Moldovan language
Moldovan is the official name for the
Romanian language in the
Republic of Moldova and in the territory of
Transnistria. The Constitution of Moldova declares that the Moldovan language is the official language of the state. Linguists consider standard Moldovan to be identical to standard Romanian. The language was assigned code mo in ISO 639-1 and code mol in ISO 639-2 and ISO/DIS 639-3.
Encyclopedia
Moldovan is the official name for the
Romanian language in the
Republic of Moldova and in the territory of
Transnistria. The Constitution of Moldova declares that the Moldovan language is the official language of the state. Linguists consider standard Moldovan to be identical to standard Romanian.
"Moldovan" can also refer to a northern variety or dialect of colloquial Romanian approximately within the territory of the former
Principality of Moldavia .
Moldovan may be written in either the
Latin alphabet or in the Cyrillic alphabet . The language was assigned code
mo in ISO 639-1 and code
mol in ISO 639-2 and ISO/DIS 639-3.
History and politics
- See main article: History of the Moldovan language
The history of the Moldovan language in Moldova is closely tied to the region's political status, with long periods of occupation by
Russia and the
Soviet Union influencing the language's name and orthography. Major recent developments include the return to a Latin script from Cyrillic in 1989 and several changes in the statutory name of the language used in Moldova, from Moldavian to Romanian and back.
Controversy
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 law on language of the
Moldavian SSR, which is still effective in Moldova according to the Constitution, asserts the real existence of "linguistic Moldo-
Romanian identity". Title I, Article 13 of the Moldovan Constitution, names it "the national language of the country" . In the
unrecognized state of
Transnistria, it is co-official with
Ukrainian and
Russian.
Despite the official nomenclature, standard Moldovan is widely considered to be identical to standard Romanian. Writing about "essential differences", Stati 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 official language of Moldova is regulated by the Academy of Sciences of Moldova, which calls it
Romanian.
According to the
Gardianul newspaper, Vitalie Valcov, chief of the Department of Statistics and Sociology of Moldova, speaking about the preliminary results of the 2004 Moldovan Census, claimed that about 40% of the respondents reported their mother language as Romanian.
There are, however, more differences between the colloquial spoken languages of Moldova and
Romania, most significantly due to the influence of
Russian in Moldova which was less present in Romania.
Orthography
- Main articles: Romanian alphabet
...
, Moldovan alphabet.
Latin replaced Cyrillic as the official alphabet for the Moldovan language in 1989. When switching to the Latin alphabet, standard Moldovan adopted entirely the orthographic rules of Romanian at that moment. However, a short time after that, the Romanian Academy reformed the orthography in order to bring it closer to the standard of the pre-communist era: e.g., based on debatable etymological arguments, the Romanian phoneme previously exclusively transcribed as ī was to be written ā or ī, depending on its location in the word; also, the third person plural form of the verb "to be" was to be spelled "sunt" instead of "sīnt". The ā/ī reform had no impact upon the pronunciation . On the other hand, the regulating institution in Moldova, the Institute of Linguistics at the Academy of Sciences of Moldova, has made no similar recommendations.
The result of this reform is some ambiguity in the orthographic practices of both countries. While in Romania, some prestigious publications refused to apply the new rules based on linguistic arguments, in the Republic of Moldova the issue is seen as mirroring a political attitude. In fact, almost all Moldovan newspapers in Romanian opposing the national ideology of the ruling communist party consistently follow the official orthography used in Romania , while the papers voicing pro-governmental positions use a mixed orthography from article to article.
In the countryside, some elder people might prefer writing in Cyrillic script, while knowing the Latin script nonetheless.
Notes
References
- Dyer, D. . The Romanian Dialect of Moldova: A Study in Language and Politics. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press.
- Dyer, Donald Leroy, ed. Studies in Moldovan. New York: Columbia University Press , 1996.
- Stati, V.N. Dictionar moldovenesc-romānesc. [=Moldovan-Romanian dictionary.] Chisinau: Tipografia Centrala , 2003.
- Dumbrava, V. . Sprachkonflikt Und Sprachbewusstsein In Der Republik Moldova: Eine Empirische Studie In Gemischtethnischen Familien . Bern: Peter Lang Publishing.
- Movileanu N. Din istoria Transnistriei , Revista de istorie a Moldovei, 1993, #2.
- Negru E. Introducerea si interzicerea grafiei latine in R.A.S.S.M, 1999, Revista de istorie a Moldovei, #3-4.
- . Europe Review 2003/2004. Kogan Page.
- King, C. The Moldovans: Romania, Russia and the Politics of Culture, Hoover Institution Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8179-9792-X.
External links
