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Revert to last edit by Ronline

I did the following:

  • Reverted the article to the last edit by Ronline;
  • Remade the changes made by Vasile;
  • Reinserted the paragraph removed by Vasile.

In this way the recent edits made by Node_ue have been canceled. As this is a controversial article I expect from now on that everyone will discuss things here first. Minor changes, such as spelling errors, can be made without prior discussion, but anything more than that has to reach consensus here.

I remind you that this is a talk page concerning the article. Keep any other discussions in their respective relevant places. Keep your personal attacks in any place you wish, except Wikipedia. And those of you who still haven't, grow up. --AdiJapan 19:17, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I have reverted your edits. All of the claims I inserted were sourced. If you want to dispute the claims, take them up one by one. But you may not just remove them entirely. --Node 19:26, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
You do not have sources for your edits. You did not have the others' agreement. You did not make the edits one by one. You don't even speak the damn language! Isn't this just about too much?! --AdiJapan 19:32, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
No, I did give sources. Just check. I didn't have others agreement? I made comments here before my edits, and nobody challenged them. And I do speak the language, just not as well as do you, although that doesn't really matter -- what matters in writing a Wikipedia article is research, diligence, and dedication. Prior knowledge of a topic is good, too, but research and being able to give references for every statement is the standard to which we're supposed to adhere. And, your tone is starting to turn sour. Please don't start taking low blows like other users here have. --Node 19:38, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I also don't agree with Node's edits because I don't see there Moldovan is identical with Romanian. And stop this trolling war. -- Bonaparte talk & contribs 19:37, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


(Removed Bonaparte's personal attacks on Node_ue.)

Node, this is called lying. You posted some of your edits here, and the other editors were against. To go not any further than the first paragraph, calling "graiul moldovenesc" limba moldovenească was opposed, and naming the Moldovan language as the official language of Transnistria was opposed as well. And the list goes on. --AdiJapan 19:58, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

AdiJapan's proposal

I think is a very good one. I agree with it. I've never edit this article since 13th November! That is more than 23 days!!! now. Anything from now on have to be discussed here and first here accepted. Only then can we go further. It was a good version but this blatant vandal that makes this reverting war [[1]] doesn't obey with this rule. In this way what he is doing is called trolling. -- Bonaparte talk & contribs 20:01, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

It's not my proposal. It was made by Oleg before me, and by others before him. It's just that some people missed it, or chose to. --AdiJapan 20:38, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Node ue please stop reverting. What you are doing is called vandalism. I reverted the version that AdiJapan initially reverted which in its turn was the version that Ronline presented.
Also you seem to make a lot of refferences to your sorces. Be so kind as to present your sources one more time here on the talk page.
Lastly if you have disagreements with this version I strongly suggest that you present these disagreements here first before engaging in a revert war which is not only time wasting but also not constructive at all and annoying on top of it.

Hi Constanteanu, go to the article, click "history", and then click "differences". You will see that for every potentially controversial statement I wrote, there were references, in the format of {{ref|...}}, with the references at the end of the article as {{note|...}}. Now, as you have asked me to discuss my objections here, I would like you to discuss your objections here. Even after your reversion of the article, there are still some diferences from the way it was a few days ago. So it's not acceptable for you to pretend that the version you reverted to is somehow universally agreed-upon. --Node 21:43, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't agree with Node. We have a very good version now :) . -- Bonaparte talk & contribs 21:46, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Enough is enough - Bonaparte is back again

I did have enough pacience with this guy but now I've seen that after 23 days since I didn't edit the page this guy is just making an revert war like this [[2]] -- Bonaparte talk & contribs 22:02, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

As I noted to Constanteanu, my version is sourced. If you want to protest my changes, go ahead and protest them. But plain reversion isn't OK, especially since you've discarded many minor edits, for example wikifying. --Node 22:52, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
You lie. All you did was this: revert war (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moldovan_language&diff=30263059&oldid=30260615). Everybody left you. You're alone on your position.. You did not reached CONSENSUS. And we do have a very good version now!  :) -- Bonaparte talk & contribs 22:57, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Uhh... what? How is that lying? I just said my version is sourced. It is. I gave sources for all of my changes. And in the last 24 hours, I have made no straight reverts -- each time I reverted, it was combined with minor changes. I'm certainly not alone on my position, the editors of the article language agree with me, as do all of the articles I've sourced in my version. And we don't have a very good version now thanks to you! :) --Node 23:01, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

how you quys can continue this behaviors???

How u quys can continue this behaviors??? It goes back and then it gos back again , and around like the wheel of a car.. u shuold not jut keep revverting, if u want 2 change smth, pls talk it here first insted of change change change back and forward and back against prior form!! u just keep delet informations , deny peoples sources (complaned earlier here by user anittas,) ,and dont discoss it!!! so stop it now, if u remove nething from the page u shold add smth to .--80.58.51.106 23:29, 5 December 2005 (UTC)--80.58.51.106 23:29, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with user 80.58.52.206. This is really getting out of hand.

Node ue

Please for the last time. Stop changing stuff. Obviously everyone here is ok with Ronline's version. It is not us that have to discuss it here so stop turning the whole thing around. The only one against it is you.

Node ue if you revert something one more time without talking about it here then I am afraid I am going to have to go and invoke some higher authority and that will not make you look too good. What you are doing is outrageous. Anyone with a little bit of common sense can see that.

You don't even say what is wrong with Ronline's version. You just go ahead and change it based on the fact that you provided sources. The changes proposed by me and Ronline do not conflict with your sources Node ue. The current version is just better written. I haven't even tackled the real issues yet. So what is the problem? Maybe if you would act in a constructive manner and post your disagreements here first, then we can get to the bottom of this. Otherwise we are never going to get anywhere.

PS: Also, I just asked you to please put all your sources right here on the talk page so we call see them clearly right here. Constantzeanu 00:17, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Node's last edit did improve some of the English of the article. He will not be editing this article in the next 24 hours. So, please stop bashing him, and do something constructive. If the editors to this article cannot be constructive while Node is away, we shall know that fault is not with him. --Gareth Hughes 00:39, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Uhmm when have I acted in a non-constructive way? What exactly would you like me to do? I have stated what I had to state. I think I have not gotten out of line. And I certainly do not plan to do anything more but to make sure that the article is NPOV. I would say that is pretty constructive. What about you?

  • On a slightly different note, I would like to draw attention to everyone to the discussion board of the Romanian language. There is a map there which I found quite flawed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Romania_Graiuri.jpg . I tried to adjust it a little bit in order reflect reality a little bit more. This is the new map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Romania_Graiuri-mod2.jpg. You can see the contrast on the bottom of the talk page. The first map is the one above, while the map changed by me is a little bellow it. I did the changes because it seemed very strange to me that the Bugeac appeared almost entirely Romanian, when only about 20 villages there have Romanian speakers. I redrew mostly that part based mostly on the Ukrainian census, a Romanian census in 1930 as well as reports of NGOs about where these villages are located. Also Brasov appeared as a city in the Muntenesc grai area which is clearly not so I fixed that too. In Timoc, it appeared as if Romanian is being spoken in cities as well when it is not, so I showed that by holes in that area. I would really like everyone's opinion about it, even you Gareth if you are interested in the subject.

PS: and how do you know he will not do anything for the next 24 hours? Did he tell you so personally?Constantzeanu 00:58, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

My edits

I tried to find more analogies that roughly parallel the situation with Romanian and Moldovan, and I happened upon Malay and Indonesian. I took a cue from these two language articles and implemented them by revising the first two introductory paragraphs. I am trying to make this part of the article work - so please work with me on this rather than reverting.

I also revised and reinstated many of Node's grammar connections. To anyone out there who is planning to revert - please don't do so wholesale. Revert what you find objectionable but leave the not-so-objectionable stuff like grammar edits out of the revert. There is no need to hurry, so please take the time in attempting to preserve the corrections while at the same time reverting what you find objectionable. Thank you. --Chris S. 02:37, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Your edits don't reflect the majority point of view since you deleted "they are identical". -- Bonaparte talk & contribs 04:50, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Now, why did you go and revert the grammatical corrections? Is the majority POV to write articles in awkward English??? You know, it disappoints me that you go on and revert the articles like that. Why don't you study some websites and linguistic books on the nature of all the linguistic terms I used in there? Try to work with me, not against me. I'm trying to do the same thing. --Chris S. 05:09, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
We will correct only the grammar and any other issue will be discussed here first. -- Bonaparte talk & contribs 08:33, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

No two cases are the same

The difference between the two is markedly more noticeable in the nonstandard dialects found in both countries.


This is factually wrong. Romanian and Moldovan are part of the same Daco-Romanian dialect. Romanian north of Danube has Grai's, not dialects. Constantzeanu 03:29, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

What is a grai? --Chris S. 03:53, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Nevermind, I found a definition of it at ro:Grai which says "un grai este o subdiviziune a unui dialect al unei limbi." So then a grai is a subdialect, right? To say that there are no dialects isn't correct - there is a dialect continuum in Romanian just as there are in any language. As you move from Bucharest to Chisinau, the language gradually changes; there is a chain of dialects from Point A to Point Z. --Chris S. 04:04, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

There is no translation for grai in the English language and although I speak English at least just as well as I speak Romanian, I could not find a proper word that would be the equivalent of grai.

In essence it is a way of speaking the language, but not as drastic as a dialect. To give you an idea Texan-English and New York-English would be considered as two grais in Romanian.

I hope I did not confuse you with this explanation. User:Constantzeanu|Constantzeanu]] 03:55, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

No problem - there's on confusion at all. I deal with the concept of grais with the Philippine languages I study. But anyway, it doesn't really mater if we use dialects or subdialects. A language is basically a collection of dialects. And dialects are collections of subdialects. Subdialects can be further divided until ultimately you have idiolects. In any case, dialects are particular to a certain geographic area. And that can be either big or small. --Chris S. 04:08, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


No here is the thing. A dialect continuum talks about a range of dialects. Dialects are something pretty different then grais. For example hoch Deutsch and platt Deutsch are dialects and are quite different. As an example, in Hoch Deutsch one says Samstag for Saturday but in PlatDeutsch one says Sonnenabend. So you see this is the difference.
You are mistaken; subdialects are part of the dialect continuum. The distinction where a dialect ends and begins is just as arbitrary where a language ends and begins. Hochdeutsch and Plattdeutsch are indeed dialects. However, between them is a dialect continuum which is composed of adjoining subdialects.
To demonstrate, in the Amsterdam subdialect you have people who say ik/maken/dorp/dat then in the Düsseldorf subdialect people say ich/maken/dorp/dat, then in the Cologne subdialect it's ich/machen/dorp/dat, in Trier it's ich/machen/dorf/dat and in Berlin it's ich/machen/dorf/das. There's the gradual shift. All these make up a bigger dialect and in turn, the dialects form a language. --Chris S. 04:33, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Well thats not what the article on dialect continuum says. That article talks about dialects, not subdialects which is the case of Romanian and Moldovan here.Constantzeanu 05:02, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Read dialect and see what they are made out of. --Chris S. 05:14, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

As I am sure you know, take Tagalog(standard Philippino) and Visaya( I am not sure I spelled it correctly). In Visaya, some words are different and people who know Visaya would have a hard time understanding Tagalog unless they are used to Tagalog as well.

Right. Visayan is a collection of languages. And then the languages have dialects, etc. It's like the classification of living things, you start with Kingdom, Phylum, then work on your way down to Genus and finally Species. With Romanian's case, Indo-European is the kingdom, Romance the class, etc. The species is the various subdialects of Romania and Moldova. --Chris S. 04:33, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Not really. I would say the species are Daco-Romanian, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian. Romanian and Moldovan are like the limbs on the animal :))) Constantzeanu 05:02, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
But these terms are far too general to be species. The species would be reserved for a particular city or town's subdialect. --Chris S. 05:14, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

A grai, like you yourself discovered is a subdivision of a dialect. So Daco-Romanian here is the dialect, Moldovan is just a subdialect. Its basically Romanian with a different accent. The words are the same and spelling is the same, except for the Moldovan grai in the Republic of Moldova, which differs only in the spelling of one sound î/â. The reason is that in 1992 Romanians only spelled words with î and they decided to do the same. Then in 1993 Romanians decided to spell with â but Moldovans did not bother to change as well. Constantzeanu 04:13, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Right, and Romanian is the subdialect too. Both the Romanian and Moldovan subdialects are part of the bigger Daco-Romanian dialect. --Chris S. 04:33, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
No. Romanian is not like the 2nd subdialect of Daco-Romanian. Romanian is what the literary language is called. Muntenian, Banatian, Moldovan, Transylvanian, Maramureshenian and Oltenian are all grais or subdialects of Daco-Romanian. See this map of further clarifications:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Romania_Graiuri-mod2.jpg

Constantzeanu 04:58, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

What is Daco-Romanian a dialect of? --Chris S. 05:14, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
It is a dialect of the greater Romanian language, also known as Vlach. But the later term is no longer used as much. Constantzeanu 05:34, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I see - it's another way of saying the Proto-Eastern-Romanian language, which is my impression. So the Daco-Romanian spoken in Romania has the distinction of being Romanian, right? Daco-Romanian is spoken in Romanian and Moldova, but they go by different names. And they are divided into subsubdialects depending on where. Well, I am going to stop for now. I am going to sleep on what was discussed here. Thanks. --Chris S. 05:42, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Official name of the state language

I do not understand why it was reverted to official name of the state language. State language is basically synonimous with official language, so I do not understand the choice for a more lengthy name. --Chris S. 04:15, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

The reasons are as follows. Firstly, it would be POV to call it a language, since that is disputed. Secondly this is how Moldovan authorities and pro-government media call it : "state language"( non pro-communist media call it just Romanian). They call it "state language" because even the communist government does not want to get into the debate over the language and if it is the same as Romanian or not, since the issue is very sensitive to most people there.

Constantzeanu 04:20, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

It is true that it may be POV to call it a language. However, it is not POV to report this particular point of view. First and foremost, when doing language articles it is important to say where it is the official language. And Moldova's constitution does say that it is the official language, correct? I mean, it's absurd. There's the official name of the state language, but it leads me to wonder what the unofficial name is? I should point out that state language automatically redirects to official language. The wording you choose is basically paraphrasing the same concept in order to obfuscate the issue at hand. --Chris S. 04:39, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I am sorry Chris but I think you misunderstand the matter at hand. The official name is Moldovan. The unofficial name is Romanian, according to most people. And yes reporting this as a language is POV because you automatically hint that there is no doubt that Moldovan is a language. If reporting is all you are interested in, then you can report it very well in one of the paragraphs that follow that:

the present communist Moldovan government defends the existance of Moldovan as an independent language.

However, the NPOV to do is use a neutral language. Please stop reverting stuff. As Gareth Hughes put it, lets act in a constructive manner and talk things here first before moving to quickly. Constantzeanu 04:47, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Constantzeanu, the official name is indeed Moldovan. However, the official language is also Moldovan - that is an unbiased, NPOV report. You are saying the same thing, but in more words since official and state are the synonymous. Furthermore, I am willing to believe that you are unable to cite sources where Moldovan is frequently referred to as the "official name of the state language" - much more than "official language." Official language is as neutral as you can get. It would only be POV if it weren't actually so. For example, saying Visayan is the official language of the Philippines is POV, because it isn't. --Chris S. 05:00, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I think you are still confusing things. The article would be POV if it would say that the official language is Moldovan. First of all this is a disputed statement. It just does not sound politically correct. The official name (as in official) of the language of the state is called Moldovan. De-facto it's just Romanian. That is NPOV. If you would like me to I can give you 1000 sourses that call the language "state language", not "Moldovan language", thus avoiding to call it either Moldovan or Romanian. I know it might be hard for someone that is only trying to understand the situation to fully comprehend what I am trying to say but please leave it as it is.Constantzeanu 05:08, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


They are identical. It doesn't matter how you call it as long as you recognize that are identical. You may call it as you wish on political reasons, but they are identical. The fact that 2/3 of the people recognized it that is romanian and only 1/3 people said that is "moldovan" explains a lot, isn't it so? How do you explain that it was once recognized offficially in consitution of Moldova that official language is romanian for several years? -- Bonaparte talk & contribs 05:04, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I already mentioned they are identical. What are you talking about? To me it seems like you are merging the political and linguistic perspectives into one perspective, your own. Official language, as you may or may not know, have nothing to do with linguistics. On the other hand, saying that one speech variety is virtually identical to another is based on linguistics. I have nothing to gain or lose on what to call Moldovan in the article, so please don't think I am a Moldovan nationalist or anti-Romanian or whatever. --Chris S. 05:15, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Chris, I'm from Moldova and everywhere either "limba de stat" or "limba romana" is used, in school there are no "limba moldoveneasca" courses, just "limba romana". 212.0.211.25 19:36, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I never said you are anti-Romanian. In fact, I do not believe that you are anti-Romanian. I simply said that it might be possible that you might make a confusion about some notions which is perfectly normal since everyone is entitled to misunderstand something. That is all.Constantzeanu 05:34, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I was referring to Bonaparte whose tone seemed to suggest that. --Chris S. 05:36, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

As far as I can see, the issue with the Moldovan language is this:

  • Linguistically, the speech of Moldova is at the end of a dialect continuum, the so-called Daco-Romanian, possibly with Oltenian at the other end. Still, the differences are small enough for a Moldovan and an Oltenian to understand each other with no problem. No one can call them dialects.
  • At some point Chris edited the article and wrote: Both Romanian and Moldovan are virtually identical and thus have a very high degree of mutual intelligibility. You cannot at the same time have them virtually identical and highly mutually intelligible, this is almost a nonsense. Romanian and, say, Aromanian are highly mutually intelligible, which made many linguists conclude they are dialects. Even Romanian and Italian are mutually intelligible to a high degree. But Moldovan is virtually identical to standard Romanian. I have friends in Ukraine and Moldova and I have no problem whatsoever understanding them. I grant you that their accent is sometimes funny, but isn't Texan accent funny to the ears of a New Yorker? Would you say Texan vernacular has a high degree of mutual intelligibility with the one spoken in New York?
  • Politically, the problem is that a considerable part of the Moldovan population is afraid of a possible union with Romania. They see it a bad thing because it would break the already fragile relationship they have with Russia and because inside Romania they would have less freedom. Calling themselves Moldovans or Romanians has everything to do with their political position regarding the relationship with Romania. It has no linguistic grounds whatsoever. Language is an important part of ethnicity, and as such has been abused for political purposes.
  • Someone proposed that we replace the whole article with a redirect to the Romanian language. This would definitely be wrong. The language of that region (including Romanian Moldavia) was called Moldovan by the chroniclers five centuries ago, albeit while noting that the language is the same as that spoken in Wallachia. Besides, the Moldovan constitution calls it Moldovan also. On top of that, part of the population of that country calls it Moldovan for whatever reason. The name of this language has a history and a present that must be written in this separate article.

--AdiJapan 05:53, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Newest reworking of second lead paragraph

I've reworked the second lead, here is a comparison of the two versions - my previous version and the current version. Which of these do you guys think is better?

Old New
The Moldovan language, in its official form, is considered by several experts to be identical to the Romanian language, an Eastern Romance language, except for an orthographic difference (see the Alphabet and spelling section), and that its status as a separate language is a political rather than linguistic one[2]. Some Moldovan linguists, however, dispute this claim[3]. A number of Moldovan government officials, as well as several government departments, consider Moldovan and Romanian to be the same language. There are, however, more differences in the spoken languages of Moldova and Romania, most significantly due to the influence of the Russian language in Moldova. A significant number of experts consider standard Moldovan to be virtually identical to Romanian, an Eastern Romance language, save for some minor orthographic differences, and that its status as a separate language is a political rather than linguistic one. Some Moldovan linguists, however, dispute this claim[3]. There are, however, more differences in the spoken languages of Moldova and Romania, most significantly due to the influence of the Russian language in Moldova. The matter of whether or not Moldovan is a separate language is a hotly-contested political issue in the Republic of Moldova.

Finally - Constantzeanu, why are you against the 1.2 million figure? Do you think it's too high? I think it's been sourced from an article in Gardianul, and I don't think it was Node who introduced it. Thanks, Ronline ✉ 06:33, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I have to disagree with the 1.2 figure as well, it's sort of high ;) See this link

In the world 26 million people speak romanian including those from Moldova. -- Bonaparte talk & contribs 08:36, 6 December 2005 (UTC) It is stated according to that census data that only 1/3 of people (1,2 million) say that they speak "moldovan". The other 2/3 say they speak romanian. Of course since they are identical we can say that "although 26 million people speak romanian 1,2 million say in Moldova that they speak "moldovan""-- Bonaparte talk & contribs 08:41, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but this is about how many speakers of "Moldovan" (self-declared) there are. If we say "26 million", that's not accurate, because those speakers are Romanian, not Moldovan, speakers. I think what Constantzeanu meant was that there are less than 1.2 million Moldovan speakers, and that the census data was either preliminary and/or false (due to political pressure). This is probably true - if you were to ask people in a binary way "Do you speak Moldovan or Romanian?", you'd probably find that less than 1 million people in Moldova would answer Moldovan, if there is no pressure put on them. Ronline ✉ 08:46, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

A good chance to have a good version

Since that vandal is blocked now we really have the chance for making a good article. -- Bonaparte talk & contribs 08:41, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, so which of my above versions do you think is better? The current or older version? Ronline ✉ 08:46, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
That word "virtual" has no place on the article. It starts only ambiguity to the reader. Should be removed and let identical like User:Dpotop and others agreed. -- Bonaparte talk & contribs 08:50, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, agreed. On the other hand, the new version includes "a significant number" instead of a "certain number", and also says "minor difference" instead of just "difference". I think "virtually" is fair, since there are some differences, even if they're very minor (i.e. the orthogrphic difference). Ronline ✉ 08:53, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes. So we let identical. Instead of "minor" I would say to replace the "difference" since this is just a "rule" rather than difference, is the same as in german with ss/ß. So this is not a difference is a "rule". We could say that is still used a former rule also used in romania before 1989, with the remark that both systems are used in both countries. -- Bonaparte talk & contribs 08:56, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

The part on the rule is explained in the Alphabet section. It should be stated in the intro, however, that the two are virtually identical except for this minor orthographic difference. The "virtually" is a good compromise solution, I think, since "identical" means that there is absolutely no difference. Whereas, for example, there is a difference even between US and UK English. "Near-identical" was bad because it implied a larger difference, but "virtually" implies "they're basically identical". Ronline ✉ 09:01, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

The are identical and this we shall explain in the followings how for example how they are identical despite the political and other soviet based theories approach. -- Bonaparte talk 09:25, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

They are identical except for the minor orthographic difference in their official form (of course, in day-to-day writing, some Romanians use î only, some Moldovans use â/î (Romanian spelling). Ronline ✉ 09:28, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes! Which is a rule not a "difference". Is like ss/ß rule in german language. Just a "rule". -- Bonaparte talk 09:43, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Ronline, welcome back to this article. We definitely need your help here. I also agree with your modifications to the second paragraph, although I'd make a couple stylistic modifications, but for the time being I think it's good as it is.
I have just added some short comments to the external links, most of which were just listed without any kind of title. I added one or two links myself, leading to subpages of those already mentioned.
I have two more links to add, to articles in Columbia Encyclopedia concerning this issue:
I was unable to find any useful information in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
I think this article is slowly but steadily going to a good compromise. --AdiJapan 10:18, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Bonaparte, do not refer to other users as vandals. Node ue was blocked by me under WP:3RR. I have asked other administrators to look into your conduct (WP:POINT and Wikipedia:Civility). I welcome Christopher Sundita's edit (and he has already met with Bonaparte's uncivil demeanor). Although it did not gain approval of the majority of editors it did highlight that the majority of editors are in favour of a version in bad English. This version is also badly linked. I dare not edit the article anymore for fear of getting another stream of capital letters from you know who. The paragraph that begins Romanian was admitted as language of teaching... has the link [[186]]3 rather than [[1863]] in it. Mistakes like this litter the text. Be careful not to revert edits out of hand, WP:3RR applies to all. --Gareth Hughes 10:38, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Adi - thanks for the links. I think they should be used to source the statement on virtual identicality. I also think that this article is heading in the right direction and things have calmed down (though as we saw yesterday, they can always get out of hand). Gareth - at the moment, the battle here has been a very politicised and highly-ideological one. Frankly, we haven't had time to look into formatting and spelling errors, though there are many of them. Many people corrected these errors, but they were mistakenly reverted when reverting to a previous version due to edit warring. So, I propose this - we leave the spelling and formatting for now, until a stable version of the article is created, and then we can work on expression, spelling, proper linking, etc. You're right, though, there are many words that need to be linked, others where linked need to be modified, others than don't make sense in English. Thanks, Ronline ✉ 11:38, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Adi and Ronline that now there is a new hope to have a neutral article. After so many lies that have been here stated like the one of User:Node ue with "Bucharestian is a language" I ask him now for references and proofs that "Bucharestian is a language". Bonaparte talk 11:48, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


Ronline, your edit including a new genetic classification does not have a wide acceptance. Most linguists say that Moldovan and Romanian are identical. Your classifying Moldovan as a sub-branch of Daco-Romanian means that Daco-Romanian is a group of dialects. My dictionary and most serious sources say otherwise:

  • DEX: DACOROMẤN, -Ă, dacoromâni, -e, adj., s.m. 1. Adj. (Despre dialecte, graiuri, cuvinte) Care aparţine românilor sau privitor la românii din nordul Dunării. ♦ (Substantivat, f.) Dialect vorbit de dacoromâni, cel mai răspândit şi mai dezvoltat dintre dialectele limbii române.
  • Columbia Encyclopedia (about the Romanian language): It is spoken by about 22 million people in Romania, where it is the official language, by 3 million people in Moldova, and by perhaps another 1 million persons scattered in Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Albania, Yugoslavia (now Serbia and Montenegro), and Hungary.
  • Columbia Encyclopedia (about Moldova): The Moldovan language, the official tongue, is virtually indistinguishable from Romanian.
  • Ethnologue (about Romanian): Alternate names: Rumanian, Moldavian, Daco-Rumanian.

There are also plenty of other sources confirming this. I understand you're trying to de-POV the article, but you went too far. Please correct. --AdiJapan 11:45, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with you that Daco-Romanian isn't a group of dialects. The reason I classified it as such was to show that it's not "an Eastern Romance language" in its own right. I was going to classify it as "Romanian", but I felt that would've stirred up those who claim Moldovan shouldn't be considered a real subset of Romanian. I still think it should be classified as "Romanian" (rather than Daco-Romanian, which is a term I personally don't like too much). Linguistically, this makes sense, since Moldovan is either another name for Romanian, or is a dialect ("grai") of Romanian. I've changed back to "Eastern Romance", but I still think it's not entirely appropriate (i.e. Moldovan is not on the same level as Aromanian, Istro, etc, which are languages in their own right). Ronline ✉ 12:36, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

You're right, this is trickier than I thought. But the present form is at least correct linguistically, with the note that Moldovan is another name for Romanian (the prevalent linguistic opinion).

Frankly speaking I actually don't see a point in having the language box here altogether. We have language boxes for languages, not for names of languages. This article is about whether or not Moldovan is the same thing as Romanian, and also about how this language name came to be (history, politics). Would you have a language box for graiul oltenesc? Besides, Moldovan doesn't even qualify for a grai by itself, it only makes a grai together with the speech in Romanian Moldavia. --AdiJapan 13:18, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree. And I know that User:Bogdangiusca also didn't like the infobox. You may check this. Let's remove it. -- Bonaparte talk 13:22, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I suggest that the infobox not be removed. It is part of the guidelines of WikiProject Languages to include it in language articles, and that definition includes dialects (cf. Newfoundland Irish). Also, for political reasons, Moldovan has a full set of ISO 639 codes, something which many individual languages do not have (the infobox links to the documentation). Removing the infobox would go against established guidelines for language articles: it would be a retrograde step. --Gareth Hughes 14:03, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Garzo this can be applied to dialects of course. But Moldovan is not dialect. It is romanian with another name. Even President of Moldova recognize it that is identical but with a different name. Read above what other have just said. -- Bonaparte talk 14:16, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Wow there has been a lot of talk lately. Ok guys, well for starters I agree with Ronline's latest version.
About the 1.2 figure, I do not think that it actually appeared in the Gardianu. What appeared there was an estimated percentile. For all we know it could be 900.000 people or 1.5 mil people. It just seems a little unprofessional to estimate the number at 1.2 million. The truth is that nobody knows how many people in Moldova said they speak Moldovan and if that is not confusing enough nobody knows how many of those people think that Moldovan is different from Romanian. A lot of peasants I came across said in all fairness that they speak Moldovan but then immediately said or Romanian, whichever term you may like. That goes to say that even those that claim to speak Moldovan may not necessarily mean that they do not consider themselves to be Romanian speakers. So what I suggest is instead of stating 1.2 mil people speak the language, we should write unknown number of speakers (rough estimate at 33% of Moldovan population.
Now about the infobox, I am not sure if we should remove it or not. Firstly, I think it would be a little POV to have an infobox because usually only real languages in their own right tend to have an infobox. The question about Moldovan being a language or not is a very hotly disputed one( just watch this talkpage) so I would not be inclined for keeping it. The thing is Flemish(which is in a very similar situation as Moldovan) does not have an infobox as far as I know. Maybe there is a way to inform the reader about the ISO 639 codes without neccesarily putting it in an infobox.Constantzeanu 15:29, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Constantzeanu that there is no need for the infobox. 212.0.211.25 19:52, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Constantzeanu 15:29, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I still believe that the removal of the infobox would be a retrograde step. There are a number of languages that are identical in almost every way to other languages, but they each have the infobox. A lot of these are seperated for political reasons as much as anything else. The infobox itself is fairly neutral: most of what it says is supplied in article. The absense of the infobox in any one language article most probably suggests that no one has got around to adding it. --Gareth Hughes 16:07, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Gareth you are right that there is some stuff in the infobox which would be good to have. On the other hand there are also languages like Flemish which do not have an infobox. The thing with this infobox is that it says that the language is official in Moldova and Transnistria, however the language is also official in Romania and Voijvodina, just with a different name. On the other hand, what about the speakers of the Moldovan grai in Western Moldova, which is located in Romania? It makes no refference to them. Moreover it treats Moldovan speakers in the Moldovan countryside the same as those in Chisinau and Transnistria. However there is a very huge difference between them. Moldovans in the countryside speak a very conservative form of Romanian which resembles the speach of the Moldovans in Romania.
The people in Transnistria and Chisinau speak with much more Russian-loan words (especially those in Transnistria).
To make matters even more confusing, you will be surprised to know that around Vulkaneshti and Ungheni, people will speak with a very Wallachian accent. In fact if you go to Google and search Ungheni Primarie, meaning Ungheni Town-hall and if you come across the official site of the city of Ungheni, you will see that in the General information section, the largest ethnic group is listed as Romanians, not Moldovans. Here is the site http://moldova.cc/ungheni_city/istoric.htm.
This is the passage:

Actualmente municipiul Ungheni are circa 43 mii de locuitori. Principalele naţionalităţi sunt românii, ucrainenii, ruşii, iar principalele confesiuni sunt - ortodocşii, adventiştii, protestanţii, iehoviştii.

It means:

Currently the municipality of Ungheni has about 43.000 people. The prime nationalities are: Romanians, Ukrainians, Russians and the primary religions are Orthodox, Adventist, Protestants and Yehova Witnesses.

  • This suggests that in Moldova different people have a different idea as to what Moldovan actually is. Even some people in the government, as I have shown above, will state that Moldovan is Romanian, so for them even though Moldovan is written in the constitution, that is nothing else but a synonim for Romanian.
That is why having an infobox here seems, to me at least, to confuse people rather then explain things. Maybe we could find another way.Constantzeanu 16:56, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
In the flemish case there is not. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flemish_%28linguistics%29) we should do the same here.
Exaclty the same way: "An official standard Flemish language as such does not exist: there are however variants of the Dutch language spoken in Belgium; and these are, mainly for political reasons, sometimes referred to as "Flemish". "an official standard Moldovan language as such does not exist: there are however variants of the Romanian language spoken in Moldova; and these are, mainly for political reasons, sometimes referred to as "Moldovan". -- Bonaparte talk 16:15, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Hmm, you know what. Maybe including something similar here would not be a bad idea. Look how nicely they have managed to settle the issue.Constantzeanu 17:00, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
There are similarities here with Flemish: there is no real 'official Flemish', it's Dutch, but the existence of colloquial language(s) is not in doubt. We could write "standard Romanian, sometimes called 'Moldovan' (in the Moldovan constitution), is the de facto official language of Moldova (including the disputed territory of Transnistria). Distinctive colloquial Moldovan has no official status, but is spoken through into eastern Romania". I'm not sure about the wording, but it makes clear that the official language is really standard Romanian and the grai is something more widespread, but only as a spoken language. --Gareth Hughes 17:22, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
The differences between Flemish/Dutch and Moldovan/Romanian is that the Belgian constitution does not mention Flemish, the Moldovan one does. Hence, I find it appropriate that the Flemish page be that way. --Chris S. 01:14, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

You know, what you have stated here is not bad at all. In fact, it's factually as well as politically correct. I think we should make those changes.Constantzeanu 18:10, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes. What Priest Gareth Hughes is almost correct! -- Bonaparte talk 18:21, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

paragraph "Artificial evolution of romanian to "moldovan"" - any help is needed

I will start continuing Adi's idea from above and continuing what I promise once when I first came editing this page. Like Adi said ("This article is about whether or not Moldovan is the same thing as Romanian, and also about how this language name came to be (history, politics)")I think at this point is good to see how actually was this process intiated. Who initiated, what were the causes, the geo-political factors and so on.

First I will refer only to 1812-1918 period.

The sociocultural frame of the functioning of the romanian language in Besserabia between 1812-1918)

The general remark is that linguistic situation from 1812-1918, with all the manifestation increasingly stronger of different types of bilingual, was a diglosic bilingualism situation. In other words to say: both languages getting in contact have obtained different social functions and uneven (not equal): "romanian, the language of the spoken majority people (named in socioliguistics primary language, vernacular or language B) it narrowed its functioning spheres until substitution, and russian (named secondary language, vehicular, official, priviledged or language A) have taken all the social functions of the first". There are 5 stages of the evolution: I. 1812-1828 is the period of neutral or functional bilinguism, when near the romanian language in the sphere of public administration, education and culture, religious education begins to be pierce also russian. In the first years after the annexation it can be seen a loyal attitudes towards romanian language, to the tradition and customs of the romanians. Thus, are opened schools (in 1813 The Theological Seminar and in 1824 the lancaster schools), are translated in romanian the first grammar books, at the typography of Chişinău apear religious books.

II. 1828-1843 is the stage of the partial diglosic bilinguism: romanian language is forbidden in the sphere of administration and by its exclusionfrom the civil code. If the regulation from 1818 prefigured a russian-romanian billinguism more or less balanced, giving priviledge to "moldovan" , in 1828 it will be replaced by another regulation which will impose as official language only russian. Although in education romanian function only partial and only as a sepparate subject, apear also billingual manuals.(russain-romanian "Bucoavne", grammar book of Iacob Ghinculov). In the religious sphere romanian it is used only for sunday sermon, in editing religious books). After 1848 it will be taken out completely from the superior functioning sphere - that of the public adminstration.

III. 1843-1871 is the period of assimilation billinguism. Romanian language continue to function as subject in education, at the highschool Liceul Regional (until 1866) and to Seminarul Teologic (until 1867), and in regional schools until 1871, when is completely and for good forbidden by an official law.

IV. 1871-1905 is the stage of the official monolinguism: the unique official language admitted is russian. All the social shperes of the functioning are dominated by linguistic substitution, that means the romanian language being forbidden from all the fields, it will be substituted step by step by russian.

Thus obtaining this status of "cinderalla", romanian will be used only at a coloquial level, familial. It is the period of the highest assimilation imperial russian politics and cultural of the romanians from Besserabia. The prist Pavel (Lebedev), "one of oppresor of the romanian language in province" dissposed in 1872 that "all the church (documents) from church to be written only in russian", and in 1882 by the decision of Sf. Sinod it is closed the typography from Chişinău.

V. 1905-1917 is the period of the maximizing the linguistic and diglosic conflict: the two languages clearly different are confrounted, one as dominant and the other as dominated by all the points of view, (political,...etc). The linguistic conflict is manifestated by the rizing (awakening) of the national conscience, by the fight for national eliberation and defending of the romanian language

In 1905-1906 the bessarabian zemstvels ask the introduction of the romanian language in school as "compulsory language" and "liberty to teach in matern language (romanian langauge)". The same time apears also the first newspaper and journals in romanian language: "Basarabia" (1906), "Viaţa Basarabiei" (1907), "Moldovanul" (1907), "Luminătorul" (1908), "Cuvînt moldovenesc" (1913), "Glasul Basarabiei" (1913). From 1913 the russian Sinod (russian church head) permits that in "the churches from Besserabia to be in romanian language".

I also need support and help to continue this. -- Bonaparte talk 14:13, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


I have seen similar catagorizing methods of the Russian occupation. All we need is sources though. Do you know if they are on the internet?Constantzeanu 15:36, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes there are a plenty of them. After all, moldovan is only a political construction being identical with romanian. -- Bonaparte talk 15:41, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I've done a copyedit on this section. I am not pushing any agenda but the creation of readable English. There are a number of sentences in the original that look like direct translation from Romanian, and make no sense in English grammar. I hope I've got it all right. If I have got anything wrong, it's because I couldn't understand the grammar of the original. I've split into subsections, as it seemed the easy thing to do. I think we might want to get rid of the section headings completely, and let the subsections sit as separate paragraphs in one section. I think WP:MOS suggests that we don't use links in section headings, so I've removed that. It is usual to spell Romanian, Moldovan and Russian always with capital letters in English, even when they are obviously adjectives. --Gareth Hughes 18:25, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Ok, your help was preciousless. I will look one more time and if the correct meaning is not the one that I thought I will tell you. By the way you've done a great job. -- Bonaparte talk 18:33, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Artificial evolution of romanian to moldovan

Excuse me, but there is no artificial evolution of Romanian to Moldovean. The Moldavians, on both sides of the Prut, have always refered to themselves as Moldavians (Moldovean, Moldoveni). That identity has been there for centuries. The only difference is that the sane ones know that Moldavians are Romanians. --Anittas 18:40, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Is correct to say: "Artificial evolution of the Romanian language to so-called moldovan language". Moldovan language exist only as a political construction, that's all. The Moldovans from Romania says that they speak Romanian 'cause they're Romanians, not "moldovan langauge". -- Bonaparte talk 18:53, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I find that section to be poorly written and controversal. A piece of text a quarter of the size would do the same job without catchy words like "artificial evolution" and "phases" etc. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:16, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, there were a process of russification or not? There was. And this thing is explained step by step. I will add more about it in the future. It is very synthetic and a good contribution of mine :) -- Bonaparte talk 20:19, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

New version

Chris, I thought we all agreed that we would talk first and then go ahead and unilaterally change stuff. The version you have put fourth is alright, however you say "according to the Moldovan constitution, it is the national language". I am sorry but that is a little POV. What it should say is:
according to the Moldovan constitution it is the official name of the state language

That is how Moldovan authorities and media reffer to it. Let's use the same term here. I cannot revert the previous version, however I think somebody should.

In my opinion Gareth Hughes had a good version. If he could put his version up, that would really settle some things.Constantzeanu 23:19, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Ah, I had misunderstood that subtlety: no one disputes what the official language is, only what it is called. --Gareth Hughes 00:02, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Pretty much. Everyone knows it's Romanian. But like the communist Moldovan president has said: "we choose to call it Moldovan, you guys can call it Romanian". However many people inside and outside Moldova condemn this kind of attitude and demand that the language be called simply RomanianConstantzeanu 00:06, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
How can it be POV when I am quoting the constitution? I see your point about the word "state language," because I see in the original constitution it says "limba de stat a Republicii Moldova este limba moldoveneasca." However, the term "state language" is not standard in English - official language and even national language (which is used in the English translation of the constitution) are. Articles here about countries speak of official languages, not state languages. And as I noted earlier, the state language article is redirected to the official language one; there is no profound difference between the two terms. If you are still not convinced, how about trying " ... is the name given by the constitution to the official language of Moldova"? --Chris S. 00:59, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
PS: To give some perspective on my view, Filipino is the co-official and national language of the Philippines. However, in my personal view it is nothing more than the Tagalog spoken in Manila but just known by another name in an attempt to unite all Filipino citizens by possibly annhilating the 160 languages of the Philippines. In any case, I have been involved in bitter debates about whether Filipino is a separate language and whether or not Tagalog is simply a dialect - a notion I found ludicrous. In spite of my strong feelings on this matter, I still find it necessary to say that Filipino is the co-official and national languages. Why? Because the constitution says so, and I feel obligated to say that in the Philippines article. Tagalog is not mentioned, but Filipino is. This is the political view, of course. The linguistic view agrees with me in terms of mutual intelligibility, vocabulary, grammar, etc. --Chris S. 01:25, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
As I have stated before, what we should do here is be politically correct. This is what the constitutions states. So if we are to be politically correct and if you want to involve the constitution then the sentence should say:
The Constitution of the Republic of Moldova states that the official name of the state language is called Moldovan.
However I would not involve the constitution just yet. I would either go with the version presented by Gareth Hughes, or I would say:
Moldovan is the official name of the state language of the Republic of Moldova. The words "State language" do make sense in English.Constantzeanu 01:33, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
So you are basically saying we should foresake accuracy in favor of political correctness. In order to what? Please people? I don't think that's what Wikipedia is about. If this where the case, then we wouldn't have controversial topics here. Anyway, the phrase is adding more words that do not exist in the Constitution; it does not speak of official names, heck, In fact I don't think any constitution mentions official names of languages, just official languages. The phrase "state language" is indeed understandable, but it's not standard. There is a certain template that language articles should follow, as outlined in Wikipedia:WikiProject_Language_Template. Another compromise is saying that "Moldovan has official status in Moldova and Transnistria." --Chris S. 07:17, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

moldovan is not in cyrilic

A very intersting remark was posted on: (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-December/042926.html). Is interesting to be read:

In constitution of Republic of Moldova are written what the official alphabet are latin.
http://xiv.parlament.md/en/legalfoundation/constitution/t1/
"Article 13
The National Language, Use of Other Languages
(1) The national language of the Republic of Moldova is Moldovan, and
its writing is based on the Latin alphabet."
How is that possible what the moldovian language what are officially
based on the Latin alphabet, is writted ussing cyrillic alphabet ?

And the answer to Node is: (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-December/042930.html) +(http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-December/042932.html)

I like the answer of Cruccone ([[4]]): "So, if Moldovan is nothing else than Rumanian, and it happens that some people write it in Cyrillic alphabet, you don't do one wikipedia only that can be written in both alphabets" -- Bonaparte talk 20:32, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Aside from this page here(about the Moldovan language), I would like to call on Gareth Hughes and possibly even other administrators, bureaucrats and stewards and I would like to draw their attention to what is happening at mo.wiki.

What I would like to point out is not the question of the existence of such a wikipedia, but the fact that Node ue uses the name of the Moldovan language to write in a language that is something but it sure isn’t Moldovan, because Moldovan is written in the Latin script.

You do not see articles in German written under en.wiki, nor do you see articles written in Russian under po.wiki.

Node ue brings up a good point that the language he is writing in was used in the Stalinist period as well as during the Soviet occupation. It is still used in the separatist republic of Transnistria and at one point it was used in rural areas in the years right after independence(however that has stopped now since people are getting used to the new script). But that language is not what we now know as MO. And nobody can argue that.

In essence Node ue can write in any language he likes as long as there is demand for it. He could well argue that he can demand a wiki written in a strange language that sounds like Romanian but it is written in Cyrillic and that subsequently because he demands it, he can start writing in it. That is fine. Wikipedia allows for that. However, what is a clear violation and totally unacceptable is for him to use the name Moldovan to describe this wiki of his.

My suggestions for a name are Shantistan(Шантистэ) – sh.wiki , Transnistrian(Транснистрйянэ)- tr.wiki, Moldo-Transnistrian(молдовенйяска-Транснистрйянэ) – mt.wiki.

If a change shall not occur soon, then a body of stewards and bureaucrats will undoubtedly either remove the mo.wiki, either force Node ue to change the name of the wiki to something else but Moldovan.

PS: watch the discussion page from the mo.wiki. A Moldovan brings up some good points about this Moldovan wikipedia, plus he is kind of funny so if you have a sense of humour, you will probably get a good laugh: [5]

Constantzeanu 23:44, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is the place to discuss another Wikipedia project, and it could easily distract us from the task in hand. If no one uses a Wikipedia, it will cease to exist. If no one wants to read its articles, it will never get anywhere. Sometimes it is better to let things go their natural way. If you love ro, but hate mo, then write lots of ro articles and ignore mo. If there are lots of Cyrillic enthusiasts out there, then who's to deny them their pleasure (as illicit as may be in some political circles). --Gareth Hughes 00:44, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
No doubt about it. And I did not intend to make this a discussion for mo.wiki, just to bring it to everyone's attention. And yes I agree with you that people can make a Wiki in any language they may wish to but they shouldn't use the language name of another language.
Aside from this little tangent, I agree with "let's concentrate on this article". The part with the national language should be corrected, I think. Constantzeanu 00:57, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Constantzeanu 00:57, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Cyrillic

Writing Moldovan Wikipedia in Cyrillic is outrageous. I would say it is actually related to this article, although not directly. Node_ue is a key person for mo.wp and what he's been trying to do with this article is to demonstrate that it is worth having a Moldovan Wikipedia. I've read several articles there--all you need for that is to speak Romanian and read Cyrillic--and I found that every single one of them was actually a transliteration of the corresponding Romanian Wikipedia article. I bet they use some simple software that does the transliteration for them--if they don't, they're stupid.

What I want to point out is our first paragraph, in which the Cyrillic writing of the language seems to say that Latin and Cyrillic scripts are somehow equivalent in Moldova:

Moldovan (Latin alphabet: limba moldovenească, Cyrillic alphabet: лимба молдовеняскэ, sometimes translated into English as "Moldavian") is, according to the Moldovan constitution, the national language of the Republic of Moldova. It is also an official language of the disputed territory of Transnistria.

Well, they're not equivalent. Only Latin script is official. Cyrillic was imposed by the Soviets, and is now promoted by the authorities in the so-called Republic of Transnistria. We need to make a distinction between them, by saying something like

Moldovan (limba moldovenească, formerly written in Cyrillic: лимба молдовеняскэ, sometimes translated into English as "Moldavian") is, according to the Moldovan constitution, the national language of the Republic of Moldova. It was also declared an official language of the disputed territory of Transnistria, where it is written in Cyrillic alphabet.

or something similar. --AdiJapan 04:07, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I do not agree with this change. It would be the very definition of POV to suggest that the language was formerly written in Cyrillic if it it still the official form in Transnistria. If it still written anywhere in Cyrillic as a standard, then you simply cannot say that. It is the first version that is neutral. No matter what we think about Transnistria, to write in an anti-Transnistrian or pro-Transnistrian way in POV. --Gareth Hughes 16:56, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Transnistria is a region of the Republic of Moldova. The official language in Moldova, as defined by its constitution, is the Moldovan language written in Latin script. That means Latin script is official in Transnistria too. The separatist authorities of Transnistria (not recognized as such by any country) chose to keep Cyrillic. Now, I did not remove the mention of the Cyrillic script from the first paragraph, I just explained where it is used. Is this POV? I certainly don't think so. --AdiJapan 17:14, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Well I agree with AdiJapan. The official language is compulsory only in latin. -- Bonaparte talk 17:05, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Recognise is a term of protocol; it does not mean that the place is not there. If the language is written in Cyrillic in a school or office anywhere, then formerly is just wrong. The Cyrillic alphabet is still being used in Transnistria. Now, you could say that it shouldn't be used there. You could say that that place shouldn't exist in the form it does now. However, you cannot say the Cyrillic alphabet is no longer used. Can you see the point I'm making? A schoolchild living in Transnistria used Cyrillic today. Many would like him or her to have been able to use the Roman script, but that doesn't changed what happened in that classroom. --Gareth Hughes 17:27, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I see your point. So your comment is on the word formerly. What I meant was the former official name of the language. I'm afraid it's late (3am here) and I need some sleep before I can think of another wording. The fact remains that the two scripts have a very different status in Moldova, and the current wording is misleading. --AdiJapan 17:55, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Infobox

Another thing is the infobox. I agree with Garzo that some things belong there, such as the language codes. But this box brings with it two bigger problems: the classification and the number of speakers.

  • In the classification you have to name the language; if you write Romanian it's POV, if you write Moldovan it's POV and unscientific.
  • The number of speakers: Is it the number of Romanian/Moldovan speakers in the country? Is it just the number of people declaring that they speak Moldovan, and not Romanian? Whichever you choose it's going to be POV. If you count all speakers, you surely offend those who call it Romanian. If you only count those who call it Moldovan, you're throwing linguistics to the garbage.

I'd like to have some opinions on this. We could leave some of the fields in the infobox empty or write the note "see text" and explain things separately. --AdiJapan 04:07, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it's a very difficult case. I think writing Romanian would still be the lesser of two evils, since linguistically Moldovan is either equal to Romanian or a dialect of Romanian. I don't think we should count all speakers, since that offends Romanians by saying their language can also be called Moldovan! I think only those who self-declare Moldovan should be counted (i.e. ~1.2 million) but I agree even that is not wholly accurate. The infobox should stay, however, as it is helpful (why has the ISO-3 continued to give Moldovan its own code?) Ronline ✉ 08:15, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

You know Adi, this is exactly what I have been trying to point out before, aside from what the first introductory sentence should be. That is this issue with the number of speakers as well as the issue with the Cyrillic script.

  • My opinion is that the 1.2 million people estimate should be removed(please see above my reasons). In fact we should avoid saying how many people actually speak the language. Even when data from the referendum will eventually come in ( if it will come in), I think we should avoid it. Like I have said before, a lot of peasants do not distinguish between Moldovan and Romanian since after all they are the same language and even though they would tell you they speak “Moldovan”, they would immediately tell you” “or Romanian”. Peasants over there (which make up about 60% of the total population) are extremely preoccupied with their socio-economic situation and they have little time to spare about such subtleties like the Moldovan/Romanian language dispute which is clearly political.
  • About the Cyrillic part of your statement, I fully agree with you. Giving the Cyrillic equivalent is not exactly correct unless it is mentioned “formally known in Cyrillic as”.
Yes, this should definitely be cleared up. The article seems now as if Moldovan is biscriptal (just like Serbian), while the real situation is much more complex than that. Ronline ✉ 08:15, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I am also glad that we are also touching on the issue of the Moldovan wikipedia in Cyrillic. I propose we ask Node ue once formally to change the name of the wikipedia from молдовенияскэ to something else. I provided a series of possible options above. As it is likely that he will not agree I think we should call in а neutral body which would settle the issue, as I am sure that nobody will allow for something like that to continue.
  • Again, I would like to stress that what I think is wrong with mo.wiki is not that it is in Cyrillic but that it is called Moldovan, when in fact Moldovan is Romanian written in Latin.
So what should it be called? I think it should be moved to a separate subdomain and still called Moldovan (calling it Romanian would offend Romanians) Ronline ✉ 08:15, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Ronline, I too would never want it to be called Romanian. But Moldovan too is wrong. How about Moldo-Transnistrian or Transnistrian or Shantistan?Constantzeanu 15:07, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Constantzeanu, that Wikipedia is written in a very normal Moldovan, just using Cyrillic. It's not written in any sort of dialectal form. --Node 20:18, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I would actually not mind to write in Cyrillic for it, given that Node will change its name.

It would actually give me a chance to practice my Cyrillic. Really...look:

лоок ноде уе, И кан евен врите ин енглиш усинг кирилик вордс. хеи, и гот ан идеа. маиби и шоулд старт а нею википедиа ин "спанклиен". Тхис ис Bат И шалл калл ит. Ват до ю саи? До ю ванна гоин тхис нею прогект?

Constantzeanu 04:52, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you care so much about the name. This issue has been raised before. Anyhow, besides the laugh I got out of your Cyrillic (it's as if you pronounce English writing like Romanian words). You are welcome to start such a project. Before you do so, though, I'd like to refer you to WP:POINT, and ask: 1) how many people regularly use the cyrillic alphabet to write English? 2) is cyrillic, or has it ever been, widely used to write english in any region of the world?? --Node 10:35, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Node I care about the name because calling it Moldovan is not correct. It's like writing articles in German but calling it French. About my writing, I am very proud of the few words I wrote in Cyrillic and how else can I write in Cyrillic the sound "W" of "J" that we have in English, without writing "B" and "G" in Cyrillic since that is the closest I can think of??? Constantzeanu 15:07, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
No -- it's like writing articles in Fraktur, and then having somebody protest that you're calling it German because Fraktur isn't the official script anymore. So what? That doesn't mean you're writing in any language other than German. Just because Fraktur hasn't been official for decades, and has fallen out of everyday usage, doesn't mean that the language is suddenly called something different than it used to be. When you write something in German using Fraktur, it's still German. Likewise, when you write something in Moldovan using Cyrillic, it's still Moldovan. And the problem with your Cyrillic wasn't the W or the J. It was mostly the vowels. And instead of г, you could've used ж, ӂ, or дж. --Node 20:18, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Ronline, is there any serious source claiming that Moldovan is a dialect of Romanian? I'd like to see that. Everything I have says they are the same thing, or at most that Moldovan makes a grai (speech, subdialect) together with the speech in Romanian region of Moldavia. One source (I'll have to remember which) clearly states that there is no difference in the speech of people living on each side of the Pruth. That is, no discontinuity at the border. --AdiJapan 08:43, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, I meant "grai". Grai in English is "accent" but also "dialect", since Romanian has no true dialects, being a very unified language. Ronline ✉ 09:29, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Hmmm, I see that in English there is no clear differentiation between dialect and subdialect, and people say dialect for just about anything. The article on American English even states that this is a dialect of English, although in articles dealing with other English varieties a different wording is used, for example the Australian English is the form of the English language spoken in Australia.
I'm not sure how to deal with this, but my suggestion is to keep somehow the distinction between dialect and subdialect. Calling "grai" an accent is just partly okay, because the difference between a grai and another is not limited to accent (pronunciation), but also vocabulary and even grammar (for instance Oltenians prefer the simple perfect, etc.). I think instead of dialect we'd better say that Moldavian "grai" (in Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine) is a local/regional speech, a variety, or a form of Romanian. That is, if we really need to talk about the graiul moldovenesc.
By the way, I think we should also mention that a part of the Romanian-speaking population of Ukraine call themselves Moldovans and their language Moldovan. --AdiJapan 11:06, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Not all of them do. People in Bugeac who speak Romanian (which is about 60.000 current speakers out of a population of 600.000) do in fact call themselves Moldovans but most people in the Bukovina always call themselves Romanians and speakers of Romanian.Constantzeanu 15:10, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Issues

I'd like to start a list of issues with this article at the moment.

I asked you something because you stated here like that "Bucharestian is a language" I ask you now for references and proofs that "Bucharestian is a language". -- Bonaparte talk 10:49, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Bonaparte, stop. You've said that about a hundred times. Once was enough. --AdiJapan 11:08, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Until I will not receive the reference I you'll ask the kid. -- Bonaparte talk 11:11, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
See language. Do you dispute that Bucharestian is a system of lexemes and the rules which are used to organise them?? Because that would be impossible. And while I recognise that I'm 16 and that in many countries I'm legally a minor, the majority of the time you use the term "kid" it seems to be in a derogatory manner and for that reason I'd like to politely request that you stop. Speaking of which, if I have done anything to offend you, which judging by your behaviour it seems I must have at some point, I offer my sincere apologies. --Node 11:32, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
See language. The language that George W. Bush speaks may be said to be a language unto itself. A language does not need to have more than one speaker to be a language. The language of George W. Bush has its own idiosyncracies. In fact, one could start an article, George W. Bush language, and add an info box. Alexander 007 11:37, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
That's actually true, except for the fact about an article called "George W Bush language". There is no precedent because no references discuss "George W Bush language" using that name. --Node 11:59, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, there is the article Bushism for now. But the problem with a Bucharestian language is: how do you define it? Where do you draw the border? You can't. It's arbitrary. Not every Romanian in Bucharest speaks in the same way, and even among native "Bucharestian" Romanians, you wouldn't be able to delimit a segment of the language continuum stable enough to define a Bucharestian language. A Bucharestian language would be the artificial creation of an observer, based on the observer's flawed reasoning and arbitrary method. Same case we have with the Moldovan language. Alexander 007 12:15, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
That doesn't mean a Bucharestian language doesn't exist. It just means that any boundaries we make for it will be totally arbitrary. I don't know whether or not there are transitional dialects between Dacoromanian and its close relatives, but I have a suspicion that there are. How do you define the separation between Dacoromanian and neighbouring dialects/languages. If not that, then certainly one sees this problem in many other areas of Europe -- Italian gradually fades into French, which gradually fades into Spanish, which gradually fades into Portuguese. German gradually fades into Dutch. All of the South Slavic languages form a giant dialect continuum. Any division you make is arbitrary... you have defined, in a nutshell, the reason why linguistics does not define borders between "separate languages". --Node 20:05, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Let it go, Node. There is no Bucharestian language. Romanians in Bucharest---of various ages, social standings, backgrounds---do not speak one certain variety of Romanian. The concept of a "Bucharestian language" is worthless for all intents and purposes. Likewise, there is no single Moldovan language in Moldova. Moldovan in Moldova varies. The division of the Moldovan language from Romanian is arbitrary and linguistically useless, and the only reason we are discussing this is because of the Moldovan government's position. Alexander 007 20:32, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

First of all, people have taken sourced phrases and twisted them to fit their political views without checking the sources. None of the sources says "the only difference is a minor orthographic difference". One of them mentions 5 separate differences, the others don't elaborate on differences at all. But none of them mentions orthographic differences, and by none I mean none. In fact, they've removed the sources entirely -- how's that for defacement? Changing statements and removing sources just because you don't like what it says?

Also, none of the sources say "that its status as a separate language is a political rather than linguistic one". Besides, the status as a separate language of even, say, Spanish and Romanian is not a "linguistic status". Linguistics does not separate languages. In fact, the science of linguistics says that divisions between languages are by definition arbitrary. No serious scholarly work has ever made definitive statements saying that so-and-so is a dialect, regiolect, idiolect, subdialect, microlect, etc., rather than a language, because there's no way you can give evidence for that -- it's simply nonscientific. I actually included a section on the real linguistic view later, but of course, Constanteanu, in his massive reversions, totally removed it.

Also, Bonaparte's new section "Artificial evolution of Romanian to Moldovan" has nothing to do with what the headline says. All it does is talk about language shift between Romanian and Russian. That may or may not be relevant to the article, but the heading it currently uses is very misleading.

Now, I have been bold and made some of these changes. Some of them I have not because I know they'll need more discussion. But others are absolutely unquestionably the truth -- if you want to dispute that, instead of continuously reverting the article, find some good counterreferences.

--Node 10:35, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Also, I know Bonaparte is going to claim right away that I'm reverting, starting an edit war, or whatever. For proof that this isn't just a revert to my last version of the page, please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moldovan_language&diff=30458296&oldid=30276323 , the diff between my last two revisions to the page. --Node 11:32, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Node, I hope you will be reasonable and work together with us. You have my word I want this article to be objective, but you need to try that too. And please discuss all major changes before making them. An edit war is not good for any of us.

And now to reply your post:

  • Distinctions between languages are not completely arbitrary, unless you know nothing about the languages you compare. You cannot say that the difference between standard Romanian and its Moldavian variety is just as large as the difference between say English and Japanese. In some limit situations there can be debates, of course. It's hard to measure those differences, of course. But things are pretty clear most of the time.
No, they are not. "Divisons between related languages are arbitrary" is perhaps more accurate. English and Japanese are very clearly distinct. And yet, the division between Dutch and German or Spanish and Portuguese or Malay and Indonesian or Thai and Lao or Asturleonese and Mirandese or Dari and Farsi and Tajik, etc., are all arbitrary, at least linguistically (they are based on national boundaries).
  • What sources have been removed? We'll put all valid sources back.
... You can find that using a diff function.
  • Which source says there are 5 spelling differences?
No source says there are 5 spelling differences. 5 differences. Not spelling differences.

Oh God, now I see you've made again a ton of changes in one edit. And you say "as per talk". As per talk means things that have actually been agreed upon in the talk page, which obviously is not the case here.

No, "as per talk" means "in accordance with the talkpage" -- it doesn't mean things were discussed, all it means is "If you want the reasons or details for this change, check the talkpage." Now, most of my changes were grammatical fixes; perhaps 5 or 10 were real content changes, and most were minor. If you have objections to any of them, you're welcome to bring them up here and we can discuss them. What I have done is called being bold. Everything I added had sources, and should be uncontroversial.

Can't you have a normal discussion?! --AdiJapan 11:44, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I can. But I should ask the same of you -- looking at the history of this discussion, most of what you have said to me has been criticisms of me as a person, rather than a serious discussion of the issues. If we can actually discuss the issues, that's fine. But that doesn't mean the page should remain frozen in between. And as I noted, I only made some of the changes I thought were nessecary -- everything Bonaparte added, for example, is already covered elsewhere in the article, and I'dve removed it except I knew it would have terrible results. --Node 11:59, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

You must be mistaking me for someone else, I never criticised you as a person, I criticised your edits. Oh yes, I said "you don't even know the damn language". My apology for the tone, but what you did then perfectly deserved it. Besides, your knowledge of the language has everything to do with this article, it's not a personal attack.

You're not actually suggesting that I sit here and discuss quietly in the talk page while you are bold and tear the article appart, are you? Some people, including you, only remember the "Be bold" thing while forgetting everything else.

Remember this article is not usual, it is controversial. It was protected as you know, and unprotected so that we can edit it slowly while talking things out. I agree that Bonaparte is crazy--now this is a personal attack, but he'll eventually make me put him on WP:ANI--and his comments and edits are most of the time off the track, however you can talk to me, Ronline, and whoever is around here. --AdiJapan 13:11, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Criticism to Node's edit

Node, here are the main points where I disagree with your edit. I'm not going to correct them in the article, because I for one want to discuss them first.

  • Your "some experts" are actually just about all linguists.
No -- I cited 3 people. That's certainly not all linguists.
  • In older sources "limba moldovenească" meant the language of the whole Moldavia, including both sides of the Pruth. It was never the name of the graiul moldovenesc.
Fine -- put that in.
  • What is this "distantance" word? Can't find it in the dictionary.
Obviously a typo.
  • Your definition of language is incomplete, which explains why everyone here frowned/laughed/cried when you brought the Bucharestian language into discussion. It's not enough to say it's a system of lexemes and rules. For a language to have a name it needs to include all the people who speak the same language. This is why we have English language in various parts of the world, and this is why we don't have the Bucharestian language. That is why the paragraph below is meaningless:
Moldovan meets the univerally-accepted definition of a language, namely, it is a system of lexemes and the rules by which they are manipulated. [ref: language]
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, but rest assured, a language is nothing more and nothing less than a set of lexemes and the rules by which they are manipulated.
  • You had no reason to remove this paragraph:
Several linguistic experts, such as Dyer consider that while there are some differences between Moldovan and Romanian, particularly in their spoken forms and colloquial tendencies, these differences are not significant enough to make Moldovan a separate language to Romanian. Particularly, the standard written forms of Moldovan and Romanian are considered to be nearly identical. In fact, controversial Moldovan linguist Vasile Stati, who published a Moldovan-Romanian dictionary in 2003, stated that, "Undoubtedly, the literary form, the most elevated form of the Moldovan language, the cultured form, is identical to the literary form of Romanian."[ref: stati2]
Because Dyer made it clear that it's not his expert opinion that Moldovan and Romanian are separate languages (because it's not a scientific judgement). If you want to put the thing in about Stati though, that's fine, although it'd be better if you could find other sources to corroborate that opinion of his.
  • Where did you get the statements below from?
The main debate surrounding the status of Moldovan is its status in relation to Romanian, specifically, whether it is a dialect of Romanian (or vice-versa), a separate language, or whether "Romanian" and "Moldovan" are in fact two different names for the same thing.
Dyer 1999.
  • The following paragraph is personal research:
This debate is not scientific, however, since linguistics as a science considers all divisions of languages and dialects as arbitrary groupings of idiolects. [ref: arbitrary]
Personal research? Yes. Original research? No. I gave references.
Yes, I'll add it. The Romanian translation was my own, feel free to correct it as you see fit; the English translation is also my own; however the Russian translation I got from the original source. --Node 19:50, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree, we'll revert first and try to reach consensus here first. I removed infobox as was here agreed. -- Bonaparte talk 14:12, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
No, Bonaparte, removing the infobox was only proposed, but it didn't reach consensus. Actually we agreed to keep it. Put it back. --AdiJapan 14:21, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I reverted my edit and also edits of Mark since he obviously DID NOT REACHED A CONSENSUS here. -- Bonaparte talk 14:35, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Bonaparte, you never stop, do you... By the way, Node had actually corrected your mistakes too. --AdiJapan 16:35, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I thought we are still talking about the infobox. I don't think we reached a consensus there. And about the 1.2 mil. people number, I still think we should take it off for now. See above as to why.Constantzeanu 15:26, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, we're still talking about the infobox, I just agreed to keep it until we finish talking. About the number of Moldovan speakers my suggestion was to explain that estimated number in the text. By the way, I can't find where you explain why we should take it off.
About our previous talk on Moldovans in Ukraine, my numbers (Ukrainian 2001 census) say that about 259 thousand people call themselves Moldovans (about 183 thousand of which speak Moldovan as their mother tongue) and 151 thousand call themselves Romanians (139 thousand of which as Romanian native speakers). --AdiJapan 16:35, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Finally we are *near to have a good version of the page. -- Bonaparte talk 16:39, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Part II - Artificial creation of Moldovan language - any help is welcome!

In this part I will continue what I began yesterday:

The Genesis of the collocation "limbă moldovenească" was imposed against the natural one "romanian". It is important that this is reffered to romanian. Thus, Şt. Margeală states that around 1827 that the aim of his book is to "offer the possibility to know the Russian language to the 800,000 Romanians, that are living in Besserabia.....as well as to the millions Romanians from the other part of Prut, also to the Russians that want to study the romanian language".

In 1865 Ioan Doncev, editing a primer and a grammar of romanian language, affirms that the moldovan language it is also valaho-româno or romanian. Or, after this date, the collocation romanian language it appears only sporadically only in the correspondance of the educational authorities, in some laws and some verbal processes of the pedagocical Councils.

Step by step, it will be subtitute by "moldovan language", fact that will create favorable conditions of the later ideologies for inventing a "new"! eastern-romanic language. In this sense, the conculsion is clear: "glotonim romanian language was taken out of use for political reasons, fearing the separation of Besserabia from Russian Empire and its union to romanian principalities". Although, this similar afirmation, also referring to other historical period, we find also in Kl. Heitmann: "Theory of two languages - romanian and moldovan - served both at Moscow, as well as in Chişinău for combating the nationalistic veleities from Republic of Moldova, being in fact, an action against romanian nationalism".(Heitmann, 1965).

It was demonstrated that the objective of the tsarist glotopolitics in Besserabia was dialectization of the romanian language. The tsarist government proposed itself the "inventing" of a dialect neared to the russian language. There is a fragment from the letter of A. Arţimovici, the leader of the education of department of Odessa, from 11 februarie 1863, to Minister of Public Instructions that states: "I have the opinion that it will be hard to stop the romanian population from Besserabia to use the language of the neighbour principalities, where the compact romanian population will develope based on the latin elements, not good for slavic language. The governmental constraints, that follows in this case the aim to make a new dialect in Besserabia neared to slavic language, won't be, as it seen, by no use: we can't constrain the teachers to teach in a language that will soon be dead in Moldova and Walahia, i.e. for the masses of the main users, and also the parents will not will that their children to learn in a different language of that they speak currently " . Although some clerks, as Arţimovici, figured out that the creation of such different dialect different from romanian language spoken in United Principalities, most of them "in the aim of governmental decisions realization, called in a tendentious way the language of the majority "moldovan", even in the same context, where, has been used the romanian language expression".

-- Bonaparte talk 17:12, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

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