DISINFO: Moldova abandons its native language

DISINFORMATION CASE DETAILS

  • Outlet: free.1tv.ru ( archive, original )
  • Date of publication: March 07, 2023
  • Article language(s): Russian
  • Countries / regions discussed: Moldova, Romania

DISINFO: Moldova abandons its native language

SUMMARY

Romanian instead of Moldovan in Moldova. [...] such an idea was just approved by the parliament of the republic today. The deputies of the ruling Action and Solidarity party, founded in 2016 by the current president Maia Sandu, who, importantly, has dual citizenship of Romania and Moldova, voted in favor.

Changing the name of the state language in Moldova is a blow to the independence of the country, to its cultural heritage. This is stupidity, which leads the country further and further into the swamp of nationalism.

RESPONSE

False narrative attributing a series of events taking place in Moldova since 1989 to its current president, Maia Sandu.

The official state language in Moldova is Romanian, the native language of 82.2% of the population. In 1991, the Declaration of Independence of Moldova from USSR named the official language as Romanian, referring to the 1989 law adopted by the former Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic.

In December 2013, the Constitutional Court of Moldova ruled that the Declaration of Independence takes precedence over the Constitution, and the state language should be called "Romanian".

The International Organization for Standardization, which originally provided a separate code for the Moldovan language later abolished it and identifies Moldova´s language as Romanian.

Thus, the recent decision of the Moldova´s Parliament only brings the wording of the Constitution in line with the decision of the Constitutional Court.

"Moldovan language" was in use in Soviet Moldova. It was Romanian written with cyrillic alphabet. Reintroducing Cyrillic Alphabet in Soviet Moldova, which was annexed by USSR from Romania in 1940 as Bessarabia, Soviet propagandists insisted on the historical roots of the "Moldovan language" written in Cyrillic in XVII century before switching to the Latin in XIX century. There were several requests to switch back to the Latin alphabet, which was seen "more suitable for the Romance core of the language", even in the Moldavian SSR. In 1965, such a demand of the 3rd Congress of Writers of Soviet Moldavia was rejected by the leadership of the Communist Party.

The official name of the state’s language must be determined only in terms of scientific truth, with no political interference, reminded Constitutional Court of Moldova in 2013. "According to the Academy of Sciences of Moldova, the official language of the Republic of Moldova is Romanian and the phrase “Moldovan language, based on Latin alphabet” of the Article 13 para. (1) of the Constitution can be equalized semantically with the Romanian language. At the same time, the Academy has mentioned that the official language of the Republic of Moldova shall operate on the basis of orthographic rules of the Romanian language", -stated the Court.

See more disinformation narratives on Moldova and Maia Sandu.

Disclaimer

Cases in the EUvsDisinfo database focus on messages in the international information space that are identified as providing a partial, distorted, or false depiction of reality and spread key pro-Kremlin messages. This does not necessarily imply, however, that a given outlet is linked to the Kremlin or editorially pro-Kremlin, or that it has intentionally sought to disinform. EUvsDisinfo publications do not represent an official EU position, as the information and opinions expressed are based on media reporting and analysis of the East Stratcom Task Force.

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