Moldova

Scientists call for ending controversy on the "Moldovan language"

September 14, 2009

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The so-called 'Moldovan language' is actually a dialect of the Romanian language.

Such was the opinion of the linguists who participated in the 19th Congress on Roman Languages held in Baia Mare (Romania) last week.

Professor Nicolae Saramandu, Deputy Director of the Institute of Linguistics of the Romanian Academy of Sciences, stated at the forum that the language spoken by the Republic of Moldova population is a variety of the dialect used in the region of Moldova in Romania. But the literary language is one for all.

Professor Jeanine Medelis of Stendhal University of Grenoble (France) also believes that Moldovan may not be regarded as a language because it does not differ from Romanian either in terms of grammar, or morphology, or orthography.

Dr. Vasile Pavel of the Moldovan Academy of Sciences Institute of Philology pointed out that Romanian, compared to other Roman languages, is the most unitarian one.

Assessing the Moldo-Romanian Dictionary issued in Chisinau in 2003, the congress delegates called it a dictionary of regionalisms that were collected in Moldovan villages and that are not used in Moldova at the literary level.

According to the incumbent 1994 Constitution of the Republic of Moldova, the official language in this republic is Moldovan. However, local educational institutions teach the Romanian language and literature. To avoid using the notion of ‘Moldovan language’, local intellectuals prefer to call it 'state language'.

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