrial and commercial centre and is located in the middle of the country, on the river Bîc...
and Iaşi
Iasi
Iași is the second most populous city and a municipality in Romania. Located in the historical Moldavia region, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life...
and the language spoken for example in Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
could be roughly compared to that between Standard British and Scottish or American English. Others have argued that these differences might be found within any linguistic territory.
Controversy
The 1989 Language Law of the Moldavian SSR
Moldavian SSR
The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic , commonly abbreviated to Moldavian SSR or MSSR, was one of the 15 republics of the Soviet Union...
, which is still in force in Moldova (according to the Constitution,) asserts the existence of a "linguistic Moldo-Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
identity". Article 13 of the Moldovan Constitution, names it "the national language
National language
A national language is a language which has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a people and perhaps by extension the territory they occupy. The term is used variously. A national language may for instance represent the national identity of a nation or country...
of the country" (the original uses the term limba de stat, which literally means the language of the state, or official language, thus avoiding the term national, whose sense is that of ethnicity).
In the breakaway region of Transnistria
Transnistria
Transnistria is a breakaway territory located mostly on a strip of land between the Dniester River and the eastern Moldovan border to Ukraine...
, it is co-official with Ukrainian
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
and Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
.
Despite the official nomenclature, standard
Standard language
A standard language is a language variety used by a group of people in their public discourse. Alternatively, varieties become standard by undergoing a process of standardization, during which it is organized for description in grammars and dictionaries and encoded in such reference works...
"Moldovan" is widely considered to be identical to the standard Romanian. Writing about "essential differences", Vasile Stati
Vasile Stati
Vasile Stati is a Moldovan politician and linguist.- Biography :He studied history and philology at the Moldovan language Department of the State University of Chişinău....
, supporter of Moldovenism
Moldovenism
Moldovenism is a political term used to refer to the support and promotion of the Moldovan identity and Moldovan culture.Some of its supporters ascribe this identity to the medieval Principality of Moldavia...
, is obliged to concentrate almost exclusively on lexical rather than grammatical differences. Whatever language distinctions may once have existed, these have been decreasing rather than increasing: "... in the main, Moldovan in its standard form was more Romanian by the 1980s than at any point in its history".
In 2002, the Moldovan Minister of Justice, Ion Morei
Ion Morei
Ion Morei was the Minister of Justice of Moldova between April 19, 2001 and February 12, 2003 in the first cabinet of Prime Minister Vasile Tarlev. In 2003, Morei was replaced as minister by Vasile Dolghieru.-References:...
, said that Romanian and "Moldovan" are the same language and that the Constitution of Moldova should be amended, not necessarily by changing the word Moldovan into Romanian, but by adding that "Romanian and Moldovan are the same language". Education Minister Valentin Beniuc said, "I have stated more than once that the notion of a Moldovan language and a Romanian language reflects the same linguistic phenomenon in essence." The President of Moldova, Vladimir Voronin
Vladimir Voronin
Vladimir Nicolaevici Voronin is a Moldovan politician. He was the third President of Moldova from 2001 until 2009 and has been the First Secretary of the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova since 1994...
, acknowledged that the two languages are identical, but said that Moldovans should have the right to call their language "Moldovan".
In the 2004 census
2004 Moldovan Census
The 2004 Republic of Moldova Census was carried between October 5 and October 12, 2004. The breakaway Transnistria failed to come into an agreement with the central government in Chişinău, and carried out its own census during between November 11 and November 18, 2004...
, out of the 3,383,332 people living in Moldova, 60% chose Moldovan as their native language, whereas only 16.5% chose Romanian. While 37% of all urban
Urban area
An urban area is characterized by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it. Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations, but the term is not commonly extended to rural settlements such as villages and hamlets.Urban areas are created and further...
Romanian/Moldovan speakers chose Romanian as their native language, in the countryside barely one in seven Romanian/Moldovan speakers indicated Romanian as his native language. Independent studies found a Moldovan linguistic identity asserted in particular by the rural population and post-Soviet political class. In a survey conducted in four villages near the border with Romania, when asked about their native language the interviewees stated: Moldovan 53%, Romanian 44%, Russian 3%.
When reporting on EU Council deliberations regarding an agreement between the European Community and Moldova, the Romanian rapporteur Jean Marin Marinescu included a recommendation not to make references to the Moldovan language. This led to speculation in the Romanian press that supposedly the EU banned the usage of the term "Moldovan language." However, the European Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy, Benita Ferrero-Waldner
Benita Ferrero-Waldner
Dr. Benita Ferrero-Waldner is an Austrian diplomat and politician, and a member of the conservative Austrian People's Party . Ferrero-Waldner served as the Foreign Minister of Austria 2000–2004 and was the candidate of the Austrian People's Party in the Austrian presidential election, 2004, which...
, denied these allegations and stated that the Moldovan language is referred to in the 1998 Cooperation Agreement between the EU and Moldova
Moldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...
and hence it is considered a part of the acquis, binding to all member states.
Orthography
The language was generally written in a Romanian Cyrillic alphabetRomanian Cyrillic alphabet
The Romanian Cyrillic alphabet was used to write the Romanian language before 1860–1862, when it was officially replaced by a Latin-based Romanian alphabet. Cyrillic remained in occasional use until circa 1920...
(based on the Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...
alphabet) before the 19th century. From then and until World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, both Old Cyrillic and Latin were used, at which point the Old Cyrillic alphabet fell out of use. In the interwar period
Interwar period
Interwar period can refer to any period between two wars. The Interbellum is understood to be the period between the end of the Great War or First World War and the beginning of the Second World War in Europe....
, Soviet authorities in Transnistria (Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic) alternately used Latin or Cyrillic for writing the language, mirroring the political goals of the moment. Between 1940 and 1989, i.e. during the Soviet rule, the new Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet replaced Latin as the official alphabet in Moldova (then Moldavian SSR
Moldavian SSR
The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic , commonly abbreviated to Moldavian SSR or MSSR, was one of the 15 republics of the Soviet Union...
). In 1989, Latin script was adopted in Moldova again, along with the orthographic rules used in Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
at the time, whilst officially Transnistria still uses the Cyrillic alphabet.
See also
- MoldovanMoldovanMoldovan and Moldavian refer to something of, from, or related to Moldova, a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, or the region of Moldavia, which currently spans 8 north-eastern counties of Romania, the Republic of Moldova, and small parts of Ukraine...
- MoldovenismMoldovenismMoldovenism is a political term used to refer to the support and promotion of the Moldovan identity and Moldovan culture.Some of its supporters ascribe this identity to the medieval Principality of Moldavia...
- Varieties of the Romanian languageVarieties of the Romanian languageThe Romanian subdialects are the several varieties of the Romanian language, more specifically of its Daco-Romanian dialect. All linguists seem to agree on classifying the subdialects into two types, northern and southern, but further taxonomy is less clear, so that the number of subdialects...
- Thraco-RomanThraco-RomanThe terms Thraco-Roman and Daco-Roman refer to the culture and language of the Thracian and Dacian peoples who were incorporated into the Roman Empire and ultimately fell under the Roman and Latin sphere of influence.-Meaning and usage:...
- Eastern Romance substratumEastern Romance substratumThe Eastern Romance languages developed from the Proto-Romanian language, which in turn developed from the Vulgar Latin spoken in a region of the Balkans which has not yet been exactly determined, but is generally agreed to have been a region north of the Jireček Line.That there was...
- Romanian languageRomanian languageRomanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
- Origin of the Romanians
- Romance languagesRomance languagesThe Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
- Legacy of the Roman EmpireLegacy of the Roman EmpireThe legacy of the Roman Empire refers to the set of cultural values, religious beliefs, as well as technological and other achievements of Ancient Rome which were passed on after the demise of the empire itself and continued to shape other civilizations, a process which continues to this day.-...
- The Balkan linguistic unionBalkan linguistic unionThe Balkan sprachbund or linguistic area is the ensemble of areal features—similarity in grammar, syntax, vocabulary and phonology—among the languages of the Balkans. Several features are found across these languages though not all need apply to every single language...
Further reading
- About the identity of the contemporary Moldovans in the context of debates about the their language.External links
- Soviet Union and the creation of Moldovan language
- Translation of Russian loans and irregularities of the spoken language in the Republic of Moldova by Eleonora Rusnac, President, Association of Professional Translators of Moldova.
- Ethnologue report for Moldova
- Academy of Sciences of Moldova
- Conference presentation by Tamara Cărăuş, about identity issues in Moldova