Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Cite This Source

The Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet is a Cyrillic alphabet derived from the Russian alphabet and developed for the Romanian/Moldovan language in the Soviet Union in the 1930s.

History

The Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet was used during the Stalin era as a way to separate culturally the Moldovans of the Moldavian ASSR from the Romanians of Greater Romania. After the Soviet annexation of Bessarabia, it was the only official alphabet of the Moldavian SSR until 1989.

During the Soviet rule of Moldova, there were some requests to switch back to the Latin alphabet, which was seen "more suitable for the Romance core of the language." In 1965, the demands of the 3rd Congress of Writers of Soviet Moldavia were rejected by the leadership of the Communist Party, the replacement being deemed "contrary to the interests of the Moldavian people and does not reflect its aspirations and hopes".

The Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet is still the official and the only accepted alphabet in Transnistria for this language. It is not the same Cyrillic alphabet used in Romania before 1860. That alphabet contained a number of letters such as Izhitsa, Fita and little Yus not found in Moldovan Cyrillic.

Usage of the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet for the Romanian language is often accompanied with political controversy. On one side, "It is hard for Moldavian nationalists then and now to remember that the Cyrillic alphabet was not initially imposed on Romanians by an alien imperialist government. The Cyrillic script was used in Romanian until the middle of the nineteenth century. While linguistically it might make more sense to write Romanian with Latin letters, the logic of Latinity did not make itself felt until the 1840s. The first language of the Orthodox church, the princely courts, and high culture in the two principalities had been Old Church Slavonic since the tenth century. For its historic value the Cyrillic alphabet even had supporters among some Moldavian nationalists. In spite of the present importance of the Latin alphabet in Moldavia, there was historically no necessary contradiction between patriotism and a lack of enmity for the Slavonic and Cyrillic influence on Romanian/Moldavian." (Irina Livezeanu)

Description

All but one of the letters of this alphabet can be found in the modern Russian alphabet, the exception being the character zhe (ж) with breve: Ӂ ӂ (U+04C1, U+04C2).

The following chart shows the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet compared with the Latin alphabet currently in use.

Cyrillic letter:	Equates to Latin letter:	Name	As employed in this context:	IPA
а	a	а		/a/
б	b	бе		/b/
в	v	ве		/v/
г	g, gh	ге	gh used before i or e, elsewhere g	/g/
д	d	де		/d/
е	e, ie	е	ie after a vowel or if it alternates with ia, elsewhere e
ж	j	же		/ʒ/
ӂ	g	ӂе	Before i and e	/dʒ/
з	z	зе		/z/
и	i, ii	и	ii used at end of word, i elsewhere	/i/
й	i	йе	before vowels	/j/
к	c, ch	ка	ch before i and e, c elsewhere	/k/
л	l	ле		/l/
м	m	ме		/m/
н	n	не		/n/
о	o	о		/o/
п	p	пе		/p/
р	r	ре		/r/
с	s	се		/s/
т	t	те		/t/
у	u	у		/u/
ф	f	фе		/f/
х	h	ха		/h/
ц	ţ	це		/ts/
ч	c	че	Before i and e	/tʃ/
ш	ş	ше		/ʃ/
ы	â, î	ы	â in middle of word, î at beginning and end of word	/ɨ/
ь	i	и куртэ	At end of word (usually)	/ʲ/ (i.e. palatalization of preceding consonant)
э	ă	э		/ə/
ю	iu	ю
я	ea, ia	я	ea after a consonant or е, ia elsewhere

Example text

In Cyrillic script: Привя ын заре кум пе мэрь
Рэсаре ши стрэлуче,
Пе мишкэтоареле кэрэрь
Корэбий негре дуче.

In Latin script: Privea în zare cum pe mări
Răsare şi străluce,
Pe mişcătoarele cărări
Corăbii negre duce.

(from Mihai Eminescu, "Luceafărul")

References

External links

Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet - example text and comparison with Latin script