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

Moldovan may be written in either the Latin alphabet (currently official in the Republic of Moldova) or in the Cyrillic alphabet (official in the unrecognized state of Transnistria and formerly in the Moldavian SSR until 1989). 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 (Romanian) 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" (the original Moldovan/Romanian uses the term limba de stat, which literally means the language of the state, thus avoiding the term national, whose sense is that of ethnicity). 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 (which would be the majority of the Romance-speaking population) 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 î (except the derivatives of "român") was to be written â or î, 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 "sînt". The â/î reform had no impact upon the pronunciation (unlike the "sunt/sînt" change). 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 (such as Academia Caţavencu, Cotidianul) 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 (e.g., Timpul, Jurnal de Chişinău, Ziarul de Gardă, Flux, etc.), while the papers voicing pro-governmental positions (e.g., Moldova Suverană and rarely Comunistul) 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

1. Kogan Page 2004, p 242
2. Omniglot http://www.omniglot.com/writing/moldovan.htm
3. The Cyrillic script has not been in official use in the Republic of Moldova since 1989, but is official in Transnistria, and is still used by smaller groups elsewhere. For an example, see the Constitutional Court of Transnistria site, written in Moldovan Cyrillic.
4. Constitution of the Republic of Moldova, Title 7, Article 7: "The law of 1 September 1989 regarding the usage of languages spoken on the territory of the Republic of Moldova remains valid, excepting the points where it contradicts this constitution."
5. Legea cu privire la funcţionarea limbilor vorbite pe teritoriul RSS Moldoveneşti Nr.3465-XI din 01.09.89 Vestile nr.9/217, 1989 (Law regarding the usage of languages spoken on the territory of the Republic of Moldova): "Moldavian RSS supports the desire of the Moldovans that live across the borders of the Republic, and considering the really existing linguistical Moldo-Romanian identity - of the Romanians that live on the territory of the USSR, of doing their studies and satisfying their cultural needs in their maternal language."
6. Kogan Page 2004, p 291 ; IHT, 16 June 2000, p. 2 ; Dyer 1999 , 2005
7. King 2000
8. Ion Morei: The Moldovan language is identical to the Romanian language, Moldova Azi, 10 September 2002
9. Din nou fără burse, Jurnal de Chişinău, 25 May 2004
10. Gardianul - 3 November 2004: "Mai multi romani decat «moldoveni»"
11. Language in Moldova - observations in streets and houses in the Republic of Moldova by Diana Nissler

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. 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 Publishing. (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

• Ethnologue report for Moldova
• Academy of Sciences of Moldova
• Conference presentation by Tamara Cărăuş, about identity issues in Moldova
• Essay on Language in Moldavia by Diana Nissler
• Article by Attila Demkó

• Languages of Moldova
• Romanian language