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History of Moldovan language

Between January 22, 2006 and December 1, 2008, an article History of the Moldovan language also existed. It was then decided to merge its contents into the articles History of the Romanian language (sections 1 & 2), Moldovenism (section 3), and into this article (intro, section 4, biblio, cats, and the talk page). Below is the cut and paste version of the talk page of that article. For the history of that talk page, type Talk:History of the Moldovan language, click on "Redirected from ..." and chose "history".

Why the article split?

I am just wondering. Was it simply to pull the content people were not arguing about out and put it somewhere? It does not leave very much in the other article. Dalf | Talk 11:21, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Because this part is getting very long. The other article is supposed to talk about Moldovan, the current official language of Moldova and what happend hundreds of years ago is only marginally relevant to that article. bogdan 11:28, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Ok, seems like a good reason. Sometimes I think people split articles too quickly or for bad reasons. A lot of the best featured articles are quite long. But there does seem to be a good argument for having them seperate. Does the article on ROmanian also link here? I think a line or two mentioning Moldova and a like here (and there) might be worthwhile. Dalf | Talk 11:33, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
I put a link in Romanian language. It should link eventually have a link in the history section, but currently that section has little on the modern history of Romanian language. bogdan 11:41, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Sections added by Bonaparte

I suspect that the large section of this article originally added by Bonaparte is a direct translation from a copyrighted work in Romanian -- he has only one reference for the whole thing, despite the fact that it's paragraphs long. It's also poorly written, and most of it repeats things already written elsewhere in the article using different, less neutral, wording. I think we should remove it entirely, and if not that, it definitely needs a lot of work. --Node 11:26, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

An observation

In this version of this page, it is possible for a casual reader to get most of the way through the article without realizing that the Moldovan and Romanian languages are basically the same thing. silsor 03:31, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Why did you delete my addition on Latcu?

I do not understand why Node_ue deleted my text, for it has sources and he can read moldovan. Dpotop 11:21, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Can he? Alexander 007 07:05, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
I may have fibbed regarding my abilities in the language, but I can certainly read it more or less, even if my writing and speaking may cause laughter and/or tears. Your language is much easier to read than it is to write. The cases, dear God, they are a nightmare. --Node (talk) 06:50, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

From Washington D.C.

I found an interesting book: The Soviet Empire: a Study in Discrimination and Abuse of Power, prepared by the Legislative Reference Service, Library of Congress, at the request of the Subcommitee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and other Internal Security Laws of the Commitee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, printed for the use of the Commitee on the Judiciary, Commitee Print, 89th Congress, 1st Session, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402, 1965. Among the passages I will quote: pg. 106:

"Linguistic aggression is one of the foremost operational devices used in furthering the Communist goal of Russifying the multinational Soviet state. Briefly, the Soviet political leadership seeks 1) to break down the native linguistic structure within the various non-Russian societies ; 2) to impose the Russian language upon all sectors of Soviet life; 3) to effect a merging of all Soviet peoples based on Russian-Communist norms; and 4) ultimately to create a Communist state, totally unified and commanding the undiluted loyalties from all its citizenry whose system of values derive wholly from Communist ideology."---Alexander 007---06:16, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
pg. 107:"The implication of Soviet theory is clear that historically languages of the nationalities are doomed; for during the period of transition from socialism to communism measures will be taken, and indeed have already been taken, to accelerate the process of merging the multinational Soviet state into one nation based on the Russian language and Russian culture. Khrushchev made this point fairly clear in his address to the 22d Party Congress when he said that national languages may be used, but their development "must not lead to any accentuation of national barriers; on the contrary, it should lead to a coming together of nations." Khrushcev thus reaffirmed what Soviet theoreticians have been saying for a long time." ---Alexander 007 06:35, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Here, pg. 111, speaking of the situation in the North Caucasus region alone, not to mention other regions:"In the late 1930s the Soviet regime, pursuing its policy of linguistic fractionalization and national discrimination, invented 13 literary languages; imposed the Cyrillic alphabet;..."---Alexander 007 06:55, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Does it mention Romanian? --Candide, or Optimism 09:19, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

The book is a slim report running only to 177 pages (not counting appendices and the index); the section on the Soviet linguistic policies does not appear to have a section on Romanian in Moldova; maybe I will write to them and ask them for literature on the matter. Alexander 007 09:25, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
In Appendix A of course it lists Moldovans as an ethnic group speaking Romanian (pg. 179). Alexander 007 09:28, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Here's more, pg. 117:"Measures have been taken in Lithuania, similar to those already accomplished in the Moslem East, to replace the Latin alphabet with a new "Lithuanian" type of printing whose characters are similar to or identical with the Russian Cyrillic. The new script, designed by the Moscow Experimental-Scientific Polygraphic Institute, is expected to be introduced in 1965. Ostensibly, the "scientific" and "medical" arguments for the change are based on the unsuitability of the Lithuanian alphabet, particularly its "negative effect on the nervous system and the eyesight". The real political objective motivating the change however, is the desire to create more favorable conditions for assimilation." ---Alexander 007 10:10, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
It's pretty clear that these cock-sucking Soviet scum were just interested in exploiting and fucking people over. And the actions of these scumbags lives on: in the cock-sucking, shit-faced, shit-reeking edits of some editors around here. I'll kill and piss in the mouth of anyone who supports Soviet scum, and furthermore support their murder in public. Alexander 007 13:09, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
If I didn't know you're such a womanizer, I'd have said that the verbal violence is a syndrome of having no date on St. Valentine. :-) bogdan 23:02, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

To: Romanizators and Originalists

(copied from archives of Talk:Moldovan language), since this section is relevant to this sub-article). `'mikka (t) 00:58, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Romanizators: И.О. Дическу-Дик, А.П. Дымбул, А.А. Залик, А.А. Николау, Н.Г. Плоештяну, Е.З. Арборе-Ралли, Е.И. Багров, В.П. Попович, Г.И. Старый
  • Originalists: И.И. Бадеев, Г.И. Бучушкан, Л.А. Мадан, И.А. Малай, И.В. Очинский

AFAIK almost all of them were repressed. Are their names remembered? mikka (t) 07:44, 10 November 2005 (UTC)


What are the original words for these terms? Romanizators just sounds horrible, and I would prefer romanisers. I ask about originalists too, as there might be a better English word for them. --Gareth Hughes 23:54, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I have honestly never heard of these terms before I read them here. I also find it very hard to believe that in Stalin's Soviet Union and even before and after, people actually could afford to take independent stances on something like this and not expect to be murdered, sentenced to a GULAG or declared insaine (a practice that was very common in the USSR). In the USSR, there was very little room for independent thinking or research. Everything came from the top and was extensively regulated. Therefore, I think that these waves of Cyrillic script and then Latin script and then Cyrillic script, reflected rather the new intentions or policies of the top leadership, rather then the so called Romanizators and Originalizators or whatever they are called here. In fact, I even doubt that these movements existed at all. If there is a refference to them in Soviet literature or sources, then first of all anything Soviet should be analyzed carefully and secondly one should keep in mind that these terms may be used by Soviets in order to give off the impression that an actual Originalist movement existed that wanted a sepparate Moldovan language. Constantzeanu 00:05, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

The biggest problem with the article is probably the fact that it's too big, make it smaller, make it express the main idea: it's official language in moldova as noted in constitution, it's written in latin script, it's considered by the majority to be identical to Romanian. I don't see how the history of languages in moldova made it into the article about "moldovan" language, move it to history of moldova or something :) When it will be smaller, there will be less differences and easier to solve them. Just a tag


I agree but a little history is sometimes useful, because it explains how we ended up with something called "moldovan". Again like AdiJapan said, this article is not really about a language, rather about the name of a language( very similar to the Flemish case)Constantzeanu 00:54, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

These terms are taken by me from a Russian article. Russian terms: румынизаторы, самобытники; the translation, I confess, is mine. "Romanizer" is not the same as "Romanizator": the latter one is the one who supports Romanization. "Самобытник" is from "samobytny", the word means "original", "genuine", in the contexts of indigenous and folk cultures. "Самобытник" was a pretty common word of the time, but it fell into disuse in modern Russian. Therefore I belive the author didn't "invent" the word. I no longer have the artile (Галущенко О. Борьба между румынизаторами и самобытниками в Молдавской АССР (20-е годы), Ежегодный исторический альманах Приднестровья. - 2002. - № 6. - С. 61 - 71. ), but here is a link to another one, of the same author:(in Russian).

You may want to recognize these names:

  • Romanizators: И.О. Дическу-Дик, А.П. Дымбул, А.А. Залик, А.А. Николау, Н.Г. Плоештяну, Е.З. Арборе-Ралли, Е.И. Багров, В.П. Попович, Г.И. Старый
  • Originalists: И.И. Бадеев, Г.И. Бучушкан, Л.А. Мадан, И.А. Малай, И.В. Очинский

Constantzeanu: as to "find it very hard to believe", you probably have to practice more. You will be surprized. Still, you are partially right. Nearly all people from both lists eventually landed in gulag. mikka (t) 02:33, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

How about "Romanianisers"?
And for those here who can't read Cyrillic, translits of the names into modern Moldovn latin.
Romanizators: "I.O. Dicescu-Dic, A.P. Dîmbul, A.A. Zalic, A.A. Nicolau, N.G. Ploieşteanu, E.Z. Arbore-Ralli, E.I. Bagrov, V.P. Popovici, G.I. Starîi"
Originalists: "I.I. Badeiev, G.I. Buciuşcan, L.A. Madan, I.A. Malai, I.V. Ocinschii". --Node 07:28, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

BTW, only now I paid an attention that the author is from Transnistria, and I may easily guess how it will be percieved here. Anyway, you have names. You may find more names from the provided link and find yourself how these people called themselves and what were their positions. mikka (t) 02:35, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Russian in Moldova

"In 2002, the government of Moldova gave the Russian language the same privileges as Moldovan. " I am not sure what this statement is supposed to mean. The Communist Party wanted to make Russian co-official, but that was never realized in the face of continuous protests, so Russian cannot possibly have the same priveleges as Romanian. TSO1D 01:51, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Politically

"Politically called" is bad English and also it's not supported by references. Alæxis¿question? 10:19, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh really? You haven't read the full article then.--Tones benefit 13:37, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Another form was proposed--Tones benefit 13:05, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

ok, but you still have to find source for this. Alæxis¿question? 16:04, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Newest changes

Thanks Illythr... the fact remains that a lot of that info was added by Bonaparte, and I know in other articles similar text was often translated verbatim from a source, which is inappropriate without quotations. It would be nice if we could find the sources he cited to see how much the text relies on them. --Node (talk) 05:55, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, by the looks of it, all of Bonny's additions to this article were reverted. Some of the sources used are clearly Romanian (perhaps it's the #3 one everywhere?), but this article is slowly getting into shape (it's got a long way to go yet,though). There is a redundancy in the Phases chapter which I am unsure how to integrate intoo the rest of the text... --Illythr (talk) 22:49, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Some sources

Besides Descriptio Moldaviae, just really quickly, here are some additianal ones:

--Moldopodotalk 10:40, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

To Biruitorul

Moldovan and Moldavian are written the same in Russian. I don't think "Moldovan" was ever used in English before 1990, with "Moldavian" used instead.Xasha (talk) 10:51, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, I don't think this is that important an issue next to all the others, but perhaps it would be better to settle on a single standard rather than alternating between them within the very same article. Biruitorul Talk 14:34, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Merge first sections

The first few sections discussing the history of the language should be merged with History of the Romanian language, and a separate article should be created specifically for the dispute between Moldovan=Romanian and Moldovan is a stand-alone language. The current setup is misleading. --Gutza T T+ 20:26, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Strong opose. As long as sources talk about "Moldavian" it would be a severe breach of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH to substitute this lingvonym with Romanian.Xasha (talk) 12:02, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Support complete removal. Grigore Ureche, Jan Długosz, Dimitrie Cantemir are primary sources. See WP:OR and WP:SYNTH:
Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors. bogdan (talk) 12:24, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
The opinions of those authors are stated and rightly attributed. No "interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims". On the other hand, moving these opinions to the "History of the Romanian language" is exactly that, i.e. "analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors".Xasha (talk) 12:39, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Let's get one thing straight: There is no distinct Moldovan language, at least not from a linguistic point of view. "Moldovan" is only an alternative name for the Romanian language. As such, this whole article should be merged with History of the Romanian language. If that article becomes too large, then I would agree to have a separate sub-article for the history of Romanian in the territory of Bessarabia and Moldova.

If we're talking about the history of the name "Moldovan language", which is a different matter altogether, that should be discussed at Moldovan language, together with all the other information about the dispute. — AdiJapan 15:51, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Come back when you get rid of this propaganda mindset.Xasha (talk) 16:20, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
That's just plain rude. — AdiJapan 03:57, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I removed the part from Cantemir because it's obsolete scolarship: there are quite a few things he says that are false. You should try to use modern sources, not a 300-years old source. bogdan (talk) 15:55, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Nobody claims what Cantemir said is absolutely true (because he did get a lot of thing right), the article just says "This 18th century scholar thought so".Xasha (talk) 16:20, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
What's the point in including wrong information and obsolete in this article? Wikipedia is supposed to include the current accepted scholarship, not what was thought to be true three centuries ago.
Wikipedia, and any serious encyclopedia, is full of obsolete and "wrong" information, which are presented in their right context. If you want only up-to date info, go to wikinews. Also, in controversial topics "obsolete" and "wrong" are a matter of POV.Xasha (talk) 16:45, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
No, Wikipedia should present the scientific consensus. Old primary sources should be used only through the lens of a modern secondary source. BTW, in the paragraph you left out, it was wrong that there were any Italian loans before the modern era: the words Cantemir assumed to be from Italian were from Vulgar Latin. bogdan (talk) 16:50, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
For example, vorbă is clearly not from Latin verbum, şchiop is not borrowed from Italian, it's from Vulgar Latin; and there are other misunderstandings and wrong claims. bogdan (talk) 16:35, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

The history of the "Moldovan language" - the official language of the Republic of Moldova - begins in 1924. To claim otherwise is a misleading form of synthesis and original research. Cantemir, Ureche et al. were speaking about Romanian (remember there was no Romanian state in their time, but there certainly was a Moldavian one). So were the Imperial Russian authorities. That history all belongs to the Romanian language. It was only in 1924 (or thereabouts) that the Soviet authorities embarked on a conscious new project to create a new language (albeit claiming earlier references to a Moldovan language as "proof" that their creation had a historical basis), giving birth to the "Moldovan language". So it's time for a restructuring here.
And Xasha, you don't win arguments (especially with AdiJapan, who knows a thing or two about languages) by referring to your opponent's "propaganda mindset". Biruitorul Talk 16:49, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

That's just your OR. Those authors call the language Moldavian, not Romanian, not Klingon. Also per WP:OR:

"To the extent that part of an article relies on a primary source, it should:

  • only make descriptive claims about the information found in the primary source, the accuracy and applicability of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge, and
  • make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about the information found in the primary source. "

This is exactly what it's in the article, so you are breaking the policy by removing them. If AdiJapan claims to be a specialist, he should contribute under its real name (like Bogdan does?) and have its identity verified, otherwise its no more specialist that an anonymous IP.Xasha (talk) 16:57, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but Biruitorul is right on the money. Every reputable scholarly reference I've read regarding "Moldavian" spoken in the Principality of Moldavia has been clear to indicate it's Romanian simply called "Moldavian" out of mostly ignorance. (Western Europeans simply called it that because that was the name of the place where the people spoke it.)
   The history of what is called Moldovan today started with the USSR.
   That Moldavian is used to refer to Moldovan today has nothing to do with the "Moldavian" of the Principality of Moldavia. THAT is nothing but pure POV pushing, with Voronin right at the top of the heap. —PētersV (talk) 19:15, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
Those are not just some westen europeans, they are two Moldavian scholars, one of them ruling Moldavia for a short time, so now you're claiming the authors didn't know the "right" way to call their language.
If the history of what is called today Romanian began in the late 19th century, then maybe is comparable to say Moldavian started with the USSR.
"Moldovan" is just a new name imposed politically in English for what until the early 90s was known as "Moldavian". Just like Kiev instantly became Kiyv overnight (the fact that Kiev was more widely known in the English world prevented an early adoption of the new name in English).Xasha (talk) 19:34, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
You forgot to mention that Cantemir himself (the Moldavian scholar who ruled the principality for a while) said that the language is actually called Romanian in another chronicle. --Gutza T T+ 20:14, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
AdiJapan, I'm sorry for the ambiguity. I was proposing moving the data from those sections in History of the Romanian language as long as it's still relevant for the Romanian language -- claiming that Cantemir or Ureche were indeed proposing the existence of a stand alone Moldovan language is obviously preposterous (but then again, I've even seen it done with Negruzzi, so there's little that can surprise me now). --Gutza T T+ 17:11, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry, Xasha, that's nonsense. Some modern Western sources for you:
Glanville Price: "The foremost literary name in 18th century Romania was ... Cantemir, who, in addition to numerous ... works in Latin, Greek and Romanian, wrote ... the first Romanian novel, Istoria hieroglifică.
Alex Drace-Francis: "[Neam] was the term most used by the earliest Romanian writers to reflect on Romanian history, language and origins, such as Miron Costin and Dimitrie Cantemir."
Manfred Beller: "...surviving manuscripts of the first native chronice of Moldavian history in Romanian, compiled by Grigore Ureche..."
Note: Romanian, not Klingon. One could go on, but it's pretty clear that the Moldavian spoken of in the 17th-early 19th centuries is an entirely different entity from the Soviet, post-1924 Moldovan. One forms part of the development of the Romanian language; the other was created, out of thin air, for propagandistic (and irredentist) purposes.
Finally: we can let Adi speak for himself (not "itself") on this matter, but he does actually know a fair amount (certainly more than I) on the subject and it would be wise to treat his opinions with a bit more respect. Biruitorul Talk 18:52, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
You ask me to believe someone who talk about Romania in the 18th century? Unless he's somehow exagerating the extent of Rumelia, using its Greek name, that's not just an opinion, but an outright counterfactual information. The other source have a similar character, by claiming authors didn't know in what language they wrote. As for the development of Soviet era, it was just an attempt to standardization of the more or less variated local dialects, that, even if ideological motivated, was closer to the language of these authors than the the mix between East Romance grammar and French lexis we call today Romanian (which was no less ideologically motivated).Xasha (talk) 19:42, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Michelangelo was from Italy. Beethoven was from Germany. Suleiman the Magnificent was from Turkey. Gogol was from Ukraine. None of these statements is true in the sense that they are anachronistic and those states did not exist at the time, but we understand what they're saying nonetheless. Personally, I wouldn't write in a scholarly work that Cantemir was from "Romania", but we still know what's being said, and in any case, the work is about language, not geopolitics. The point remains the same: reliable sources agree with my version (Romanian developed in Moldavia as much as in Wallachia, "Moldovan" didn't appear until 1924) and not yours. Biruitorul Talk 01:34, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Xasha, the problem with your claims is that it's your synthesis that leads to the conclusion that Moldovan was intended to be treated as a stand-alone language at that point. True, the sources do indeed include the words "Moldavian language", but unless we have secondary sources confirming the intention of differentiating from Romanian it's reasonable to assume "Moldavian" and "Romanian" were synonyms. For example, see here. --Gutza T T+ 19:21, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
There's no synthesis. The article doesn't say Moldavian is not Romanian because Ureche and Cantemir said so, it just says these authors called their language "Moldavian". So unless we have neutral (i.e. non-Romanian and non-Moldovan, for obvious reasons) secondary sources to confirm that "Moldavian" didn't mean something different from "Romanian", we'll just leave those early modern authors to express their opinions, without our personal view on them. We are not allowed to assume on our own, even if it lloks reasonable to you. Also, applying views on the modern post 1980s Moldovan language (which shares the literary form with Romanian) to the 18th century is nothing but clear original synthesis.Xasha (talk) 19:42, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
This is why I initiated a RfC -- I don't want to make this a Romanian vs. Moldovan (or in your case, Russian) thing, so let's see what other recommendations we receive from non-involved parties. --Gutza T T+ 19:47, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
That's gross bad faith, and I demand you to take back you view on my ethnicity, unless you can prove it.Xasha (talk) 19:52, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry if you find the Russian ethnicity offensive, I didn't mean to insult you -- I apologise, I take it back and I will avoid calling you that ever again. I have based my assumption on the username you have chosen, corroborated with the fact that you have explicitly avoided an ethnic self-determination ("I'm from Moldova" as opposed to "I'm a Moldovan"). Again, I'm very sorry if you found that offensive.--Gutza T T+ 19:57, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Applying ethnicity based on personal stereotypes in the way you did is always offensive, no matter the ethnicity. The assumption from the name shows that you have little knowledge of life in Moldova, and the second shows that you care more about the form tha the essence (i.e. you apply stereotypes based on ethnicity). I'm curios, what ethnicity do you think Bogdan is, since he has a Slavic name, "avoids an ethnic self-determination", and just says he lives in Bucharest, Romania?
I'm sorry, what stereotype exactly did I offend you with? --Gutza T T+ 20:27, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
In a completely different train of thoughts, you should be aware that you're proposing a revolutionary theory which would turn the entire field of linguistics upside down. You're proposing that two independent languages evolved together, and then, when separated, they ended up with a common literary form -- that's red hot stuff. --Gutza <;small>T T+ 19:57, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Nothing revolutionary. Two related languages that evolved more or less separately (as much as two languages in a dialect continuum could do) that, after the aberrant Stalinist policy discredited a literary standard based on one of the languages, tacitly adopted a common literary form, which is much closer to one of the vernaculars than to the other.Xasha (talk) 20:19, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
But... didn't that also happen naturally to the half of Moldavia that ended up as part of Romania? Or were they forced to learn the "new" language by the powers that be? I must say I'm fascinated by your acrobatics, I'm always looking forward to see what you're going to pull out of the hat next -- however, time permitting, you should take a look at Occam's razor. --Gutza T T+ 20:27, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Centralized state education is the most powerfull propaganda tool. After more than 100 years of compulsory study of the Wallachia-based standard, depicting the Moldavian language as a language of the lower and uneducated classes, and purging any use of the Moldavian vernacular from the media, of course this standard was finally accepted in Western Moldavia (as standard French was adopted over whole France). Even nowadays, people from Western Moldavia (who came to call their language Romanian) are being made fun of for they vernacular when they go outside Moldavia. That's quite simple, and Romania is not the only country where more related language were supressed in favour of one literary standard.Xasha (talk) 20:54, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
This is truly remarkable -- you've written an entire self-contained parallel history! Let's explore this further. How did the children learn the new language when Moldavia joined Romania? Were they forced to use Romanian in school while still using Moldavian at home? Were teachers sent from Bucharest to shove Romanian proper down their throats? Do we have records of their feeling alien in the new oppressing system, which surely stifled their culture? Or are native Moldovans incapable of such feelings -- or incapable of culture whatsoever in their own language? --Gutza T T+ 21:18, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
If you take the official Romanian propaganda as reference, it may be, if you take history, is just a simplified version of what happened. The same way children of minorities around the world learn the official languages. Plus grammar was almost the same and some basic words were common. Basically yes (you should hear how some Moldovan students in Romania speak with their co-nationals and then compare the way they speak with Romanian students/teachers). That too, especially during communist times. I'm sure such accounts could be found, even if they are repressed by the Romanian propaganda. Mosty had to integrate in the Romanian culture, some continuing to use the vernacular(see Creanga's book with a dozen pages of dictionary). Isn't that curious that while in the 19th century most "Romanian" men of culture were from Moldavia, while after WW I, when the first generation of Romania-educated pupils came to maturity, most were from other regions (with exceptions like Sadoveanu still occasionaly calling the language Moldavian)?Xasha (talk) 22:57, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Yes, quite, let's indeed see that famous Creanga's book with a dozen pages of dictionary -- you mentioned it before, people told you no such thing existed and now you're using that fantasy again. Can we please find some closure for that once and for all? "Grammar was almost the same and some basic words were common"?! I don't know where you're taking that from, but it surely isn't history. Regarding your assertion about "Romanian" men of culture hailing from Moldavia, aren't you shooting your own foot perchance? (Not that I'm buying it, but even if I had.) --Gutza T T+ 23:13, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Maybe I'll make a video of it one of these days and post it somewhere on the web. You can't blaim me for the work of a Romanian publishing house. Grammar is quite stable, so if you compare the grammar of Ureche with the text of the Romanian Constitution you'll see that's no that different. An author had to live in those times too, so what should have they done in a Romanian state? Moldovans from Bessarabia also integrated in the Russian or Soviet culture without much problems.Xasha (talk) 00:51, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Oh, and while we're exploring this, I'm also curious what the Russians did in Bessarabia/Moldavian SSR -- surely they liberated it from the danger of Romanian oppression and encouraged the expression of the true Moldavian culture, language and so on (of course, with minor Cyrillic readjustments in order to retain its authenticity). --Gutza T T+ 21:29, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Russians didn't do much - education was not that spread, and culture remained in a primordial form. The Soviet rule was much better, with Moldovan language generall being allowed to develop freely (with the exception of the chaotic stalinist measures that couldn't decide which part of Moldavia should serve as standard). And Cyrillic was the original alphabet for Moldavian. Even some newspaper published in Bessarabia by some philorumanian authors during the Imperial era had two editions: one in Romanian standard with Latin alphabet, one in Moldavian vernacular, with Cyrillic script.Xasha (talk) 22:57, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Romanian throughout all three principalities have originally been written in Slavonic characters because of the Church, that's completely irrelevant. But I'm curious why you're consistently avoiding the wording "Moldavian language" in talk pages, and instead keep clinging to "vernacular". (Of course, in the article space it's quite the opposite.) Incidentally, the "Soviet rule" slip-up is delicious, it shows how much the Moldavians enjoyed their "Soviet independence" ("much better" as it may have been). --Gutza T T+ 23:13, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Just that Cyrillic is more adequate for writing Moldovan (and Romanian, if you ignore the large French borrowings). Mainspace is for the casual reader. On the talk page we can have more detailed discussions on topics. Since modern Moldovan and Romanian share a literary form, I don't what I could dispute about it (except the fact that Romanians deny our right to call this form Moldovan). But the literary form is just a minor part of a language, the vernacular being the most vital part. Furthermore, there was no Moldovans standard form until the 1920s, and since then it changed several times, unlike the vernacular, which remained stable enough so that Moldovans don't need a dictionary to read 19th century children stories, unlike Romanians. Compared to the Czarist and Romanian experience, the Soviet period was undeniably better for the Moldovan culture.Xasha (talk) 00:51, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Finally, if I already started this, how does a country whose culture was independently fostered for such a long period of time, a country that becomes truly independent, a country that sees the Romanians for the arrogant oppressors of Moldavians that they are, how does such a country "tacitly adopt a common literary form" with its said cultural oppressor? Are they masochistic? Do they suffer from a misplaced case of a Stockholm syndrome? What happened to them, why aren't they using their own language, established ever since the 1640s, if not earlier? Isn't this really much simpler to explain by accepting that there are no two languages? --Gutza T T+ 21:41, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
I've already explained. After Stalin decided to punish the scholars who chose central Bessarabia as standard, and after some time those who chose Transnistria s standard, few scholar were inclined to work on the standardisation. Then came WW2, after which the Soviet Union dropped the nationality card (you couldn't claim it when you deported Germans and Caucasian ethnicities because of their nationality) and just limited itself to encouraging Russian, not caring anymore about other language standards. Since Romanian standard was close enough, and was already systematized, it was easier to adopt its norms as Dachsprache. And Moldovans still use their language, just they don't use it were literary form is generally used (i.e. official documents, scientific works).Xasha (talk) 22:57, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
That's got to be the cherry. So not only that the Soviets were not the ones to invent this language, they were actually the ones who standardised Moldovan per the Romanian norms? I am lost for words -- I thought no argument could surprise me in this context, but you've proven me wrong. --Gutza T T+ 23:13, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
You should read again my comment, I never said Soviets "were actually the ones who standardised Moldovan", just that they had a laissez-faire attitude.
Two related languages that evolved more or less separately -- Wikipedia is not the place to bring your own fringe theories. The scientific consensus on the evolution of Romanian is quite clear and any other claim is a frige theory which does not belong here. bogdan (talk) 23:40, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
You haven't still solved the problem with the origin of the Vlachs, how do you expect me to believe you have solved the problem of Moldovan language. No matter what you say, people have called their language Moldavian/Moldovan (distinction only in English) for centuries, and the difference between the language was enough for some pro-Romanian authors in Imperial Russia to have their ideas written in Moldavian vernacular, besides the Romanian standard, so that them could be spread to the masses (which didn't help them, since the masses were largely illiterate)Xasha (talk) 00:51, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Come now, how can you attack that particular point within the entire display above? I'm mesmerized at this historical contraption (and, to be honest, somewhat flattered to find there are some who actually believe the Romanian propaganda could ever beat the Russian propaganda, it would be a resounding success -- mind you, that's supposed to have happened during Romania's period as a Soviet satellite). It's fascinating how a coherent, self-contained parallel history has evolved from just a few crude ideas repeated ad nauseam over the years, and I think the way to deal with this is actually understand how it's supposed to have worked. I know, it's not the Wikipedia way, but without a coherent understanding of the theory we're going to end up with a zillion minor battles over wording in various articles -- I think actually discussing sources and evidence based on the model being proposed would be a more constructive approach. Personally, I'm very fond of Creanga's mythical book, I'd love to see the sources for that. There are other very intriguing theories as well (for instance grammar being "almost the same" and "some basic words in common" is something I'd love to hear more about as well). --Gutza T T+ 23:55, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
You should note that the above dissertation is just my understanding of how things went, based on the numerous Russian, Western, Soviet and even Romanian sources I've read. I don't claim I am expert, like others do on this page, and just wanted to give a hint on how Romanian education "forgets" to mention some things to the Romanian pupils. I never read Stati's books, so maybe hge has a more consistent story, with all the needed source and opinions clearly given. Also note that's this view is not more parallel to history than the Romanian view you were indoctrinated with, so maybe the illusory truth lays somewhere on the median line between the two, or maybe is nowhere close to neither view. Language is a fabulous construct, so every "minor battles over wording " can make the difference between a POV and an unemotional description of an event. I also agree we should be discussing sources, but I see no source brought by the one who question my view. I already brought undeniable primary sources that speak about a Moldavian language, and use them in a striclty descriptive manner, without judgements, as Wikipedia policy requires, but you don't seem happy with them. Moreover I brought a secondary source about the status of Moldavian in Imperial Russia, but you still support the obtuse fiction of "Soviet invention of 1924". I admit that book is original research; i.e. I didn't read about it in some source, I just have it in my book collection , and mentioning it in the mainspace as a proof for the existence of the two languages is impossible, per WP:SYNTH. Also, if it's possible, please don't bring just sources you came about in the first page of GBook search. Try to find some reliable one, or at least one which has enough of it available to understand context, not just largely irrelevant clippets like Biruitorul did. If you want to say Ureche was speaking about Romanian when he wrote about Moldavian, bring a source that says specifically that, not one that says the Moldovan and Romanian of the 1990s are essentially the same. Hope we're finally going to have a relevant discussion about the article.Xasha (talk) 00:51, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

P.S.:Modifying the status quo in a controversial area and then seeking consensus for your action is not the most brilliant idea to begin a constructive discussion.Xasha (talk) 00:55, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

If I understand it correctly, you're saying that Moldovan proper has not changed in the Republic of Moldova, because of various factors (Soviets not caring much about it etc). However, the literary form is "shared" with Romanian -- and said literary form is used, by your own account, for official documents within RM. By corroborating this with your previous claims that the Romanian and Moldovan are quite different, with only a few basic common elements, it would follow that Moldovans who choose to speak Moldovan have to be bilingual -- they necessarily need to speak both Moldovan and Romanian, two quite distinct languages. Is that correct? Also, I have a hard time understanding what you actually mean when you say "Moldovan language" -- if you're defining it as the official language of the state, that in which official documents are written, then it surely is the same as Romanian, by your own definition. However, in the article associated with this talk page you're talking about quite a different thing, "the other Moldovan", "the true Moldovan". So which one is it, and how do we know when you mean one and when you mean the other? --Gutza T T+ 01:03, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
The shared literary form and the vernacular are mutually inteligible and are not so far away to call the speakers bilingual (never claimed the two modern forms have " only a few basic common elements" ). So I wouldn't call Moldovan speakers bilingual (in Romanian and Moldovan at least) just how I wouldn't call Low German speakers bilingual in Low and Standard (High) German. The Moldovan language is a whole, even if the association between literary and vernacular is not the most fortunate. But unless someone decides to restandardize the language (and I personally think the fad for language standardization has passed in a multicultural world) this is the language of me and my co-speakers, and we call it Moldovan. However, to apply this modern definition to pre WW2 Moldavian is simply wrong. Xasha (talk) 01:31, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
How can I explain to you that you're proposing an impossible evolution? You start with a common point (Moldovan in the principality), assert a diverging trend (Moldovan in Romania being pressured to adapt, Moldovan in Moldavian SSR being allowed to progress naturally), and end up with convergence (the two are mutually intelligible). Doesn't that logic sound flawed to you? --Gutza T T+ 01:42, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
You got me wrong then. If we ignore major cities, vernacular is closer and closer as you go towards the Pruth, were they converge, with the note that on the right you have French neologism and on the left Russian ones (which however are an insignifiant part of the common speech). That's the whole idea of a dialect continuum. Of course, to the west the vernacular is closer to the Romanian-standard, but not the same, while to the east you have a vernacular without major influence from the shared literary language. The vernacular never split. So in Eastern Vaslui-Leova region, for example, the literary-vernacular complex is basically the same, just that some call it with the old name of the vernacular, while other were indoctrinated into calling it with the name of the Wallachia-based standard- note I'm not sure how people form eastern Vaslui call their language, I just assume it. (BTW, I do think that the usual Moldovan speaker has a better grasp Romanian, than the usual Romanian speaker of Moldovan) Xasha (talk) 02:04, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm afraid you don't understand me. Just a few paragraphs above you state that Moldovans who joined Romania had to learn the official language (i.e. Romanian) like any minority, and that Romanian and Moldovan were only loosely related ("Grammar was almost the same and some basic words were common"); according to your theory, from that point on the Moldovans in Romania were assimilated by force, deceit and propaganda (in your own words, "After more than 100 years of compulsory study of the Wallachia-based standard, depicting the Moldavian language as a language of the lower and uneducated classes, and purging any use of the Moldavian vernacular from the media, of course this standard was finally accepted in Western Moldavia"). By contrast, Moldovans in the Moldavian SSR have been allowed to retain their linguistic identity by their less intrusive partner, the Soviets. The two languages (Romanian and Moldovan) have therefore evolved in divergent directions for several decades. However, by some miracle, we can still witness a dialect continuum across the current border; not only that, but Moldavian proper and Romanian proper have ended up converging to the point where they're mutually intelligible without any significant effort. Can't you see the absurdity in that? --Gutza T T+ 11:43, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
There's no Wikipedia policy favouring the status quo. Sometimes, the status quo of an article may not be neutral or factually accurate. bogdan (talk) 01:02, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Changing the article of out the blue because you personally think an article may not be neutral or factually accurate is not OK. Even less when the info you delete is based on sources that are fit according to the Wikipedia policy. Xasha (talk) 01:31, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
They are not according to Wikipedia policy, and the modification did not stand, you reverted it -- and changing the article "out of the blue" is perfectly ok. --Gutza T T+ 01:40, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
See the relevant policy above, my revert was just enforcing policy and changing an article because you know it's not ok is not OK.Xasha (talk) 02:04, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Exactly, let's not split hairs here -- but please don't distort the truth. --Gutza T T+ 02:30, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

RfC on merge

This is about whether the history of the Moldovan language before 1924 should reside in a stand-alone article or merged with History of the Romanian language. Preliminary discussion has taken place at Talk:History of the Moldovan language#Merge first sections. --Gutza T T+ 18:34, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Why did you open this RfC, if you still enforce your POV by unilateral edits?Xasha (talk) 13:03, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
I did not move any sections to History of the Romanian language, please see above what this RfC is about. --Gutza T T+ 13:18, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Verifiable subject?

Like every other article in Wikipedia, this one too must have a subject, and that subject must be verifiable. Is there any source that talks about the history of the Moldovan language as a distinct subject from the history of the Romanian language? If there is not, it will mean that the very core of this article is in fact unverifiable synthesis. And that will be the end of this charade. — AdiJapan 06:19, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Cantemir, Ureche et al

This has popped up several times, and I'd like to clarify it once and for all. We are now at a point where chronicles written in the 17th century (Grigore Ureche, The Chronicles of the land of Moldavia, 1640s) and 18th century (Dimitrie Cantemir, Descriptio Moldaviae, 1714) are used as sources to trace the existence of a stand-alone Moldovan language back to those times, with all implications that follow. There are several problems with that approach:

  1. On a formal level, when a Wikipedian makes a synthesis of a primary source that is called original research and is not acceptable under the current policies (Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors., see WP:PRIMARY).
  2. On a logical level, it is unreasonable to push for a particular POV when a source includes both (the chronicles merrily interchange "Romanian language" with "Moldovan language" without any explanation to the reader, the way synonyms are typically used -- drawing the conclusion that the chronicles are a mention of a "Moldovan language" in the modern sense of "language" is dubious at least).
  3. On a historical level, if we were to actually pose into historians, this theory is wrong because the primary sources used to prove the existence of a stand-alone Moldovan language do not actually make any such claim, they just use "limba moldovenească", with whatever connotations that might have had in the 17th and 18th century. On the other hand, we do have a chronicle from the late 17th century from a Moldovan chronicler who does address the issue point blank: "Măcară dară că şi la istorii şi la graiul şi streinilor şi înde sine cu vréme, cu vacuri, cu primenéle au şi dobândescŭ şi alte numere, iară acela carile ieste vechiŭ nume stă întemeiat şi înrădăcinat: rumân. Cum vedem că, măcară că ne răspundem acum moldovéni, iară nu întrebăm: ştii moldovenéşte?, ce ştii românéşte?, adecă râmlenéşte, puţin nu zicem: sţis romaniţe? pre limba latinească. Stă dară numele cel vechiŭ ca un teméi neclătit, deşi adaog ori vrémile îndelungate, ori streini adaog şi alte numere, iară cela din rădăcină nu să mută. Şi aşa ieste acestor ţări şi ţărâi noastre, Moldovei şi Ţărâi Munteneşti numele cel direptŭ de moşie, ieste rumân, cum să răspundŭ şi acum toţi acéia din Ţările Ungureşti lăcuitori şi munténii ţara lor şi scriu şi răspundŭ cu graiul: Ţara Românească." (highlighted phrase, my translation: "We can see that, although we call ourselves Moldavians, we don't ask [each other]: do you speak Moldavian?, but rather do you speak Romanian?") (Miron Costin, De neamul moldovenilor, 1687 -- [1]).

Given the above, I'd like to ask our colleagues using those primary sources to prove a particular POV to search for secondary, scholar sources discussing the point. --Gutza T T+ 12:30, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Just a short reply:
  1. There's nothing wrong with using primary source, as long as we just descirbe what they say and don't make personal analyses of them. See WP:OR :

""To the extent that part of an article relies on a primary source, it should:

only make descriptive claims about the information found in the primary source, the accuracy and applicability of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge, and
make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about the information found in the primary source. "
  1. I won't talk about the merits of your "logic", but any personal logic is OR and clearly interpetative of the sources. Also the claim that Ureche and Cantemir don't know what language are they speaking of and mix two different names is utterly false.
  2. Costin doesn't speak about Moldavian, and anyway, applying the writings of one author to the other two (one of these being an esteemed member of the Berlin Academy) is just original synthesis.
These being said, it's clear that some users what to impose their POV by removing the purely descriptive (i.e. Wikipedia policy proof) part about the writings of two of the early Moldavian scholars.Xasha (talk) 12:53, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I won't waste any more time than needed on this -- those sources have been available for almost 400 years now, surely you can find a scholarly secondary source to make such a simple statement as "the Moldovan language has been mention as early as XYZ". I will make a non-ambiguous assertion that continuing to use those sources to prove your point breaks WP:OR, WP:PRIMARY and WP:SYNTH, so until you can find secondary sources to support your POV they're gone -- given the age of those sources it shouldn't be difficult to do that, I'm not being unreasonable. --Gutza T T+ 13:03, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Costin talks at the same time about the Moldovans, the Wallachians and the Transylvanians, which he considers all to make up one ethnicity, albeit separated in three countries. What is relevant here is that, according to Costin, all these Romanians were speaking the same language. This is in agreement with what the other chroniclers say.
The fact that the term "Moldavian language" is used in old texts is certainly not sufficient proof that a distinct Moldovan language existed. Take for instance Ureche and his Letopiseţul. He doesn't use consistent names for countries, ethnicities and languages. When he says "limba noastră moldovenească" what he means is textually "the language spoken by us Moldavians", and he makes no assertion as to this language being distinct from that spoken in Wallachia or Transylvania. On the contrary, he does say there is only a minor accent difference. In fact, Ureche often uses phrases like "limba noastră", "limba românească", "rumâneşte" with just the same meaning as "limba moldovenească".
As such, taking the chronicles' phrase "Moldovan language" literally amounts to original research, because is requires the assumption that the term had the same meaning three centuries ago as it does now. And that assumption is in fact false. — AdiJapan 13:57, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

If the above wasn't enough, Cantemir himself writes "Noi, moldovenii, la fel ne spunem romani, iar limbii noastre nu dacica, nici moldoveneasca (dat fiind ca numele Moldovei si al moldovenilor este acordat foarte de curand, cum vom spune mai apoi), ci romaneasca, astfel ca daca vrem sa-l intrebam pe un strain daca stie limba noastra, nu-l intrebam: "Scis moldavice?" ("Stii moldoveneste?"), ci "Stii romaneste?", adeca, "in latineste": "Scis romanice?" (Dimitrie Cantemir, Hronicul vechimii a romano-moldo-vlahilor, sau hronicon a toata tara Romaneasca, care mai apoi s-a despartit in Moldova, Muntenia si Ardeal) -- the translation would be virtually identical to the quotation from Miron Costin above. By the way, can I use the title of his chronicle to assert that the Republic of Moldova is part of Romania? --Gutza T T+ 12:20, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Also see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Chronicles from the 17th and 18th century. --Gutza T T+ 18:46, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Crucial question

By reading both article Moldovan language and History of Moldovan language I noticed that neither of them anwsers crucial question about topic; What were the differences between standard language used in Romania and standard language used in Soviet Moldavia (except that it used different script)? Also what were the differences between standard language used in MASSR and MSSR? The anwsers I couldnt even articles in romanian and russian language. Couldnt anyone write about this? Luka Jačov (talk) 13:10, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

It's all part of the debate, I'm sure the answers would be just as controversial, depending on who you ask. That's probably why nobody was brave enough to approach the issue. :) --Gutza T T+ 13:16, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
It seems (according to the article in the Russian Wikipedia) that the standard language in the MASSR was based on local eastern dialects. After the formation of the MSSR, a language reform was conducted in 1951 that brought the standard "significantly closer" to the standard Romanian. --Illythr (talk) 13:43, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Again: sources?

I've asked this before, but people were too busy with the microscope on the small print and didn't see the whole picture. Is there any source out there that talks about the subject "history of the Moldovan language"?

Right now the article doesn't mention any such source, so the subject has not even been proven to exist. That means the whole article is either about a non-notable subject, or a hoax, or a synthesis made by Wikipedia editors from various other subjects (that is, original research).

If indeed there is no source proving the subject to be notable, the article will need to be deleted or redirected to a more appropriate title, with parts of it moved where they belong, if any. — AdiJapan 04:33, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay. It appears I can start moving paragraphs to the articles where they belong and then replace the article with a redirect. — AdiJapan 04:29, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
I was planning on doing that today, but I'm not sure my schedule will allow it -- please go ahead. --Gutza T T+ 07:50, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps it would make sense to wait for Xasha's unblock first? To avoid another needless revert war later and so that it won't look like you goaded an editor into 3RR to push this though? Or at least use his talk page or something in the mean time. --Illythr (talk) 08:28, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
There is the matter of whether there are any voices against this besides Xasha. I don't think he will ever agree with this, regardless of whether he is blocked or not; however, if he is the only one against it then this will happen, again, irrespective of whether he is blocked or not. Therefore no, I don't think it would make sense to wait for Xasha's unblock because I don't think that would change anything in the fiber of things -- the only thing different this way is that revert wars will start later rather than sooner. --Gutza T T+ 09:25, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
I didn't know Xasha was blocked again. In other circumstances I wouldn't have minded waiting for him. But the problem is that I don't expect him to bring sources and prove the subject exists. He certainly knows he needs to show sources, I have long been asking for them, but nothing happened. And I don't think it will, not any time soon. — AdiJapan 10:22, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps asking him on his talk page would bring some progress? I'm not sure it's possible to provide a source that asserts what you are asking for, though - if no controversy existed at that time there was no need to claim that this language is different from any other. So far, Xasha did present a number of sources that the language spoken in Moldavia/Bessarabia was referred to as "Moldavian," no? The issue for him seems to be not whether the language spoken in Moldavia was distinct from some other language, but the name, under which it was mentioned in a certain territory. --Illythr (talk) 14:17, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I don't get the relevance of that particular piece of information in the context, and even more so if we assume a good faith intention not to imply Moldovan's presumed separateness from Romanian. Olden sources might have called the Romanian language "Walachian", but nobody would feel the need to push for that in any related article precisely because it's irrelevant today -- by contrast, "Moldovan language" has become a loaded concept in the last century (something the chroniclers couldn't have anticipated), and casually using it throughout the article certainly gives off the wrong impression to the average reader.
On the other hand, I'm afraid Xasha is trying to mirror Vasile Stati's theories here, without mentioning him as a source specifically -- the sources certainly match, and the implication of separateness from Romanian is there rather prominently (or at least was there, in the version of this article that Xasha preferred). Of course, Xasha is intelligent enough not to use Stati himself as a reference, but since there is none other for the implication the article was trying to make, we're left hanging.
However, precisely because we are all too involved in the matter, I am trying to clear this whole matter up in a more neutral environment: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Chronicles from the 17th and 18th century, and I did address this point specifically in my last message -- please feel free to get involved in the discussion if you want. --Gutza T T+ 15:07, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
I wrote this at the same time with Gutza:
Illythr, you're touching the very heart of the problem: the name and the controversy. Because that's what "Moldovan language" is: a name and a controversy. And this article, if it is ever going to survive, should be about the history of that name and of that controversy. It is not about the history of any actual language. There was one Romanian language 3-4 hundred years ago (the chronicles are very clear on that) and there is one Romanian language today (there is no dispute whatsoever among linguists).
Xasha found in the chronicles the phrase "Moldavian language" and in his interpretation this was meant to distinguish that language from others. The reality is that the very same sources use phrases like "Romanian language" and "our language" to refer to exactly the same thing. This is not my own interpretation: The chroniclers specifically state that the Moldavians, the Wallachians, and the Romanian Transylvanians spoke the same language. There is no room for interpretation. Remember, were talking about times when countries, ethnicities and languages did not necessarily have clearly defined names.
When I ask for a source about the history of the Moldovan language --- a secondary source, obviously --- I don't ask for too much. If I am totally insane and in fact this Moldovan language does exist, then there must be at least one specialist to have written about the history of this language. With all this controversy around the subject there should be not one, but plenty of sources. But there is none! Actually, I'm pretty sure there are some publications that try to explain how this Moldovan language came to exist --- if I'm not mistaken Vasile Stati wrote about this, and surely there are the old Stalinist stories --- but such publications wouldn't qualify as more than fringe theories, maybe not even that. — AdiJapan 15:49, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
This is different from what you asked before - a source with an assertion that a Moldovan language not only exists, but is different from Romanian. Anyhow, here's a picture I've gathered:
A common dialect continuum had existed on the territories in question (Moldavia, Wallachia, Transylvania, plus surrounding areas) with the various dialects spoken in these territories possessing different local names throughout this time period. A common name and standard were not officially established until mid-19th century. One of the names for one of the dialects was "Moldavian," as stated by Cantemir and a number of official Russian (imperial) sources. Due to Bessarabia's isolation from the newly created Romanian state, and especially due to its population being largely illiterate at the time, its local dialects have avoided standardization the rest of them have undergone in Romania (BTW, when was the Latin script first officially adopted in Bessarabia?). Concurrently, after 1924, a number of Soviet activists have attempted to promote some local eastern dialects into a separate language. These attempts have failed and in 1951 a Soviet standardization reform brought these dialects in line with their western counterparts. After Moldova's independence, a few more reforms have virtually eliminated whatever differences remained between the standard official languages of Romania and Moldova. At no time was the dialect continuum interrupted.
The official Moldovan POV seems to have adopted this picture, except for insisting that the name of this standard language is "Moldovan" (for political purposes). Gutza, can you point out what has cause you such incredulity in this picture?
Creation of new languages from modern dialects seems to be the work of politicians, not scientists worldwide (as demonstrated by Valencian and Montenegrin), and I do not see how this process is an affront to science.
As for the contents of this article, it should be as follows: Start with the earliest mention of the dialect, describe the peculiarities of its existence within the common daco-Romanian continuum (if any sources for this are found), then talk about the time during Russian imperial rule (already there), then the Soviet attempts to promote the dialect into a separate language, which failed (there, but kinda small), then the modern (1989-1994 and 1994-now) developments. It should also list the known standardization attempts and their scope (1859?, 1930-1940s, 1951, 1989, one more, forgot when). --Illythr (talk) 18:53, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
Feel free to ask Xasha if that's indeed his view -- I doubt it is, given his explanations above. Maybe you missed the part in Xasha's analysis above where Moldovans in Romania were treated like dirt and had to learn the Romanian language like any minority; the part where they would have wanted to express themselves in their own language but were forced by the powers that be in Romania to use Romanian instead; the part where the history of the Moldovan language starting in 1924 is original research; the part where he refuses point blank to address the issue of whether the chroniclers meant a separate language or the same one, insisting we should allow the reader to form an opinion based on carefully chosen quotations; the part where Romanian and Moldovan only had in common a similar grammar and some basic words; and so on, and so on. It is painfully obvious to me that this article, in the form preferred by Xasha (I suppose this version would qualify), is a transparent attempt at making a case for a stand-alone Moldovan language presumably being traced back to the 17th century (and why not, even earlier, as the article was hinting).
Now, to answer your larger question. We need to decide what this article is about. You cannot have an article about the early history of the Moldovan variety of Romanian (I will use "variety" in favor of "dialect" and "speech") without the context of all the other varieties of Romanian -- they all evolved together, as variations of one single language, because none of the varieties were isolated enough to give birth to a dialect proper, let alone a stand-alone language. One cannot even compare Moldovan and Romanian to British English and American English -- these two varieties have been isolated, they have evolved in different cultures, with different writers and ethnic groups significantly influencing each. In Romania and Moldova (and Banat, and Transylvania, and Oltenia, and Wallachia) that never happened for any significant periods of time, mostly because of the regions' proximity. Throughout the history of the territory of the historical principalities there was a continuous cultural exchange, within the context of a uniform ethnic group -- people were constantly moving from one Principality to the next, depending on where life was better; literature, poetry and ideas as well -- and even the chronicles written in one Principality were being read throughout the region; Cantemir himself started writing a chronicle about all Romanians in all principalities, in a period when the idea of a nation state hadn't yet been invented, that's how close all of Romanians felt about each others.
So, if you cannot do that, you have to move the relevant sections where they belong, namely in History of the Romanian language, where the evolution of the language can be properly analysed in a coherent fashion. That leaves this article with the current form (actually, I'm of the opinion that everything before 1924 should be merged with Romanian, given that that's when the "Moldovan language" proper was actually born -- which you seem to agree with). --Gutza T T+ 20:53, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
Opinions on how the various "provincial" subgroups were treated in the central parts of the country may be marginally relevant (if sourced properly), but are beside the current point (Bavarians, with their Boarisch accent are also made fun of in northern parts of Germany). The start of a Moldovan language in 1924 is indeed original research - an attempt to create one had failed, after all. As for what did the chroniclers meant - I have no idea, except maybe like something close to what I described above. The part about "some basic words" I didn't get myself - surely, the reverse is true: there were a few different basic words, the rest being common - that was an odd statement seeing as how Xasha does recognize the dialectal continuity.
You cannot have an article about a dialect that some insist is a standalone language? Why is that? Dialects are not always built in complete isolation as you seem to insist is necessary. There are numerous dialects in the same country, say, in Russia (within Russian) or Spain (within Spanish or Catalan) which have evolved without complete isolation. You also seem to assert that the Daco-Romanian dialect continuum was completely homogeneous at all times. A uniform single language in a medieval society where the most a peasant family sees in their lifetime is the nearest town and almost everyone has trouble putting their own name on paper? Mmmh. It seems you only take the societal elites into consideration - less than 1% of the whole population.
As for article structure - I had laid out a frame I think would be informative and generally nice to have for this article. I would oppose a conscious attempt at promoting Moldovan as an entirely separate language, but exploring its medieval history in the context of it being a dialect within a common dialect continuum looks ok to me. --Illythr (talk) 23:14, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry if I was ambiguous -- I never intended to push for the idea of a completely homogenous form throughout the Daco-Romanian dialect, I fully acknowledge the various... varieties (Transylvanian, Oltenian, Moldavian, "Muntenian" etc). The problem is you're calling them dialects, while linguists aren't that sure they qualify -- I don't want to get too deeply into that because we'd certainly end up discussing nuances beyond our (or at least my) level of expertise in the matter; however, it is important to note that experts do not really agree on that one, and to my knowledge the majority do actually go for "less than dialect", typically opting for "speech". As such, while I totally agree there are varieties within the language, and would most definitely defy any crazy Romanian asserting a completely homogenous continuum, I can't subscribe to the opinion that Moldavian (or any other variety for that matter) is indeed a dialect in its own rights, and even less so to the idea that one of the varieties has actually spawned a stand-alone language at any one time from a linguistic point of view.
One point that I don't understand in your discourse is your apparent willingness to defend Xasha's version of the article named "History of the Moldovan language", while simultaneously rejecting the idea of a Moldovan language ("The start of a Moldovan language in 1924 is indeed original research - an attempt to create one had failed, after all")... --Gutza T T+ 23:54, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
(Unindent) Just to make sure - under "variety" we're discussing the spoken colloquial form here, not the standardized versions, which I would assume, always were essentially the same "High Romanian" (for their time). Ok, dialect, variety... I didn't read enough 1000 page monographies (and can't be bothered, really) to discuss the fine points. All I'm saying is that we have a distinct variant whose actual distinctiveness was and is subject to (attempted) accentuation and remains a matter of controversy. As for "Language" - it's quite simple, really: the Republic of Moldova has an official state language. It is called Moldovan. So we have an article on it, and an article on its history as, unlike the Montenegrin language, it does have one of its own, even as a variant of Romanian. Sure, it's just politics, but that's the way it is. I bet a lot of modern "standalone" languages started off this way. Ukrainian certainly is one (just don't tell that to Ukrainian nationalists), Rusyn is another (just don't tell that to... well, you know). Why, even Romanian itself, in a way (um, I don't think I should mention that)... --Illythr (talk) 00:57, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
Illythr, the differences between coloquial "Wallachian" and "Moldavian" consist in just a few words and an accent, nothing more. Even the differences between American English and British English are greater, both in terms of phonology and vocabulary. Comparing with Rusyn is misleading: Rusyn to Ukranian is more like Aromanian to Romanian. bogdan (talk) 01:05, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
Illythr, I want to make this crystal clear: nobody's saying that the Republic of Moldova is "not allowed" to decide what their official language is -- and I seriously mean that. As such, nobody has ever said anything along the lines of "come on, let's come clean and redirect Moldovan language to Romanian language".
Now that we've got that out of the way, let's get back to history, linguistics and NPOV. I have chosen "variety" because it's the most neutral of all terms to describe a... variation from the norm -- speeches, dialects and accents all fall under that umbrella (of course, "language" does not, but again -- we're now discussing from a scientific point of view, politics aside). As such, if you agree that we're only talking about the political definition of this variety as a language, then you can't assert a history besides its political history, because you can't divorce the definition from its own history (since the definition is political, the history is that of politics). On the other hand, I'm certain you're trying to make a specific point that I'm missing, because we should've reached agreement by now -- but I don't get it (I'm honest, really not being sarcastic, I honestly feel there's an aspect we disagree on but didn't yet come to light). --Gutza T T+ 01:22, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
Illythr, Gutza, it looks like we're getting somewhere: This article should be about the history of the attempt to create a separate Moldovan language. In this frame, the focus should be on the political rather than linguistic aspects; there isn't much to say on the linguistic level anyway. This would make a logical parallel with Moldovan language, whose subject is also political, not linguistic, in its core.
What do you think about wording the leading section like this:
The history of the Moldovan language refers to the attempt to create a distinct Moldovan language and the string of political and historical events related to it.
or something along those lines. That would clarify the subject and make it verifiable. — AdiJapan 07:18, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
I agree, Adi, something along those lines. By the way (I'm sure this point has been made in similar form before, so my apologies if I'm being repetitive): in my view, for a language to have a history, it must first be a language. According to reliable linguists, Moldovan is not a language and thus has no history as such. What does have a history is a) the 1924 creation and official language of RM; and b) the Moldavian speech or graiul moldovenesc, a variety of the Romanian language. As a) is acknowledged to be a political creation, we can use this article to discuss its history, but the lead should be very clear that this is the history of a political concept and not a "language" as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary - "The system of spoken or written communication used by a particular country, people, community, etc., typically consisting of words used within a regular grammatical and syntactic structure."
As for b) - we could start by placing it in the History of the Romanian language article, but what should eventually happen is an article on each of the varieties, including their history. Biruitorul Talk 23:03, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
Actually, the Moldovan language does conform with the Oxford definition quite nicely -- as I said above, nobody can deny an independent state's right to define its language (notice how the Oxford dictionary explicitly includes that option for the definition of a language). The problem with this article is not the existence of the language (otherwise we wouldn't have an article entitled Moldovan language at all), but rather the implication of distinctiveness from Romanian, which is not scientific, violates WP:SYNTH and WP:FRINGE.
That being said, I agree with AdiJapan's suggestion, with a couple of adjustments:
Biru, I think your comment hit the nail on the head. Unless we make the distinction between the linguistic subject and the political subject, we end up in misleading or at least confusing the reader. (And I'm afraid that is exactly what some people would want.)
Gutza, you are right that the definition of a language can be applied to Moldovan, and actually that argument was brought over and over again by our beloved friend Node_ue. But for a concept (language or anything else) to have a distinct name, it needs to be distinct from other concepts. Well, yes, there are synonyms, but in Wikipedia those are dealt with by using redirects.
Anyway, I've changed the lead section. Feel free to adjust it as you see fit. — AdiJapan 04:00, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
Well, unless other sources are brought in, this form can be kept. As for the year 1812 - no it wasn't born then - merely made official together with the Russian language by an ukase from the Tsar, as a local language. --Illythr (talk)

Old historical usage must be explained

My two cents: whatever decision will be assumed about the "beginnings" of the Moldovan language, the article must have a text which explains the usage of the expression "Moldovan/Moldavian language" in old documents - clearly if someone reads this term in a quotation from, say, Grigore Ureche, and then looks up wikipedia this reader must not be surprized by lack of any explanation. Timurite (talk) 17:14, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure there are any reliable sources discussing the matter explicitly -- scientific works everywhere simply use the chronicles to discuss Romanian, without any mention of the original wording. --Gutza T T+ 17:30, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
  • This would mean that these "scientific works everywhere" suck badly. Quoting the original sources is the primary rule of scientific research. Especially in cases of not readily available documents the absence of citations leaves room to suspicions in maniputating the information and other kinds of scientific sloppiness, eg., when a source is referenced not from the original but from the description by another researcher, which may easily lead to "broken telephone" effect. Therefore I regrettably cannot accept your position: I don't believe in 100% sloppiness of researchers in this area. Timurite (talk) 18:52, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
  • P.S. In this particular case "without any mention of the original wording" may lead to suspicions in deliberate concealment the fact that the language was called "limba moldoveneasca", especially in the view of the known Romania/Moldova ethnicity issues. Timurite (talk) 18:52, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
You're certainly free to make your own research -- such deliberate efforts to conceal a language on the part of the government of a European Union country surely would not go unnoticed by the academic community. Alternately, you can choose to accept that in a linguistic sense Moldovan is one of the recognized speeches of the Romanian language, and that old texts were not making a clear distinction between speech and language (see all my rhetoric above regarding the loading of the terms and the evolution of the nation state); you might also accept that this is such a well-known fact in academic circles that they don't bother addressing Vasile Stati's fringe theories explicitly. But then again, feel free to investigate on your own -- if you can find any academic or otherwise reliable sources discussing the matter I promise I won't try to conceal it. :) --Gutza T T+ 19:25, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
P.S. I realized I was ambiguous in my previous message -- I didn't mean nobody's quoting the chronicles, I only meant they don't address the issue of the original wording, they don't mention the original wording specifically as in explaining the identity between Romanian and the language the chronicler was writing about (e.g. "well, he does write «Moldovan», but what he actually means is «Romanian»"). There are articles in the mainstream Romanian media addressing the issue within the context of Vasile Stati's theory, but given the sense of paranoia surrounding this issue I don't think they're appropriate (after all, if the government is concealing an entire language, it only makes sense they'd also pay off a few journalists to write the appropriate stories). --Gutza T T+ 19:45, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm assuming we need to explain that when the Venetians or whoever traveled to far off exotic Moldavia, they encountered an equally exotic language they called Moldavian, that is, Romanian by another name. Such references are not difficult to find. —PētersV (talk) 21:44, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
My point exactly. I don't know and don't care to know about Vasile Stasi, but I would really like to know about "exotic language they called Moldavian" in old texts. Timurite (talk) 22:04, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
Such references might indeed not be hard to find, but Timurite, that wasn't your point at all when you started this section. You wanted the article to include "a text which explains the usage of the expression "Moldovan/Moldavian language" in old documents" (emphasis mine). You will find both modern and old statements that such old texts were indeed speaking about Romanian (of the very three chroniclers being discussed in the sections above, two actually mention that explicitly), but I'm not sure you're going to find a properly referenced explanation for that usage. And I linked this to Vasile Stati because he was the only one to come up with this original theory which brings controversy around this matter -- without his theory there's no controversy, so you need to find a reliable source who cares enough to go into the issue; given Stati's reputation and his theory's scientific merit, I doubt any serious scientist has wasted time disproving it. But, again, if anybody can dig something up, by all means, let's use it. --Gutza T T+ 23:00, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I guess see where you are leaning to: you want to keep the topics related "Romanian lang" & "Moldovan lang" strictly separate where it possible and identical where it is necessary. And I am not against this. Let me rephrase it in a third way. A semi-educated person reads the article "History of the Moldovan language" and sees it started from 1818. "Wait a minute!" he says, "I nave seen with my own eyes that there was a "moldavian language" way before Kantemir! So once again wikipedia sucks!" I am saying that if there is a potential natural question, there must be an answer or an easy way (read: one mouse click) to find it. Obviously you haven't read the article with fresh eyes recently. Look how the body of the article starts: "Following annexation of Bessarabia by Russia (after 1812), Moldavian was established as an official language in the bla-bla..." WTF? Did Russian Zzar invent the Moldavian language for Bessarabians? If yes, then why it was not called Bessarabian language? (ok I know this one; I guess because population was called Moldavians.) If no then who and when? Where is the beginning of the history, or the pre-history, or whatever? Timurite (talk) 01:48, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
P.S. Lovely pun there, Timurite -- Vasile Stasi, that's hilariously appropriate. --Gutza T T+ 23:09, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
oops... Timurite (talk) 01:48, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

(Unindent) Well, isn't the context set by the introductory section? I think that's pretty explanatory, what would you add? --Gutza T T+ 07:42, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I think you're both right, Timurite and Gutza. Although the old term Moldavian had indeed been used before 1812, it was only from 1812 on that it was going to be used so as to assert a different linguistic entity. Now Gutza is right that the old usage has nothing to do with the political controversy. And Timurite is right that the article should state this explicitely, for the sake of the less informed reader. (By the way, I loved the "Stasi" pun too, whether intentional or not...) — AdiJapan 11:05, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
I expanded the lead section with a few details on how the usage of the term Moldavian evolved in time. — AdiJapan 11:28, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
Can you actually source that "Moldavian" was used to assert a different linguistic entity from 1812? AFAIK, the current Tsar just used the local name and made it official as a display of tolerance to local culture. --Illythr (talk) 12:43, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

While I fully agree with the text added on the older use of the expression "Moldovan language", I'd like to point that this text currently has no support through references. I'm not even sure you can find a good citation, given that citing primary sources (e.g. Miron Costin, De neamul moldovenilor) can be labeled as original research by over-zealous editors. I'm sorry to bother you with this. Dpotop (talk) 11:54, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

My point exactly. The first known attempts to make Moldovan into a separate language began in 1924. --Illythr (talk) 12:43, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
I rephrased the lead and removed the mention of the year 1812. I had just assumed that in 1812 we have the earliest official use of the term Moldavian, which in my mind would make it the beginning of the controversy. But you're right, that would be original research. I wish I had some sources on the semantic evolution of the term. — AdiJapan 03:23, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

By the way, what was happening in the Transnistria area with respect to this issue in 1918-24? Chaos? Indifference? I assume that, with several wars going on, they had other priorities than language policies, but is there any record regarding that period? Biruitorul Talk 06:24, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Dear all, let us not project modern identity controversies on poor Medieval and pre-Modern Moldavians. Yes, old Moldavian chronicles use the name Moldavian/Moldovan to reffer to the language spoken in the Principality of Moldavia. However, they all mention that it is the same language as the one spoken in Wallachia and Transilvania. Miron Costin goes even further and explicitly states that Moldavians of his time used the phrase "to speak Romanian" when reffering to their native tongue. Of course neither of these early scholars could possibly anticipate the birth of nationalism, the union of Moldavia and Wallachia and probably even less the fact that the eastern marches of the Principality would one day form a separate state. The ideea is that while the name Moldavian was used before 1812 and after 1812 to designate the same language, the ideological load was not tha same. What was a mere choice of words in Costin or Cantemir's time, became under Russian Imperial rule, but particularly under Soviet rule an instrument of distinguishing between supposedly different languages and of (partially successfuly) forging a different identity. Plinul cel tanar (talk) 07:41, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Miron Costin

Here's the text I've been lookin for in De neamu Moldovenilor by Miron Costin (1633-1691) (Of the Modavian Kin): Cum vedem că, măcară că ne răspundem acum moldovéni, iară nu întrebăm: ştii moldovenéşte?, ce ştii românéşte?, adecă râmlenéşte, puţin nu zicem: sţis romaniţe? pre limba latinească. Stă dară numele cel vechiŭ ca un teméi neclătit, deşi adaog ori vrémile îndelungate, ori streini adaog şi alte numere, iară cela din rădăcină nu să mută. Şi aşa ieste acestor ţări şi ţărâi noastre, Moldovei şi Ţărâi Munteneşti numele cel direptŭ de moşie, ieste rumân, cum să răspundŭ şi acum toţi acéia din Ţările Ungureşti lăcuitori şi munténii ţara lor şi scriu şi răspundŭ cu graiul: Ţara Românească.

My translation (keeping original punctuation): As we can see, though we call ourselves Moldavians, don't we ask: do you speak Moldavian? what do you speak Romanian [sic!]? In other words Roman, we are not far from saying: sţis romaniţe? [sic!] in the Latin tongue. The old name remains as an unomved foundation, although the length of ages, or the foreigners added other names, but that of the root stays unchanged. And that is the name of these lands, Moldavia and Wallachia, the rightfull native name, it is Romanian [sic!], and the same answer will be given, in writing and in speach by those inhabitants of the Hungarian lands and by the wallachians who live in there own land: The Romanian Country. In fact, Costin is so clear about the whole thing that I fail to see what can be added. Plinul cel tanar (talk) 08:43, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

So what? Costin's opinion is not to be given primacy over other chroniclers and Cantemir. Also, even according to the Romanian official dictionary "neam" means Nation.Xasha (talk) 08:49, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
There are no official dictionaries in Romania, we're a democracy. But I do believe you mean relyable, academic ones. There are several, you will find a number of references here: http://dexonline.ro/search.php?cuv=neam .Indeed the first explanation given for neam by the DEX '98 is people, nation. I could have used people, since nation in a XVIIth century context is missleading. However note that the second meaning is people related by blood or by marriage. The 2002 dictionary of synonims entry for neam reads "generation, birth, ascendancy, origin," etc. Finally the NODEX explains the particular construction Costin is using de neamul cuiva by from father to son, ancestraly. This editor pleads not guilty to the charges of tendentious translation and believes the word kin to be most apropriate. Plinul cel tanar (talk) 09:13, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Unlike English (and Moldovan), Romanian is a regulated language. So the dictionary published by the regulating body is the official one. Due you imply that all Moldovans had direct links through blood or marriage? And you're again tendentiously translating. Nodex talks about "neam de neamul cuiva", which is a fixed expression, and has nothing to do with Costin's.Xasha (talk) 09:33, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Also, let's not play around. Costin is not giving an oppinion. He is attesting the usage of both moldoveneste and romaneste by the very inhabitants of the Principality of Moldavia when reffering to their own language. Cantemir made the choice of using modoveneste and stated that the wallachians speak the same language. Neither Cantemir, nor Costin had the same identity issues that Modovans an Romanians have now, they did not reason in the same terms of ethnicity and nationality that we do. Plinul cel tanar (talk) 09:18, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

No, Costin's just an opinion. Also Cantemir talks about different pronunciation and words used by Wallachians that are unknown to Moldovans.Xasha (talk) 09:33, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Plinul, if I may, I think you mistranslated a part of Costin's quote. This statement:
nu întrebăm: ştii moldovenéşte?, ce ştii românéşte?
would be transcripted in modern Romanian as
nu întrebăm: "ştii moldoveneşte?", ci ştii "româneşte?"
which in English would be
we don't ask "do you speak Moldavian?", but "do you speak Romanian?"
I thought that was an important point. — AdiJapan 09:40, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
That I plead guilty to. That's what happens when one is doing several things in the same time, none turns out quite right. Yes, the passage is even more powerfull. Plinul cel tanar (talk) 09:49, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Xasha, you are perfectly right. Costin's is just an opinion. Except his opinion matters, yours doesn't. And indeed Cantemir mentions differences between how Moldavians and Wallachians spoke. Here is the quote: "Wallachians and Transylvanians have the same speech as the Moldavians, but their pronunciation is slightly harsher, such as giur, which a Wallachian will pronounce jur, using a Polish z or a French j. [...] They also have words that the Moldavians don't understand, but they don't use them in writing." — AdiJapan 09:44, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Strange.. last week you said neither Costin's matter... now it does. As for Cantemir, the textual translation from latin is "Inhabitants of Wallachia and Transylvania use the same Moldavian language, yet their pronunciation....". He also says "They [inhabitants from Wallachia and Transylvania] follow the Moldavian language and ortography...". (Note: this is not the case anymore. In modern Romanian all those word use the Wallachian form).Xasha (talk) 09:57, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

One should also note that in the same paragraph, Cantemir also shows the distinctions between the different regional dialects of "Moldavian": Those who live by the Dnister have mixed Polish words in their language, and name hosehold objects by their Polish names, thus other Moldavians cannot understand them. Those who have their dwellings in the mountains, near Transilvania often use Hungarian words. Those from Falciu, taint their speach with Greek or Turkish words. Moreover, Moldavian women have a different speach than that of men, they change the sylabals "bi" and "vi" in "chi" [...]. What this great early modern scholar is doing is a dialect analysis of a language from north to south and from east to west (he even states it's the same language!). Next we'll have Xasha telling us, based on Cantemir's works that Moldavian women spoke an altogether different language. Plinul cel tanar (talk) 10:01, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Guess they don't teach you hpw to translate thing there. Cantemir just says "Moldavian women have a peculiar pronunciation", and anyone with knowledge of latin can see that. And yes, Cantemir acknowledges that all dialects of then-Moldavia (The Dniester, Falciu, the mountainous parts towards Transylvania are all regions of Moldavia) formed a single Moldavian language.Xasha (talk) 10:14, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
You have a quote for that last statement? — AdiJapan 10:20, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
He calls all those foreign borrowings as "corruptions of Moldavian" ("moldavum corrumpunt."). What's more to ask?Xasha (talk) 10:26, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
I don't have the Latin original before my eyes, but be that as it may. However, I thoght that according to your own logic, a number of different words + different pronunciation = different language. I also thought that according to your own translation of Cantemir, Wallachians and Transylvanians also spoke Moldavian (the very same language). Could you please point out to the exact passage where the honorable Prince-Scholar is distiguishing between one language spoken in the then-Moldavia and another language spoken outside then-Moldavia. Plinul cel tanar (talk) 10:26, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Old Russian authors also said Ukrainians spoke Russian with some small differences, but this doesn't mean that Russian and Ukrainian are the same language. Cantemir didn't bother to say that Hungarian is not the same language as Moldavian, but this doesn't seem to confuse anybody.Xasha (talk) 10:45, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
So from "moldavum corrumpunt" you inferred that Moldavian was a distinct language. And certainly this isn't original research. What, then, do you infer from this quote: "Valachiae et Transylvaniae incolis eadem est cum Moldavis lingua"? It is just one paragraph below "moldavum corrumpunt". — AdiJapan 10:47, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Read above.Xasha (talk) 11:01, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
You mean your comment where you say "Sometimes yes, sometimes no"? Sorry to tell you, but that is pure original research. You're drawing parallels completely out of line and commenting on what Cantemir could have said... Anyway, this chat went too far. There is no point in analyzing a primary source here. Leave it to the experts. — AdiJapan 11:12, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

This is getting nonsensical, I have already addressed this above; for your convenience, here it is again: Cantemir himself writes "Noi, moldovenii, la fel ne spunem romani, iar limbii noastre nu dacica, nici moldoveneasca (dat fiind ca numele Moldovei si al moldovenilor este acordat foarte de curand, cum vom spune mai apoi), ci romaneasca, astfel ca daca vrem sa-l intrebam pe un strain daca stie limba noastra, nu-l intrebam: "Scis moldavice?" ("Stii moldoveneste?"), ci "Stii romaneste?", adeca, "in latineste": "Scis romanice?" (Dimitrie Cantemir, Hronicul vechimii a romano-moldo-vlahilor, sau hronicon a toata tara Romaneasca, care mai apoi s-a despartit in Moldova, Muntenia si Ardeal) As such, it is utterly irrelevant that Xasha has found another unrelated quotation that doesn't really quite say this -- because we have this quotation where he really quite does say it explicitly. --Gutza T T+ 11:14, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

This is so dubious, that I don't even have to discuss it.Xasha (talk) 11:29, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Irrespective of the above, I still think that quoting chronicles is original research. Is there really no modern reliable source which has already analysed this, so we don't have to make analyses, translations and interpretations of our own? If not, what's the scientific merit of these ideas? --Gutza T T+ 11:16, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

You haven't brought one to support your POV.Xasha (talk) 11:29, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Gutza, while having lunch I have just remembered Hronicul vechimii romano-moldo-vlahilor, I thought Cantemir was pretty streight forward there. Please add both that quotation and the one from Miron Costin in the article, they give a great insight on the views of XVIIth and XVIIIth century scholars. To please Xasha we may also add his own translation of the Descriptio Moldaviae: Inhabitants of Wallachia and Transylvania use the same Moldavian language, yet ... Plinul cel tanar (talk) 11:44, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, thing is that Xasha obviously doesn't accept that source (see just above, it's "dubious"), therefore this would result in yet another revert war. Don't ask me why Xasha doesn't like it, I was unable to figure it out. However, if you have the nerves for it, be my guest. --Gutza T T+ 11:47, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Use of obvious neologism such as "acordat" make it highly improbable that the quote is indeed original. Moreover, just randomly browsing Hronicul I found one instance where, talking about Pechenegs he says "ačěle němurj ɨš fəkusə limba lor din trij limbj amestecatə (din karele una au fost Moldoveněskə)" (transliterated from Old Cyrillic; fact most probably false, but presented just to show the use of the glottonym) (ě is yat, so in modern Moldovan either "ia" or "ea", ə si schwa, j is short i, irreproducible in the latin Moldovan script.).Xasha (talk) 12:22, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Surely, as he is a good faith editor, he would not oppose inserting the translation from Descriptio Moldaviae which he himself so kindly provided here on the talk page? Plinul cel tanar (talk) 11:50, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Oh, and incidentally, have a ball (that's from AŞM, no less). For your convenience, here's a direct link to Google's Translator: [2]. --Gutza T T+ 11:52, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
That unsigned position is no less politicized than Stati's.Xasha (talk) 12:22, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
We are not commenting or upholding that particular position, we are simplu providing you with further references that reproduce Cantemir's views. Whatever your oppinion on the scholars of the Moldovan Science Academy may be I hope you do not want us to believe that they are inventing Cantemir quotations to prove their point? Plinul cel tanar (talk) 12:26, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
That text is not factually scientific (i.e. it says literary Romanian is based on all dialects, when everyone acknowledges is based on the Wallachian one), so it wouldn't be a surprise.Xasha (talk) 12:35, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
I am repeating myself. This particular discussion is on the historical name of the language spoken in the Principality of Moldavia prior to 1812, and more particularly on the writings of early scholars: Costin, Cantemir etc. Are you willing to acknoledge that whether accuratly or misstakenly both Cantemir and Costin atest the usage of the name romaneste by the inhabitants of the Principaliy when refering to their own language - yes or no? Plinul cel tanar (talk) 12:48, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Costin was. Info about Cantemir is not verifiable.Xasha (talk) 12:49, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
BTW, as a note: in Hronicul uses anachronistically the term Romans to refer to the Romance population in the area in the 10th century.Xasha (talk) 12:56, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
We are not arguing the adequacy of the terminology Cantemir used. We are simply trying to establish what he wrote in order to give a correct historiographical overview. And BTW, in the Xth century, virtually every citizen of the still existing Eastern Roman Empire anachronistically called himself Roman. Plinul cel tanar (talk) 13:11, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
You should bring either a reliable secondary source quoting it, or a verifiable edition of the primary source (that would mean at least the book and chapter, if not the page). Byzantines in 10th century Moldavia?!?Xasha (talk) 13:23, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Please re-read what I wrote, I am perfectly aware of the Xth century border of the Byzantine Empire. I will provide you with a verifiable reference, I know fairly well to find one, I just need time to find the book. Plinul cel tanar (talk) 13:37, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Reference for what? You made me curiousXasha (talk) 13:45, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
I will provide you with a reference for Cantemir's statement. The only reason for which I mentioned the Eastern Roman Empire is to show how subjective your own personal statement concerning "Hronicul..." was, and I will not pursue the matter since it is besides the point anyway. Plinul cel tanar (talk) 13:49, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

This is entirely absurd -- Xasha is basing an entire theory on Cantermir's alleged lack of asserting that Romanian and Moldovan were the same thing, at least as far as rigorously reliable sources are concerned. Of course, we have Miron Costin saying that -- but no matter, we have no proof that Cantemir also has, therefore we assert that he didn't mean it. How ridiculous is that? --Gutza T T+ 13:25, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Is called respecting WP:SYNTH.Xasha (talk) 13:27, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
No, to be perfectly honest it is called bad faith. --Gutza T T+ 13:29, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Some may call so the Wikipedia policies. But an admin?Xasha (talk) 13:33, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Putting words in my mouth doesn't help your case. --Gutza T T+ 13:37, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Nor does forgetting what you said earlier help yours.Xasha (talk) 13:45, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
What, finding that you're acting in bad faith? I'm not forgetting that, I really believe you are -- I'm past the point of assuming good faith on your part, given your incessant disruption of this talk page and of the associated article. --Gutza T T+ 13:57, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
You and your co-nationals are the one who remove sources, put instead some dubious inverifiable ones, impose their personal opinions, canvass people... no reference, no secondary reputable source, nothing... an I am disrupting the article just because I don't want some nobody (i.e. without any credentials in the domain) to put their truth in the article by analysing primary sources? You have some curious values...Xasha (talk) 14:06, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Just to be crystal clear about this: you're replicating (not even citing) Vasile Stati's fringe theories on Wikipedia, and your argumentation is based on the lack of sources to contradict it -- that is, your fringe theory stands until proven wrong. I had assumed good faith for a long time, but you went way beyond any conceivable limit of a good faith misunderstanding. However, this conversation is obviously not going anywhere, just as all the previous ones -- I just wanted to make my position clear for whoever's reading this. --Gutza T T+ 14:18, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
So you're basically saying: "I know you're wrong but I have no way to prove it, nor can I prove my POV". That's nonsense.Xasha (talk) 14:30, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Cantemir

OK, I found the reference for Cantemir's position as quoted by Gutza: Dimitrie Cantemir, Opere complete, Vol. IX, Partea I, pages 64-65, Editura Academiei, Bucuresti 1983. The chapter is dedicated to the latin version of the Hronicul... called Historia Moldo-Vlachica and to an abandoned work named De antiquis et hodiernis Moldaviae nominibus. The original text reads: Nos Moldavi similiter nos Romanos dicimus, et linguam nostram non Dacicam, non Moldavicam (qui<a> hoc nomen Moldaviae, et Moldavorum recentissimus est, ut postea dicemus), sed Romanam, ita ut si aliquem alienigenam vellemus interrogare an sciret nostram linguam, non interrogamus "Scis Moldavice?", sed "Stii Romaneste?". I believe our differences are settled, then? Plinul cel tanar (talk) 14:21, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

So from which one of the works is it? Cause Hronicul is divided in books and chapters, so you should give me the correct coordinates so I can verify it myself. As for the abandoned work, can that be presented even as a primary source? Is it just a coincidence it has the same name as Descriptios' first chapter, but not the same content as the published version?Xasha (talk) 14:37, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
It is from the Historia Moldo-Vlachica, and I am quite offended by your lack of trust. I was hoping you would asume good faith. I made an international call to get that reference. As for the abandoned work (which contains a similar passage) it is an early version of the first chapter in the Descriptio. Of course, after going throug all that trouble to obtain a reference, I searched for the latin version of the quotation and I found an online document signed by a lecturer from the University of Constanta which should enable you to quickly verify my assertion. You will see it is completely neutral from a political point of view, it is dealing with Cantemir's... grammer. Here's the link: www.uab.ro/reviste_recunoscute/philologica/philologica_2005/26_nicolae.doc . Plinul cel tanar (talk) 14:49, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
I just asked for the chapter so that I can verify in the Moldavian language edition if he mentioned that. I'm not really interested what call you did (getting a facsimile of a 2 centuries old book and reading Old Cyrillic is not easy either), but this is a perfectly legit question. Sources are supposed to be verifiable, not just to beautify the article.Xasha (talk) 14:58, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
I provided you with a reference to an academic book specifically indicating the pages, normally I could have just added it in the article, you are supposed to assume good faith. If that is not verifiable enough for you, I have even provided with an online text signed by a university lecturer explicitly citing the passage and referencing it. Now, is this settled? Plinul cel tanar (talk) 15:03, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
If a proper context is provided (i.e. a unfinished work, not present in the edition in his native language or any published edition), it may work.Xasha (talk) 15:32, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
I don't get that. Historia Moldo-Vlachica is a finnished work, published in several editions since the XVIII century in France, Russia, Romania etc (De antiquis et hodiernis... is unfinnished, but it is a completely different book). It is in latin like the Descriptio (which you based your arguments on) and it is a summerized version of the "Hronicul...". Concerning this latter text, I find absurd to say that the passage is not in there. It is in fact more that probable it is in there, we just don't have source yet. We may simply not include any reference to it in the artile for the time being. Plinul cel tanar (talk) 15:41, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
The first paragraph of the link you gave above is "Dimitrie Cantemir’s “De antiquis et hodiernis Moldaviae nominibus” and „Historia Moldo-Vlachica” are two unfinished historical works".Xasha (talk) 15:43, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
You are right, it does. The English and Romanian abstracts are inconsistent. Plinul cel tanar (talk) 15:52, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Gheorghe Stefan

Would it be of any relevence to this article the fact that Gheorghe Ştefan, Prince of Moldavia in the second hald of the XVIIth century, refered in his Codex to "our Romanian language" and stated that the codex contained texts translated by himself from Serbian to "Romanian"? May be this is not the right article... being "Moldovan" and all... any second oppinions? Plinul cel tanar (talk) 15:30, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Let's keep to those author which have a certain reputation as scholars. If not, we could start quoting all writers from Romania (until Sadoveanu, if not later) who called their language Moldavian.Xasha (talk) 15:36, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
It wouldn't bother me, I am convinced that "Moldovan/Moldavian" is a legitimate alternative name for the language most people call nowadays "Romanian". And yes, the name was used in the XVIIth century in the Principality of Moldavia; so was "Romanian". Plinul cel tanar (talk) 15:46, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Source

I was complaining about the scarcity of sources that talk about this subject. But here's another one that could fill a few gaps: [3]. It's written by linguist Anatol Ciobanu, member of the AŞM. — AdiJapan 15:20, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

That would mean that Stati is also OK.Xasha (talk) 15:29, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
No it wouldn't. — AdiJapan 15:39, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Xasha thinks we don't accept Stati as a source on ethnic grounds, maybe someone should take some time and explain. --Gutza T T+ 17:14, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
There isn't much to explain. Anatol Ciobanu is a reputable linguist, that is, someone who has actually published a significant amount of research results in the field of linguistics; those results made him be considered one of the top Moldovan scientists. Vasile Stati is not a linguist, except that for a while he worked in a linguistics institute (we're not sure what he was doing there), and when he did try his luck in the field with his infamous Moldovan-Romanian dictionary, his writing was called a politically motivated absurdity by every specialist who cared to analyze it. It looks pretty obvious to me which is a reliable source and which is not. — AdiJapan 02:14, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Original latin in the Descriptio

Yestarday I took Xasha's word about the "textual translation" of a passage in the Cantemir's "Descriptio", which according to him is: Inhabitants of Wallachia and Transylvania use the same Moldavian language [...]. He even put that in the article. Now,the original latin text according to the wikisource would be: Valachiae et Transylvaniae incolis eadem est cum Moldavis lingua [...]. Even for someone with little practice of Latin claiming that "Moldavis lingua" is textual for "Moldavian language" is a striking aberation, "lingua" is a first declension feminin noun, clearly an ablative singular here because of the preposition, and "Moldavis" cannot be its adjective, there's no accord for Christ's sake! In fact there isn't a single adjective in the entire Latin language which ends in -is in the ablative singular. It's a second declension, masculin noun in the genitive, plural - "of the Moldavians". In conclusion: the textual translation would be: <Implied subject: "The language"> Of the Inhabitants of Valachia and Transilvania is the same as the language of the Moldavians. Of course this whole exercise is useless since we have translations from reliable secondary sources, but I found it necessary just as such to show how careful one needs to be when trusting original research provided on talk pages. Plinul cel tanar (talk) 08:34, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Correct,...
  • "((of Wallachia and of Transylvania) (by inhabitants) ) the same is with (by Moldavians [declined the same as incolis, plural ablative]) language [subject]
  • "The language [used] by inhabitants of Wallachia and Transylvania is the same as [that] [used] by Moldavians."
As Plinul cel tanar properly states, there is no grammatical wiggle room to interpret the Latin as indicating "Moldavian language." —PētersV (talk) 19:03, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
And you are of course correct, which only goes to stress what I said: one should not trust original research provided on talk pages, certainly not my own. Off topic: my Latin is even worse than I thought. Thanks. Plinul cel tanar (talk) 07:05, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
Mine is rusty as well, didn't recognize the plural dative/ablative right away, too many years since my last Virgil class. —PētersV (talk) 04:09, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Explanation of the merge templates

I have tagged the article with two merge templates: on one side, to move first two sections into the article History of the Romanian language, where I believe a separate section should be alloted to the Moldavian variety (as well as probably some more sections about other varieties), on the other side the last two sections would go into Moldovan language, where also they should form three separate sections: one about 1924-1940, one about 1940-1989, and one about 1989-today.

The history of this article, IMHO, should be moved to Moldavian language, while the talk page should be copied into both Talk:History of the Romanian language and Talk:Moldovan language. An alternative solution is to archive this talk page and transclude it. Or simpler, just archive and cut-and-paste into the archive records of both other articles. An admin should tend to the history of the article issue.

Main reasons for this move are WP:Content forking and WP:POINT. The details are alrady explained on all sides of all coins in the above body of discussion on this talk page (which takes about 1 hour to read, if you also follow the links). The pro and con arguments have been debated, so if you do not add new arguments, please just cite the arguments above (giving, if you wish, a link to a particular section and mention which user/date comment to read; alternatively giving a diff from the history of this talk page). Dc76\talk 00:42, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

  • I agree - there's too much content forking to serve an ideology going on (and linguistics should be kept as free as possible from ideological taint), so I support the proposed mergers. Biruitorul Talk 01:19, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Support consolidation. Even Voronin says of course Romanian and Moldovan are the same language. And the "MO"ldovan language code has been rendered obsolete, superceded by "RO"manian, as of November 3, 2008. It's time to put a quiet and organized end to those who would argue that ideology defines language. —PētersV (talk) 04:20, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Definitely no. Moldovan has a longer history as a de jure official language than Romanian, and, anyway, any arbitrarily changing of the sources so that Wikipedia says "Romanian" when the sources say "Moldovan" is not only OR and a clear breach of verifiability , but also a very tendentious editing (and thus a breach of 3 of the 4 content standards set into Wikipedia policy). (Of course, this seems to be the preferred way of dealing with MD-topics for some, just look at how a Romanian IP -unlogged editor?- put "Romanians" when the source explicitely says "Moldavians") No mather how much Romanian editors would want to supress this and impose the fallacy that "Stalin created Moldovan", the Moldovan language has a longer history, and there are reliable sources to prove it.Xasha (talk) 12:07, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
    • Xasha, in your description you makig a logical mistake when say "Moldavian language langauge has longer history". YOu are confusing "different names" and "different things". The languages which are called Romanian and Moldovan differ just as "American English" and "British English". It is a peculiar accident that they are called very differently, unlike Am/Brit. It just so happened that for some period in the past the language of people in Modavia was called Moldavian. I am not sure whether there were terms "Wallachian language" or "Transylvanian language", but after some time the term "Romanian language" substituted the usage of the term "Moldavian language" in the refernce to the same speech. If you want to say that for some period in the past (eg before unification of Romania) there were separate both "Moldavian" and "Romanian" languages, you please present the corresponding linguistic scholar texts. It will be interesting to learn. Timurite (talk) 16:59, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
      • Russians had no reason to create a new language and make it official in 1818. On the contrary, since their way to Constantinople passed through Wallachia, they had every reason to try to claim language identity to support of inclusion of that region in the Empire (it actually suceeded imposing it's protectorate on Western Moldavia and Wallachia 10 years later, and probably would have annexed them if it weren't for the Western intervention in the Crimean War). But the Russians, with very few exceptions, always called the language Moldavian, and so did the majority of locals from their first scholarly writings until today. The opinions of some linguists about modern literary Moldovan can't delete the long history of this language.Xasha (talk) 17:51, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Support the merger as outlined above. How untenable the present article is is shown already by its lead sentence: "The history of the Moldovan language refers to the historical evolution of the glottonym Moldavian/Moldovan". That's nonsensical gibberish. A "history" cannot "refer" to anything (use-mention confusion), and even if it were grammatically corrected to: The term "History of the Moldovan language" refers to..., that would be blatantly incorrect, because it just doesn't. The history of a language is something different from the history of its name(s). Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:04, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Support. The article "Moldovan language" is not about a language, but about a political controversy called "the Moldovan language", so it should also contain the history of that controversy. A separate article will be justified only if the text gets too long. Future Perfect, from a linguistic point of view, there is no distinct Moldovan language, so there is no distinct history of a Moldovan language, but there is a politically motivated alternative name for the Romanian language. Despite the bad wording (for which I am to blame), the leading section is not mistaken where it says that the subject of this article is the history of a language name, because that's what it is. — AdiJapan 14:00, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Support the merge of the Romanian part, with careful explanations about the usage of the names in the past, present and future. Oppose to the merging of the "Soviet" part: there is no serious reason to merge beyond "WP:POINT" issue, which must be dealt by regular editing. WP:FORK part is relevant only to Romanian part. Also, a brief summary piece must be kept about occasional usage of the term in the past. In addition, the criticism of Soviet theories about both history of the language and its alleged Slavic roots must be written somewhere. Please notice, while the soviet theories may be fringe, still the text about these theories is quite encyclopedic, singe these theories are fact of the past. I am sure that there should be plenty of Romanian sources which criticize these theories. Timurite (talk) 16:59, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
    • The article about these theories is Moldovenism, an absolutely legitimate and encyclopedic subject. Unfortunately, that article as of now does not present the three phases clearly: 1924-1940, 1940-1989, and post 1991. There are different features sometimes at play: Those that you mentioned are indeed key to 1924-1989. Moldovan national identity controvercy (about which for example the French Eikipedia has a whole article) on the other hand is a feature only of the latter period. My point is: by not merging the other 2 sections as well, we would have a content fork with Moldovenism. Dc76\talk 23:02, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
      • "Moldovenism" page has no content to fork ;-).Timurite (talk) 15:26, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
        • You are obviously right. I was very busy at the moment I wrote my comment and misworded what I meant. What I meant to say is there is a conent fork between Moldovenism and section 3 here. So, to make it more clear, now I suggest to merge section 3 to Moldovenism rather than to Moldovan language, as I was proposing earlier (the arguments you brought made me change my mind). On the fate of sections 1 and 2 seems to be only one oppose (Xasha), and the fate of section 4 is discussed in the next section of this talk page. Dc76\talk 07:34, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose full merge. The rationale based on "WP:FORK and WP:Point is invalid. The original structure an basic scope of the article have been created with participation of staunch Romanians Orioane and Bogdanduica almost 3 years ago. It was done way before the xasha warrior arrived. Please settle your disagreements with hime wthout drastic actions. `'Míkka>t 17:28, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
    • P.S. I agree that the part in the Russian Empire grew out of proportions in terms of the artice topic. But this is matter of regular editing. In other words, most of the content of the "Russian Empire" section must be merged into "History of the Romanian language", while leaving the relevant info about the usage of the term "Moldavian language" during this perios `'Míkka>t 17:30, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
  • I support the merges. As far as I can tell, the two opposes are based on (1) a claim that Moldovan was a language in its own right before Romanian, and (2) a request to keep this article in place for the sole purpose of describing the usage of the term "Moldovan language" during some period or another. I believe the former is overwhelmingly being accepted as factually incorrect, while the latter is in my opinion a minor issue compared to the coherency benefits of merging (I don't see much value in keeping this article separated for that purpose alone, while a merge would benefit the reader by providing a whole lot of context). --Gutza T T+ 21:22, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

I am closing this discussion (and that of the following section, which is a subissue of this one) with the following results:

1. I read consensus that sections 1 and 2 can be merged into History of Romanian language.
2. I read agreement that section 3 can be merged into Moldovenism.
3. I read agreement that section 4 is better suited under either the existing article Moldovan language or a proposed article Linguistic policies in the Republic of Moldova. Since the latter does not exist, and its creation might bring about some more complex issues that need prior consideration, and since no user has taken upon such consideration on WP, I conclude that section 4 can be moved into the existing article Moldovan language for now.
4. Should anyone in the future start an article Linguistic policies in the Republic of Moldova or an equivalent title, consider using in it the text of the current section 4. Discussion on the usefulness of such an article can be carried out within the framework of the WP:WikiProject Moldova, and/or at the talk page of Moldovan language.

Respectfully, yours, Dc76\talk 22:22, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

New title suggestion

There is a cerain historical continuity observed in the current article, of what had happened in the Land of Moldova, regardless the linguistic terminology, and I think the corresponding events deserve a separate "thread" in wikipedia in one place. I would suggest the new title "History of language in Moldova", which avoids putting the disputed term in the article title.

By the way, the article does not present any theories to explain why Imperial Russia introduced the term "Moldavian language". Timurite (talk) 15:32, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

But Moldovan is not the only language spoken in Moldova. There are at least 6 major languages in Moldova nowadays, and if it's going to be a history of the language, you'll have to talk about Crimean Tatar, Turkish, and even Getae and Scythian languages.
Point taken. Should be language-specific, e.g., History of Romanian and Moldovan language in Moldova. Timurite (talk) 18:45, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
There's no theory to present, because the Moldavian language was used long before, as proved by the Moldavian croniclers of the early 17th century (so at least 200 years before the Russians came to Bessarabia).Xasha (talk) 17:19, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
Chroniclers prove nothing; they record chronicles. In any case, I don't see your point. Yes, the language was called "Moldavian" Later it was called "Romanian", still later they some people started insisting the languages are different, while others maintain they are the same. This should be the topic of the current article: why, how and when happened so. Timurite (talk) 18:45, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
Those chroniclers said in the early 17th century that their language is "Moldavian" (And they weren't just some chroniclers, they were the only real scholars in Moldova during those times). The language was always called Moldavian by the majority of Moldavians, just like Croatian was always called so by the majority of Croatians, despite the official policy of the foreign governments (Romania in 1918-1940 for the former, and Serbian-dominate Jugoslavia for the latter) that conflated these languages with theirs.Xasha (talk) 19:01, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
You write "was always called". I hope you have references to prove this. By the way, the majority is not the rule. Linguistics is not democracy. The majority may call penis dick, but the anatomical term is still penis. In this respect I'd rather be curious how claimed Moldovan cultural figures Mihai Eminescu and Ion Creangă called their native language. `'Míkka>t 19:21, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
I doubt you can find any 19th century Moldavian intellectual who disputes that Moldovans, Wallachians and Transylvanian Romanians are the same nation. Mihai Eminescu was a Romanian nationalist, one could argue even an extremist in his views. Ion Creangă didn't approach politics as much as Eminescu, but he did wrote stories praising the union of Wallachia and Moldavia. For example, from Ioan Roată şi Vodă Cuza: "the most righteous cause of the Romanian nation: The Union, the holy Union." bogdan (talk) 22:53, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
"Always" means "since we have written sources about locals writing about their language". You're comparing apples and oranges, humanities aren't as clear-cut as exact sciences, especially when some consider a language is a dialect with an army and navy. I don't know about how Creanga generally called his language (although, considering he was payed by the RO gvt to teach "Romanian", he officially called it that way), but in his stories he says that some characters "speak Moldavian" or in a didactic story talks about peasants asking boyars to speak "in Moldavian" so they can understand what they're being said. Eminescu probably called his language Romanian, after all he was only 7 when "Romanian" was instituted as the only legal language in his home country. BTW, just because you call your language "Romanian" doesn't mean you aren't a Moldovan (there are lots in Moldova, and this is the case of User:Serhio, AFAIK).Xasha (talk) 20:06, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
You didn't answer my main question about references, e.g., about "written sources about locals writing about their language", paying attention to your claim about "always". If you have reliable references, why don't you add the corresponding texts in the articles Romanian language, Moldovan language and whereve else appropriate, rather than waste time in talk pages. `'Míkka>t 20:16, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
There are already on this page (see "Early usage" in this article). Prior to those Moldavians scholars, the name used can't be established (prior to that, foreign scholars called "Vlach" all Romance languages from the Pindus to Moravia, but very few of those speakers used that name when they began to write in their native language), but it would be very strange if they suddenly started to call their language that way just to help Stalin 300 years after. I can't edit those articles.Xasha (talk) 20:31, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Maybe use the form "History of the state language of Moldova"? Or perhaps just move it to Moldovan language's history section (although it'd get kindaa bloated)... --Illythr (talk) 19:38, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I think I have a better proposal: "History of linguistic policies in the Republic of Moldova". Note to flamewarriors: the term policy is a neutral one with respect to rightness/wrongness, but it shows a deliberate action of a policy maker (e.g. government). Why this title? Because the overwhelming majority of linguists say Mo language is a political concept (e.g. here). Obviously, the article should present the linguistic arguments in favor of Moldovenism, and the criticism. I make this proposal in addition to user:Dc76's proposals. adriatikus | talk 13:24, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
What about Ureche, Cantemir and the early 19th century Imperial Russia? What policy did they follow, what was their motivation to create such a "political concept" and why did they voluntarily adhered to those evil Stalinist actions?Xasha (talk) 14:18, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
(1) Flamewarrior, re-read my edit: "policy is a neutral with respect to rightness/wrongness". The article should present both the supporting POV (the claim/interpretation that Ureche and Cantemir used Mo as a diff language than Ro) and the criticism. (2) I say it again, Moldovan language is not a mainstream scholar thesis, its main supporters being throughout history policy makers. Therefore the proposed title.adriatikus | talk 14:31, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
I think you don't know what policy means. That's why I am wikilinking the word to its article for a second time. adriatikus | talk 14:38, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
(1)See WP:NPA. (2) You provided no proof that Ureche, Cantemir or Imperial Russia were applying a "deliberate plan of action to guide decisions " Xasha (talk) 14:43, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
(1) Sue me. (2) "Russian was made the official language. Also around 1850, Moldovan was no longer used in schools and the importation of books from Moldavia and Wallachia was banned." [4] - that's policy (depends on the reader to say it was good or bad). As about individuals, it's one thing to quote them if they explicitly say "Mo is diff than Ro", but completely another thing to quote another one (in this case a policy maker) who interprets their writings as being in support of Moldovenism. adriatikus | talk 15:06, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
(1)Sue yourself.(2)What has that to do with Romanian? If I say my native language is Moldovan, would you think I am talking about Russian if I don't explicitely say I'm not? The fault is Romanians cause they "forget" about those passages when talking about those authors, and that they claim the enormity that the Moldovan language was invented by Stalin in 1924. (which, even with its extreme stupidity, is still claimed by some Romanian nationalist, as if Stalin had nothing else to do but imagine in his mind a language for some 200,000 people somewhere on his huge country's western border).Xasha (talk) 15:22, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
(1) "Sue yourself" WP:PA, "fault is Romanians cause..."- WP:WEASEL. Please stop. (2) I was not talking about Stalin, nor your personal opinions. Please refrain from detouring the discussion. The question is: "Is Mo a language?" The mainstream scholars overwhelmingly say "No" ([5]). Saying "Yes" are the policy makers in Moldova (noteworthy, without credible scholar support - if you have supporting quotes, please provide them, otherwise we are talking nonsense). Therefore, the "history of Moldovan language" is actually "the history of linguistic policies in Moldova". adriatikus | talk 15:57, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
(1) Huh?! (2.) Repeating the same things over and over again like a mantra, without bringing anything new and ignoring the arguments of those who don't agree with you, really doesn't make one's opinion more credible or more factual.Xasha (talk) 19:17, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if any of the suggested titles are appropriate, but certainly something needs to be done, because the current title is indeed misleading. Just by seeing the title, an uninformed reader will think there actually is a Moldovan language and this article talks about its history. Well, as all of you probably already know very well by now, this is not the case. An informative and suggestive title would be something like this: History of the term "Moldovan language". We have the same problem at the article Moldovan language, whose subject does not belong to linguistics, but politics. The right title would be The term "Moldovan language". Alternatively, we could have titles such as Romanian language in Moldova and History of the Romanian language in Moldova. — AdiJapan 07:43, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

First, I want to inform the rest of you that I am quite busy this week, so I appologize for not taking part in anything else. I will only today comment on this page, and then see you next week. But you should proceed ahead without me, I can catch up easily when I come back.
Second, I notice that my proposal has generated discussion in 3 aspects:
  • the fate of sections 1 and 2. Except Xasha, I see agreement to move them in History of Romanian language.
  • the fate of section 3. Timurite convinced me that Moldovan language is not the most approrpiate place for that info. So, now I changed my mind: that section should go to Moldovenism - it basically describes the issue at core of Moldovenism. Obviously, that article would need substancial development, and I invite everybody to join in that work and by New Year to a achieve a more or less good article. Maybe we can even make a DYK from it.
  • the fate of section 4, which - as I understand - is what is being discussed in this section of the talk page. So, I would take adriaticus' proposal and reformultate it: Linguistic policies in the Republic of Moldova (I droped the words "History of"). As Xasha pointed out, there is more to be added to such an article besides section 4 from here (e.g. official language status, how it came about, regional languages status, de facto situation today, legal issues, minority languages, etc) I think we can do that. Thus, we can indeed rename this article and keep section 4 in it. Of course, it would be necessary to further edit it (some info from it would go to Moldovan language, while other info of historical character would be brought in). How is that? Dc76\talk 07:51, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
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