Moldovan language

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Moldovan (also Moldavian) is the official name for the Romanian language in the Republic of Moldova and in its breakaway territory of Transnistria. The Constitution of Moldova (Title I, Article 13) states that the "Moldovan language" is the official language of the country. In Moldova's Declaration of Independence the state language is called Romanian. A group of Romanian linguists adopted a resolution stating that promotion of the notion of Moldovan language is an unscientific campaign.

"Moldovan" (graiul moldovenesc, in older sources limba moldovenească) can also refer to a northern variety of colloquial Romanian approximately within the territory of the former Principality of Moldavia (now split between Moldova and Romania). 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, Moldovan and Romanian forming a dialect continuum.

The standard alphabet of the language is the Latin alphabet (currently official in the Republic of Moldova). During the Soviet era, between 1940 and 1989, the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet (different from old Romanian Cyrillic alphabet) was used. As of 2007, it remains in use only in breakaway region of Transnistria.

Moldavian was assigned code mo in ISO 639-1 and code mol in ISO 639-2 and ISO/DIS 639-3.

History and politics

The history of the Moldovan language in Moldova is closely tied to the region's political status, with long periods of rule by Russia and the Soviet Union influencing the language's name and (when Cyrillic script was in use) orthography. 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 was dropped, and it was officially known simply as limba de stat - "The State Language".

Linguistic aspects

There are, however, regional differences in the colloquial spoken language. Moldovan is common in Moldova, as well as in Chernivtsi Oblast and Budjak region of Ukraine, and in 8 counties of Romania, territories that once made the medieval Principality of Moldavia. The difference between Moldovan (spoken in e.g. Chişinău, Iaşi) and the Romanian language (spoken in e.g. 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.

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 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 Moldovan/Romanian 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".

The official language of Moldova is regulated by the Academy of Sciences of Moldova, which calls it Romanian.

In the 2004 census, out of the 3,383,332 people living in Moldova, 16.5% (558,508) chose Romanian as their mother tongue, whereas 60% chose "Moldovan". While 40% of all urban Romanian/Moldovan speakers chose Romanian as their mother tongue, in the countryside barely one in seven Romanian/Moldovan speakers indicated Romanian as his mother tongue.

Moldovan language and the EU

When reporting on the proposal for a decision of the EU Council concerning the conclusion of the Agreement between the European Community and Republic of Moldova the rapporteur objected to the use of the term "Moldovan language". This has led to speculation in the Romanian press to the conclusion that supposedly the EU (or Leonard Orban, European Commissioner for Multilingualism) banned the usage of the term "Moldovan language (e.g.,) In his November 17, 2007 interview, Leonard Orban denied these allegations, stating: "It is not the European Commission who acknowledges one language or the other. I want to be very clear about it: it is a decision that belongs to every national state. When views are different, of course they have to be settled politically, not at the European Commission level, but by the states that have different views.

Orthography

In the interwar period, Soviet authorities alternately used Latin or Cyrillic for writing the language, mirroring the political goals of the moment. Between 1941 and 1989, i.e. during the Soviet rule, Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet replaced Latin as the official alphabet in Moldova (then Moldavian SSR). In 1989, Latin script was adopted again, along with the orthographic rules used in Romania at the time.

Notes

References

Dyer, D. (1999). The Romanian Dialect of Moldova: A Study in Language and Politics. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press. (ISBN 0-7734-8037-4)
Dyer, Donald Leroy, ed. Studies in Moldovan. New York: Columbia University Press (East European Monographs), 1996. (ISBN 0-88033-351-0)
Stati, V.N. Dicţionar moldovenesc-românesc. [=Moldovan-Romanian dictionary.] Chişinău: Tipografia Centrală (Biblioteca Pro Moldova), 2003. (ISBN 9975-78-248-5)
Dumbrava, V. (2004). Sprachkonflikt und Sprachbewusstsein in der Republik Moldova: Eine empirische Studie in gemischtethnischen Familien (Sprache, Mehrsprachigkeit und sozialer Wandel). Bern: Peter Lang. (ISBN 3-631-50728-3)
Movileanu N. Din istoria Transnistriei (1924-1940), 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.
(2004). 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

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