Talk:Romanian language/Archive 3

sge and sgi loanwords from Italian?

I'm Italian and I can say there is no such thing as sg[i,e] to mean ʒ in the Italian language. In fact, ʒ is not even an Italian sound and simply cannot be written in Italian orthography, even though it is used in some loanwords from French (garage is the first one that comes to my mind). Does the sg[i,e] exist in Romanian, or was that someone who generalised too much? Orzetto 08:01, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

No, they don't exist in Romanian as it was written. sg[i,e] should be pronounced just like in Italian. bogdan ʤjuʃkə | ^Talk 09:53, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

(1) Clearly there's a logical flaw here, ʒ cannot both not be able to be represented in Italian orthography while also being written using Italian orthography for French loanwords. (2) I wrote the original based on a pamphlet for Italians travelling in Romania. I'll try to dredge it up to get pubinfo. Tomer ^TALK 16:21, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

In Romanian, the sound ʒ is always written "j", just as in French.

Also, there are no Romanian words in any dictionary that include the groups of letter "sge" and "sgi". bogdan ʤjuʃkə | ^Talk 18:06, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Pronunciation

How do you pronounce Cretu? --Vladko 18:59, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

I assume it's "Creţu" and it should be pronounced something like "CRE-tzou" (in IPA: 'cre.ʦu) bogdan ʤjuʃkə | ^Talk 19:26, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Numbers

A recent edit increased the claimed number of Romanian speakers, with no citations at all. I am inclined to revert; I would revert if there were citations for the old numbers, but one uncited number is not that much better than another. Still, I find it almost impossible to believe that there are three million Romanian-speakers in the U.S. As a person who lives in the U.S., has spent time in Romania, and reads Romanian decently, I've seen no evidence of there being more than a few hundred thousand Romanian-speakers in my country.

Could someone do some proper research and add some cited numbers? -- Jmabel | Talk 00:37, May 15, 2005 (UTC)

40 mil. is very exagerated

First of all the last American census shows 367.000 Romanian-Americans. Romanians are the 22nd minority in the USA. If there were 3 mil then that would mean 1% of the whole population and would put Romanians at the 4th of 5th position.

Second of all, where did the 1.019.000 Romanians in Russia come from? The CIA world factbook makes ref. to 0.7% "Maldavians/Romanians" in the Russian Federation but the data is really obsolete. It cites the 1989 census when the 0.7% was for the whole of the USSR outside Moldova not The Russian Federative Soviet Socialist Rep. . The CIA world factbook gives estimates on population even for Romania and states that 22.300.000 people live in Romania right now even though the census showed 21.697.000.The current number in Russia is more like 178.000( according to the last census of 2001). In Khazachstan about 20.000 and no more then 1000 in Tajikistan.

Someone should really change those numbers. (User:Duca 18 May 2005)

• I agree. That's why I was calling for cited numbers. Could you put this into the article, with citations? (By the way, US census numbers on European ethnicities should usually be considered minimums rather than precise numbers, but conversely they are unlikely to be off by a factor of more than two, let alone ten.) -- Jmabel | Talk 06:41, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

This constant number juggling in the article is beginning to annoy me. I can assure you all that most Romanians don't give a ****, we just want accurate numbers here. Decius 14:46, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

• Yes. Well. If someone will do a little research they could get some decently cited numbers and then it would be relatively easy to keep it stable, because there are a lot of us who will defend a well-cited edit against uncited changes. But one uncited number isn't a lot better than another, so until someone cites, it's cont to keep changing. -- Jmabel | Talk 16:21, May 22, 2005 (UTC)

Moldova and Russia Numbers

Again the numbers are out of proportion. For moldova we just have to look at the last census result 78.2% out of 3.388.071 people are Romanians. In the Transnistrian census the Romanians represent 34% out of the 580.000 people living there. Although this number is dubious beacause the Transnistrian census is not recongnized, its still the best we got. In the Russian census 178.000 people are of Romanian orgin( including what they call "Maldavian"). 1000.000 is way to much, considering that Tatarians are the second largest group in Russia with 3.5 mil. people. This would put Romanians third of fourth which they are certainly not. I am just interested if others have come across the same conclusions and if so then we should change these numbers so they can start to actually resemble reality. (May 22, 2005 User:Duca)

• Yes, I think someone is deliberately driving the numbers up. But the point isn't to make more realistic guesses, the point is to find a good source for numbers and make appropriate citations. See Armenian people for an example of what well-cited population data might look like. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:14, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

Some comments on borrowing

Just because a word in a language sounds similar to a word in another language does not mean it was borrowed. Slavic and Dacian are both Indo-European languages, thus they both descend from proto-IE. So it's to be expected that they will have some words in common, it doesn't mean one borrowed from the other. Besides, the idea that "da" is borrowed by Slavs doesn't make sense. The only words people borrow are words for things they do not have a name for. Words such as "yes" or "no" would exist already in every language so they would not be borrowed. The idea that a people do not have a word for "yes" in their language is inconceivable.

Really, the Romans did not had any word for "yes"! The closest word by meaning was "sic" (meaning "like this"), which was developed into Italian/Spanish "si" ('yes') and Romanian "şi" ('and'). The French derived it from Latin "hoc ille". bogdan ʤjuʃkə | ^Talk 22:13, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Languages don't exclusively borrow foreign words they lack their own words for. It's not impossible for one language to borrow the word for "yes" from another language, although it's highly unlikely, since languages do tend to borrow only non-core vocabulary. I don't know about the accuracy of the claims of borrowings, but do you have any evidence that any of those words are in fact directly inherited from Latin, rather than borrowed from another IE language? --Whimemsz 22:16, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

Sometimes there are some reasons for borrowing core vocabulary. For example, Romanian is the only Romance language to have lost "amare" (to love) and took Slavic "ljubi" (in Romanian "iubi"). The reason is that the verb "a ama" in Romanian would overlap the verb "a avea" (to have). "Te am" would have to mean both "I love you" and "I have you" and that could lead to some serious confusion. :-) bogdan ʤjuʃkə | ^Talk 22:53, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

In case anybody is wondering whether anonymous above was Decius: no. It is not inconceivable that Romanian 'da' is from Old Slavonic. I'm just not convinced that it is from Old Slavonic, and of course it has not been proven to be from Old Slavonic. But it is quite conceivable that it is from Old Slavonic. It is a commonplace in many languages for such foreign terms to be adopted, so that's not an argument. Old English lost a lot of its native word-stock, and picked up Norman French words in their place, even for terms they already had. With all that said, da could still be from the Daco-Thracians (not from Latin), no sweat: it may have entered Proto-Slavic in its pre-expansion period. Decius 03:40, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

But as I said before, if there is conclusive proof that Romanian da is from Slavic, let's hear it. Or post it on my Talk page. Decius 03:50, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Anonymous' position seems to be that 'da' was native both to Daco-Thracian (with the Romanian word coming from Daco-Thracian, not Slavic) and Slavic. If so, I have no problem with that. Decius 09:42, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

---

Speakers

Changed info in the speakers-table, according to the data for the native speakers in each country's census. See links to the official census web sites in the article Hungarian language (at the beginning of the article) --Danutz

For Ukraine

There is no national data stating how many people speak one language native, the census in 2001 just says how many members of one national group (for example Romanians), speak the language of their national group, how many Ukrainian, how many Russian and how many another language.

For example in this page, one can find out that 258619 Moldovans live in Ukraine, out of whom 181,124 of them speak the language of their national group (officialy Moldovan), 27,775 speak Ukrainian, 22 speak Russian, and 45,607 speak another language as their mother tongue (most of those declared Romanian as their mother tongue, the number of those declaring another language than Romanian, Ukrainian or Russian should be no more than 100). So 181,124 + 45,500 ~ 226,000.

Also, 150,989 declared themselves Romanians, out of whom 138,522 declared Romanian as their mother tongue, 9,367 Ukrainian, 4 Russian, and another 2,297 another language (very few declared Moldovan).

Adding another 100 members of another nationalities, that declared Romanian as the mother tongue, we get: 226,000 + 138,522 + 100 ~ 364,600. --Danutz (revised 15:22, 21 November 2005 (UTC))

Lead/Opening paragraph

Outside opinion: I think Jmabel's solution is the better choice: Node ue's version is not adding extra info and is in fact repeating info. This is not partisanship, just noting which version is better. Decius 29 June 2005 06:02 (UTC)

Not iotacism

The sound change given for an example dos not display iotacism, it is the same change that occured in Spanish (herba → hierba) and French (where ie &rarrr /ɛ/). The correct changes here are /i/ → /ie/ and /e/ → /a/ before /r/. Circeus July 2, 2005 04:04 (UTC)

Romanian language spoken in:

spoken natively by about 26 million people, most of them in Romania and Vojvodina - are there people in Moldova that declare they are Romanians and speak Romanian language or not ? adding Moldova to "most of them in Romania and Vojvodina" -- Criztu 8 July 2005 10:06 (UTC)

The first sentence

The manual of style here on wikipedia says that the first sentence should describe the topic. That is why "Romanian is an Eastern Romance language, spoken natively by about XX million people in XX" is a better description than "Romanian is considered to be identical to Moldovan".

Also, I see no point in putting the Romanian name of "Moldovan language" (limba moldovenească), it does not bring any information to the reader. This ought to be put in Moldovan language article. bogdan ʤjuʃkə | ^Talk 8 July 2005 10:17 (UTC)

I'm supporting the Bogdangiusca version. Moldovan info is not for the first sentence. Decius 8 July 2005 11:40 (UTC)

---

By the way, I found a clarification about the official use of "â din a" and "î din i" in Moldova on the website of the "Centrul Naţional de Terminologie - National Centre for Terminology"([1])

În Republica Moldova oficial se scrie cu î. Decizia Academiei Române de scriere cu â nu a fost agreată de toţi specialiştii în domeniu, fiind chiar contestată (v. articole de Mioara Avram şi mai ales cartea "Lupta în jurul literei â şi demnitatea Academiei Române, Ed. DMA, Iaşi, 1999 de Stelian Dumistrăcel). De curînd a apărut ediţia nouă a Dicţionarului ortografic al limbii române, elaborat de Institutul de Lingvistică al Academiei Române, care reflectă poziţia actuală a lingviştilor: scrierea cu â. Deocamdată, ambele scrieri convieţuiesc... Nu e greşită nici una, dar în Republica Moldova e recomandabilă totuşi scrierea cu î. Argumente de ordin lingvistic veţi găsi în lucrările citate, iar de ordin juridic, în legislaţia lingvistică (1989).

What I find very important is that they say that none of the versions is incorrect. But, now there is a 54%-46% use of those two in Moldova (in favour of "â din a"). So they donnot make a difference. ( after Google, with the search of word ramane - rămâne - ramine - rămîne in websites from Moldova - site:.md ) The percentage for Romania is 83%-17% for the same word (in favour of couse of "â din a"). As Moldovans learn after textbooks from Romania, that are updated to the use of "â din a", it is obvious that people teached after 1995 (when new textbooks were introduced in Romania and Moldova) use "â din a", and elder people use "î din i".

Then, I must note that the article in the ro.wiki about Moldovan language was translated after that in en.wiki, and not en.wiki from ro.wiki . More... The Moldovan Minister of Justice said that Romanian and Moldovan are the same language and that the Constitution of Moldova should be amended, not necessarly by changing Moldovan in Romanian, but by adding that "Romanian and Moldovan are the same language". You can find the news here also. Again, a news taken by Ziua.net from www.flux.md states that another Moldovan official asked for the same ([2]). Another article, this time in Gardianul states that the law that officialized the Moldovan language in Moldova (31th august 1989), and the law that changed the alphabet, both stated that Moldovan is identical to Romanian. So, in the Moldovan law it is stated that Moldovan is identical to Romanian.

Ethnologue says: Languages of Moldova
Moldova. 4,446,455. National or official language: Romanian (Moldovan). Capital: Chisinau ... So another source states Romanian as official language, and Moldovan only secundary, in brackets (I hope that is how you spell this () ).

Recently I also heard that an important American instution denied recognising Moldovan, and stated Romanian is the official language of Moldova. Does somebody know more? As far as I remember, it was the US Department of State. Was it?

Also on 31 august, Moldovans celebrate the national holiday of "Limba noastra cea romana" (Our language, the Romanian language - and not Moldovan). O-Zone has a song called Nu mă las de limba noastră. The lyrics say "Eu nu ma las de limba noastra, De limba noastra cea romana" (they come from Moldova, and had a big succes in all Europe last year).

Also, if you search Google for "moldoveneasca" (that also returns results for "moldovenească") and "romana" (that also returns results for "română") you'll find out that there are only 5,960 results for the first and 45,000 for the second. If you search moldovenească vs. română (so only results with diacritics) you find 3.440 for the first and 15.800 for the second. The search included only results from Moldova.

So Moldovan is the official language of Moldova, and that is by law identical to Romanian. I think it is NPOV enough to state Romanian is official in Moldova, and making a note (like I did before) explaining the official name is Moldovan, but that because of political reasons (quoting Ion Morei, minister of justice in 2004, stating "problema limbii oficiale in Republica Molodova a devenit un nod gordian fiind exagerata si, poate, intentionat politizata" - someone please translate this in English). Of course you can do the same in the article Moldovan language, but of course be NPOV stating in the note that Romania doesn't recognise the existence of Moldovan language (I pointed up that Moldova recognizes by law that Moldovan and Romanian are the same) and of course that Romanian in Moldova was renamed and not Moldovan in Romanian. Please be onest, and try to insert fair and correct information in Wikipedia. If you have something personal with Romanians (including me) that is another thing, I'm sorry if I offended you in any way, but I don't think that should affect our work on Wikipedia. Thank you.

Can somebody also please update the article Moldovan language with the information I put here, of course, quoting the sources? --Danutz

My attempt at translation; if someone can do better, go for it. -- Jmabel | Talk July 8, 2005 23:25 (UTC)

"problema limbii oficiale in Republica Molodova a devenit un nod gordian fiind exagerata si, poate, intentionat politizata" ==> "The problem of official languages in the Republic of Moldova has become a Gordian knot, being exaggerated and, perhaps, intentionally politicized"

Link on the US Department of State

Romanian lang is considered same as Moldovan lang

Romanian lang can be considered same as Moldovan lang only by experts, not by "most people". Is ROmanian lang considered same as Moldovan lang (by the international experts) ? yes. then "most people" has no place here --

"Most people" stands for the census in Romania (100%), the census in Moldova (2/3), and the census in Vojvodina (100%). --Danutz

• More to the point: is there any respectably expert who argues that they are different? In my (admittedly limited) experience, Romanian has even less regional variation than most European languages, and I have never detected any difference in the speech or writing of a Moldovan vs. a Romanian. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:41, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

No real expert argued that they are different. Ethnologue does not even assign a code for "Moldavian", it simply links to Romanian. (as an example, in Italy it has codes for more than a dozen "languages" such as standard Italian, Judeo-Italian, Napoletano-Calabrese, Sicilian, Emigliano-Romano, Ligurian, Lombardian, Piemontese, Venetian, etc)

In Moldavian speech there are a couple of minor differences pronounciation (soft "c" is sometimes pronounced "ş" and "e" is pronounced "ie" and that's about all) and there are a few words preferred (for example "curechi" instead of "varză" for cabbage, in this case, "curechi" is also of Latin origin, from "cauliculus")

However, differences, sometimes even greater, can be found in Transylvanian, Maramureşan or Banatian (for example, in Banat speech, "te" is sometimes pronounced "če", vowels are enlonged and stress sometimes changed), but nobody claims Banatian is a different language. bogdan ʤjuʃkə | ^Talk 19:52, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

"Real expert" is not NPOV. A few experts argue now and have in the past that Moldovan is a separate language, but these people aren't generally listened to because their theories don't make much sense. However, outside of Romania, many experts will tell you that the division between language, dialect, and even one language and itself is completely arbitrary. See, for example, the attempts to split Serbo-Croatian on a religious basis -- Eastern Orthodox people speak "Serbian", Catholics speak "Croatian", and Muslims speak "Bosnian". Some people even lobby for the recognition of a "Montenegrin language". This is true, as is noted at the article language. Some people believe that Cantonese is a dialect of Chinese, while others believe it's an independent language. Some believe Serbian is a dialect of Serbo-Croatian (what's even more ridiculous is that Muslims in Serbia speak Bosnian, even though their speech and wrting is identical to the E. Orthodox people surrounding them), others believe it's an independent language. The official Moldovan language is, surely, not very different. However, actual spoken language differs to a great degree. "Moldovan" is anything from the purist official language, to the Ukrainian-Romanian creole/mixed language used by some young Moldovans of Russian heritage (ie, sometimes using "vsyo", Russian for "all", to pluralise Romanian singular pronouns, incorporating many Russian words, using calques of Russian idioms, mixing Russian and Romanian grammar, switching between languages). In between, there is a huge continuum. Most young Moldovans of Romano-Moldovan heritage also speak in a way that incorporates more Slavic (mostly Ukrainian and Russian) loanwords than that used by their conterparts in, say, Bucharest or Cluj-Napoca. To extreme nationalists like Duca, this is a "bastardisation" of the beautiful Romanian language. But, it is a very natural linguistic phenomenon, and is one of the few things which is uniquely Moldovan. Also, when speaking Russian or Ukrainian, young Moldovans of Slavic heritage often incorporate Romanian words and grammar.

I do not argue that Moldovan and Romanian, at least in their official forms, are vastly different. I simply argue for the right to call a "separate language" or not from person to person due to the fact that division between languages is already arbitrary.

Node 02:16, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

What are you suggesting in terms of the specific content of the article? john k 02:33, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

That's difficult to say. I just don't think we should say outright that Moldovan and Romanian are one language. We can demonstrate their extreme similarity by example, sure. We can say that "The only real differences between the official varieties are:", etc. We also don't make such judgements regarding, for example, Flemish or Cantonese, but rather present objective evidence and let people draw their own conclusions. But I don't think that's a big issue here. What I care most about it stating that Romanian is the official language of Moldova. If Romanian is the official language in Moldova, then Moldovan is the official language in Romania. --Node

Not true - two thirds of Moldovans believe that the language they speak is Romanian. No Romanian believes that the language they speak is Moldovan. The situations are not symmetrical. john k 01:49, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

We're talking about official language. Not what people speak. Certainly, it can be said without any reservations that Romanian is spoken widely in Moldova, as 2/3rds of Moldovans declare it as their mother tongue. Yet, it cannot be said that Romanian is the official language of Moldova. The official language is Moldovan. Though law declares it is identical to Romanian, it does not say "The official language is Romanian", and so the official language is Moldovan. --Node

Node, Romanian and Moldovan are actually identical, not similar, that's the true, and no one can change that. Even the authorities in Chişinău, couldn't do that, and they now support the idea of Romanian language. The point of Moldovenism (Moldovan language), is the POV of a single linguist, something Valeri, or Vladimir I don't know how, if you need his name, I'll do a search. But not the point of all world. And in the United Kingdom, as well as in the United States, that theory is not supported. Node, why do you keep reverting? You know if you revert more then 3-times a day you could get banned. When you changed the page for the first time, you didn't discuss it here. And I objected, so I don't see why the pege shouldn't have been reverted and the discussion shouldn't have begined here. BTW, best wishes to the families of the casualties in the London attacks, Romania supports you. So far I know, there is also a missing Romanian woman. :( --Danutz

Node, I also have a proposal: "I just don't think we should say outright that Moon is made out of rocks. We can demonstrate their extreme similarity by example, sure..." bogdan ʤjuʃkə | ^Talk 07:09, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

The difference is, division between languages is often arbitrary. See language. Determination of the composition of a compound, however, is a concrete science and there are firmly established standards. Swedish and Danish are languages, Serbian and Croatian are languages, yet Cantonese and Mandarin are dialects. Especially rediculous is the distinction between Bosnian and Croatian. They are, quite literally, identical (there are a handful of differences, but then this is also the case with Moldovan and Romanian, and as with Moldovan and Romanian, the differences are just tendencies and they can be used both ways in either language). Now some people are pushing for a separate Montenegrin language, which is without a doubt identical to Serbian. Venet and Sicilian are both regarded as dialects of Italian, as are Lombard and Lazian (speech of Rome area), yet they are mutually incomprehensible. Lao and Thai are separate, Malay and Indonesian are separate, yet Tamazigh and Kabyle are dialects. Yet, the moon is most definitely made of "rocks", although there is a theory that its crust is made of ice, and there may be other substances as well. There is no ambiguity here -- either something is made of rocks, or it isn't. The same standard is applied in all cases, which isn't true for languages. Thus, Romanian and Moldovan, though only a smidgeon different in their official forms (â/î -> î, sunt -> sînt), may or may not be "languages". And being a separate language doesn't mean it's differnet at all, or very much. --Node 08:39, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Node, I allready explained that the new "â" is slowly imposed in Moldova also. Then: Swedish and Danish and Norwegian are all different, I learned a little bit of all. Serbian and Croatian are distinct. Serbo-croatian is considered a movement before separation of Yugoslavia, trying to apropiate Crotian to Serbian. Bosnian, is kind of Croatian + Serbian (it has two versions to a big amounth of words). You said yourself: "they are quite literally, identical". Moldovan is identical to Romanian even by law, so not "quite identical", just "identical". There is no Montenegrin language. Some push for American language, but that doesn't mean there is such a language. The â/î is not considered a difference, because both versions are in use both in Romania and Moldova. You should see the differences between Português do Portugal and Português do Brasil. Or the differences between Dutch in Holland, Belgium and Suriname, before the reform. --Danutz

So, would you care to outline the differences between Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian, such as words that can't be used in the other language, or grammar that doesn't work? Saying that there is a Bosnian language, but there isn't a Montenegrin language, is patently absurd. Here I am talking about differences in official varieties, not how real people write or speak. In speech, Moldovan and Romanian differ because Moldovan uses a higher rate of Slavic loanwords due to a long period of Soviet occupation and colonisation. You explained that â is imposed slowly in Moldova... well what about the fact that some Romanians still use î/î? One of the most rediculous nationalist rhetoric is when Romanian people whinge about how communists are trying to make Romanian more similar to Russian by writing â as î, and make it different from other Romance languages, when in fact they are pronounced identically. If there is so much differences between Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian, than what about sh.wiki? Do all Serbians, Croatians, and Bosnians use the official spelling? Not really... especially in Serbia, it's very ambiguous, and "Croatian" can usually be called "Serbian" as well and there will be no argument of improper grammar. --Node

Yes, I would: Have a look here. I thought, that since it is a Wikipedia article, you are aware of it. Actually Croatian has three dialects, in fact they are verry different, so it cannot be usually called "Serbian". About, â/î: both are still in use in Romania. In fact (at least in Romania, in Moldova I don't know) you would not be charged in exams if you use the old spelling. As I told you, Bosnian is something like Sebian+Croatian, a transition language, as you can see in the article I have pointed. --Danutz

But these are just differences in official languages (that's what the article is called, as a matter of fact): the people themselves use something somewhere in between much of the time. Similarly, there are differences between the __official language__ of Moldova and the current official language of Romania: i^ vs a^, and si^nt vs sunt. These, like in Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian, are purely official and not reflected perfectly in the population (I believe someone said earlier that 60% of Moldovans prefer i^ and i^, and 80% of Romanians prefer a^ and i^; also people with less education are sometimes not good at spelling a^ vs i^ since you have to memorise it).

It also says in that article's first paragraph: "The various nuances aren't nearly as linguistically important as is the symbolic value that is assigned to them by their ethnically, religiously, socially and politically diverse group of speakers."

Also, nearly every single form on that page is considered acceptable in the other languages as well. For this reason, there is in addition to separate Wikipedias, a unified Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia, where they use ^Stovakian dialect which is the basis for all three.

Also there is the difference in the scripts. While not written in Cyrillic officially anymore, it can still be found in Cyrillic, and all documents from the Soviet period use Cyrillic. Also, Transdniester still uses Cyrillic officially, and occasionally you can find translations of things into "Moldovan" using Cyrillic ("Chick Tracts" have a couple of Moldovan-cyrillic translations, there is one of an Asterix book, and various others; also there is a Moldovan-cyrillic version of the Constitutional Court of Moldova's official website, and it can be found in many informal contexts online, mixed with Romanian in Latin, and with Russian.)

--67.42.33.221 (node)

And what are we talking about now? Not about the regulated languages? Because if we are talking about the spoken language, than I cannot (sincerly) find any difference between the î and â...

Now let me clarify the use of â and î. I gived you the percentage and it was:

Moldova: 54% â - 46% î Romania: 83% â - 17% î

So the use of î is inferior in both cases. You said: "also people with less education are sometimes not good at spelling a^ vs i^ since you have to memorise it". Since you seem to not know how â and î work, I'll tell you: There is a rule, that everybody learns in first grade, so if you donnot know the rule is just like donnot know how to write. Then, the rule is simple. Words beginning and ending with the sound "î/â" are spelled with î (examples: "începe", "hotărî" and others). Words that are containing the sound "î/â" are spelled with â (examples: "râu", "câte", "atât" and others). Words that are formed with prefixes like "re-", "de-" from words that are starting with î, keep their î, even though, the sound is not situated at the beginning of the word: reîncepe (re-începe), deînmulţit (de-înmulţit). --Danutz

Small differences in orthography do not amount to a different language. If it did, one would have to say that Americans speak a different language than anyone in the UK. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:52, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

Jmabel, some people claim that American is a separate language. Also, the differences between Bosnian and Croatian are all orthographical differences. As I said before, the division of what is and what is not a "language" is completely arbitrary, and is often based on sociopolitical reasons rather than actual linguistic reasons. --Node

The differences between the Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian are greater, including grammar. You won't find any difference in grammar between Moldovan and Romanian, no matter how much you'd search.Also, Bosnian has some important differences in vocabulary, having many more Turkish or Arabian loanwords than Serbian and Croatian. bogdan ʤjuʃkə | ^Talk 08:49, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Oh, including grammar? Is that so? Do you speak any of these languages? Please provide me with a genuine difference, other than spelling, something that constitutes acceptable usage in one of them but not in another. Even most Serbians, Bosnians, and Croatians agree that they only speak one language. --Node

Serbians commonly use the Balkan-style of constructions using the subjunctive, while the Croatians use the classic Slavic way with the infinitive. ("Želim da pišem" in Serbian vs. "Želim pisati" in Croatian). bogdan ʤjuʃkə | ^Talk 05:39, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

This is nationalist use of language: either can be used equally correctly in either country. --Node

Node I certainly agree that the division of what is and what is not a "language" is arbitrary, at least when used polemically, rather than by linguists. I doubt that any qualified linguist would deny that Romanian and Moldovan are the same language.

Do you know Max Weinreich's statement that "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy"? That seems to be exactly what is going on here. Only more so, because I don't think Moldovan qualifies by any reasonable standard as even a dialect. -- Jmabel | Talk 17:42, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

Jmabel, even in the context of linguistics, there is no widely agreed-upon definition of what is or is not a language. Romanian and Moldovan, in their official forms, are a perfect, albeit extreme, example of ausbau languages. In their normal, everyday spoken forms, there are more differences, as spoken Moldovan tends to incorporate more Slavic words (mostly from modern Russian and Ukrainian), while spoken Romanian generally uses French, Italian, and English words instead. Children from mixed Slav-Romanian marriages in Moldova, and in some cases children of two Russian or Ukrainian parents who went to a Moldovan-medium school, can be considered to have a Moldovan creole as their native language. This language is also spoken by most people whose first language is Romanian/Moldovan, although they tend not to use it amongst themselves. Due to the nature of discourse between Slavs and Romanians in Moldova, in informal speech they both incorporate many words from each other, since Slavs speak largely in Russian to Romanians, and Romanians quite often respond in Moldovan, there is also a phenomenon there that does not exist in Romania. These varieties have not been studied. Spoken Moldovan has also undergone a little bit of simplification of grammar (in informal settings only), due to the gradual linguistic assimilation of Slavs, similar to what happened to Portuguese in Brazil (grammatical differences from informal spoken Moldovan to formal Moldovan however are definitely not as big as between Brazilian and European portuguese, as there was a long period of seperation between Brazil and Portugal which did not occur in ths case). --Node

But, presumably the Moldovan that the constitution considers official, the language that is taught in schools, is precisely Romanian, not the creole that may be developing. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:32, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Again, Jmabel, Moldovan isn't Romanian, they're different because Moldovan also encompasses other varieties, and also because they're separate ausbau langauges. --Node

Node, I'm sure you were not in Moldova, because I was many times, and people there used to speak Russian more than Romanian, but those speaking Romanian use the same language as in Romania. Peasents may have a different accent, simillar to that in Romanian Moldova, but the language is the same. What is that, that Moldovan uses more Slavic words? They don't. They use words, perfectly understandble in Romania, because I always understood what they say. Moldovan has no varieties, Romanian may have some, like the language spoken in Muntenia, the one in Banat, the one in Crişana, and the one in Moldova. But in Moldova, all people speak the same variety. Then, the language spoken in Moldova was always Romanian, and only according to one theory they formed themselves separatly (I guess that is what you by "ausbau", german for construction). But most Romanian language lingivsts in Romania and Moldova say they formed together. The sole questions is wether Romanian formed to the north or to the south of Danube (questioned by Roesler's theory) but not wether it has formed to the east or to the west of the river Nistru. --Danutz

And when was it you were in R.Moldova? Did you talk to any young people? Did you see any young people talking to each other?

Also, you're quite uneducated linguistically if you think "ausbau language" (also Ausbausprache) means that they formed separately. What it means is, they're basically identical, but they have different names and parallel official forms, even though they developed together. It's a term frequently applied in sociolinguistic contexts, and partner terms are "dachsprache" and "aubstandsprache". --Node 20:57, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

cases of romanian lang

• collapsing Latin's five cases into two, the nominative/accusative and genitive/dative - now im not expert on linguistics, so i ask you to put a few quick examples on how did ROmanian collapsed the 5 cases of latin into two. I know romanian has nominative, accusative, genitive, dative and vocative, i dont understand the current formulation "two cases, nominative/accusative and genitive/dative" -- Criztu 19:14, 18 July 2005 (UTC)