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Language in Moldova
 

The Constitution of Moldova (Title I, Article 13) states that the Moldovan language is the official language of the country. In Moldova's Declaration of Independence, the same language is called Romanian. The term "Moldovan" is the official name for the Romanian language in the Republic of Moldova, but this term is limited only to some political spheres, whereas "Romanian" is used on all other occasions: "Romanian" is the term used in schools, media and even in areas such as administration or law.

There is no particular linguistic break at the Prut River, which divides Moldova from Romania. In formal use, the languages are identical, although in 1993 (after the adoption of the Romanian alphabet in Moldova), the Romanian Academy issued a recommendation that made minor changes to the alphabet, a recommendation that was not applied in Moldova at that time. Eventually, with the publication of the "Dicţionarul ortografic al limbii romāne (ortopepic, morfologic, cu norme de punctuaţie)" by the Moldovan Academy of Sciences in 2000, the recommendation became mandatory in Moldova also. The common speech of areas such as Chişinău or Transnistria can be distinguished from the speech of Iaşi, a Romanian city that is also part of the former Principality of Moldavia, while the difference in the common speech between Iaşi and the capital of Romania Bucharest is even greater. Linguistically, Moldovan is considered one of the five major spoken dialects of Romanian, all five being written identically. In general, before 1988-89, the less educated, the greater the difference from standard Romanian, and the more words were borrowed ad hoc from Russian into the daily speech.

Mihai Eminescu (Romanian writer)
Mihai Eminescu

Most linguists don't consider the existence of the Moldovan language, although one Moldovan linguist, Vasile Stati, disputed this. However, Stati admited latter in an interview for the Russian language newspaper "Vremea" that "without any doubt, the literary form of the Moldovan language, the cultivated form, as used by the writers and the linguists, is identical to the Romanian language". The afirmations of Stati are dubbed by the Moldovan law regarding the conception on national politics, adopted in December 2003:

"The conception has its starting point in the historical truth, confirmed by the common literary treasure: The Moldovan people and the Romanian people use a common literary form".
The 1989 law on language of the Moldavian SSR, which is still effective in Moldova according to the Constitution, also asserts the existence of "linguistic Moldo-Romanian identity".

There are, however, more differences between the colloquial spoken languages of Moldova and Romania, most significantly due to the influence of Russian in Moldova which was not present in Romania. These differences in speech vocabulary are being slowly diluted after 1989. A significant minority speaks native Russian, and there are more Slavicisms in common speech in Moldova than in common speech in Romania. Nonetheless, Moldovans are generally aware when they are using a word of Slavic origin not found in common Romanian, and are capable of choosing whether or not to use these words in a particular context.

In some cases Russian is used alongside Moldovan (Romanian) within state institutions, despite not having legal status. This is generally in direct relation to the political context in the government, which can be either pro-Russian or pro-Romanian/pro-Western. As of 2007, five members of the Moldovan government were not able to speak Moldovan, the main language used in government meetings being Russian. In Transnistria, the breakaway authorities consider its old Cyrillic form co-official with Russian and Ukrainian, and persecute inhabitants that use the standard Latin alphabet.
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