Thread: Moldovan, anyone?

Anyone know how similar this is to Russian? I was told that there is a fair amount of latin rooted in it but the language itself varies from west to east. Any input>?? Cheers

It is not similar to Russian. Moldavan is just Romanian (maybe with more or less local deviations from standard Romanian).
And Romanian is a Roman language i.e. it is closer to Italian or French than to Russian or any other Slavic language.

AFAIK, Moldova was annexed by USSR from Romania at the end of the Second World War, and the native language is basically just a dialect of Romanian, which is of course a romance language.

Cyrillic (n)ever used?

I am half Moldovan. In Moldova Russian and Romanian are spoken. There is a Moldovan alphabet with cryllic letters, but I don't think people use it. It is basically the same as Romanian. I suppose. My father was a Russian speaking moldovan so I can't say for sure.

Originally Posted by scotcher

AFAIK, Moldova was annexed by USSR from Romania at the end of the Second World War, and the native language is basically just a dialect of Romanian, which is of course a romance language.

Your AFAIK is wrong
It was annexed by Romania from Russia at the end of the First World War and returned back at the beginning of the Second World War (1940).

Originally Posted by N

Originally Posted by scotcher

AFAIK, Moldova was annexed by USSR from Romania at the end of the Second World War, and the native language is basically just a dialect of Romanian, which is of course a romance language.

Your AFAIK is wrong
It was annexed by Romania from Russia at the end of the First World War and returned back at the beginning of the Second World War (1940).

Actually, I knew that too, just didn't see any point in bringing in up. I'm sure you could find several other instances where it changed hands in the centuries before that too, doesn't have much baring on the local language though

Local knowledge would be moreso Russian than a latin based language?

Moldavian is Roman language not Slavic as Russian is. I had been here a couple times ten years ago. People in cities speak or understand Russian well. In rural area they speak Moldovan and not as good in Russian as cityfolk.

There is a fellow on this forum from Moldava, why don't you ask him?

O-Zone were Moldovan.

The Soviets made Moldovans write their language in the Cyrillic alphabet. However in 1991, they immediately reverted back to latin.

Moldovan Cyrillic was crude and looked artificial (as it was), it was basically the language transliterated to Russian. Moldovan I was Ы, E was Э.

I have seen Moldovan books in Cyrillic. Moldova's current president is an ethnic Russian and is a bit weird, since he claims that Moldovan is a slavic language, when it is infact just Romanian, which is obviously a Romance language.


The same happened with Tatar. Tatar was written in Arabic script, then it changed to Latin I think, but then Stalin made them change to Cyrillic because he didn't want them communicating with their ethnic cousins, the Turks (also Latin alphabet). A couple of years agom I think the Tatars officially decided to change back to Latin. But Cyrillic is still more commonly used, or at least in official uses.

I have an English language book with Moldovan Legends. At the back this is written in Moldovan(There is some Russian above it)

Для младшего школьного возраста
Литературно-художественное издание
МОЛДАВСКИЕ ЛЕГЕНДЫ
(на английском языке)
Составитель Григоре Георгиевич Ботезату
Переводчик
Дмитрий Афанасьевич Меленчук
Художник
Филимон Алексеевич Хэмурару

Дат ла кулес 26.7.89. Бун де типар 24.01.90.
Формат 84x100. Хыртие офсет кретатэ.
Гаринтурэ литерарэ. Импримаре офсет.
Коль де типар конв. 11,76. Коль едиториале 7,06.
Импр. кром.-конв. 47,88. Тираж 7000.
Команда № 91229. Прецул 80 коп.

Едитура "Литература артистикэ"
277004, Кишинэу, пр. Ленит, 180.

Комбинатул полиграфик. 277004, Кишинэу, стр. Берзарин, 35.
Комитетул де Стат ал РСС Молдовенешть пентру едитурь,
полиграфие ши комерцул ку кэрць.

Кишинэу is the Capital of Moldova(In Russian: Кишинёв)
I have two friends from this same city. One is a native Russian speaker, the other is a Romanian native speaker.

Originally Posted by TATY

The Soviets made Moldovans write their language in the Cyrillic alphabet. However in 1991, they immediately reverted back to latin.

Excuse me, you are wrong. It were the Soviets who for the first time made Moldovans write their language in the Latin alphabet (1932-39). Before the Revolution they wrote in Cyrillic alphabet.

Originally Posted by TATY

Moldovan I was Ы, E was Э.

As far as I know,

Originally Posted by TATY

Moldova's current president is an ethnic Russian and is a bit weird, since he claims that Moldovan is a slavic language, when it is infact just Romanian, which is obviously a Romance language.

Romanian, being of course a Romance language, has many words of Slavic origin (I have read about 10-20%, but I'm not sure). However the grammar is not slavic at all.

[quote=pisces]

Originally Posted by TATY

Moldovan I was Ы, E was Э.

As far as I know,

Ok, I think the time has come for me to intervene (and I guess I am the "fellow from Moldava" Pravit referred to.)

Whether Moldovan is a separate language or "just a dialect" of Romanian is a highly debated question here in Moldova (mostly for political reasons). If you want to know my opinion - it is a dialect: specific pronunciation, some differences in vocabulary (there are words absent in standard Romanian), some words have different meaning, loans from Russian and Ukrainian, etc). Still it remains, however, a language of the Romance family.

Cyrillic alphabet began to be used by the Romanians long before the Russians came to this region - it was an influence of Old Church Slavonic since the Romanians adopted Orthodox Christianity.

If want to know more details you can read an extract from an article "Moldova's language history" by an American Professor of Law John Quigley (I've posted it as a new topic because it's too big to be posted in this thread and, unfortunately, I couldn't find it on the internet, otherwise I would simply give the link). The article covers briefly Moldova's language history from pre-modern times to early 1990s. http://masterrussian.net/mforum/viewtopic.php?t=4805

Moldova's current president is an ethnic Russian and is a bit weird, since he claims that Moldovan is a slavic language, when it is infact just Romanian, which is obviously a Romance language.

Sorry TATY, that's incorrect. Though having a Russian name Vladimir Voronin is not an ethnic Russian. His native language is Moldovan and he speaks Russian with strong Moldovan accent. It's true though that he claims Moldovan to be a language separate from Romanian.

O-Zone were Moldovan.

True. And so are Zdob si Zdub.

Originally Posted by pisces

Romanian, being of course a Romance language, has many words of Slavic origin

That’s correct. It’s interesting that in Romanian language many words of Latin origin have synonyms of Slavic origin that sound very similar to Russian: oră – ceas, spirit – duh, sacrificiu – jertfă, cauză – pricină, speranţă – nădejdă, etc

Triton- what is Dragostea Din Tei about? Someone told me love but I could only assume twas then about the ponciest love ever =))

Btw, what's Chisinau {forgive spelling} like? Overpopulated? Beautiful? Small?