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What Price Languages in Contact: Is There Russian Language Influence on the Syntax of Moldovan?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Donald L. Dyer
Donald L. Dyer*
Affiliation:
University of Mississippi, USA
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Extract

“Our culture was virtually annihilated. The great paradox is our children study German, French and English in school. They can use Latin letters for these foreign languages, but not for their native language.” Thus spoke Mikhail Chimpoi, a prominent literary critic and candidate for the national legislature in 1989; as, in the spirit of the “new” Moldova, restrictions were loosened on what officials were allowed to say in public about the language situation.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , March 1998 , pp. 73 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © 1998 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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References

Notes

1. Keller, Bill, “Confession in Moldavia: They Speak Moldavian,” The New York Times, 25 February 1989, A4.Google Scholar

2. Bruchis, Michael, One Step Back, Two Steps Forward: On the Language Policy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the National Republics (Moldavian: A Look Back, a Survey, and Perspectives, 1924–1980) (Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1982); Dyer, Donald L., “Moldavian, Part II: Korltjanu's Gambit,” in Aronson, Howard I., ed., The Non-Slavic Languages of the USSR: Linguistic Studies (Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society, 1989), pp. 93–105; Kostas Kazazis, “How Non-Rumanian Is ‘Moldavian'?” in Aronson, Howard I. and Darden, Bill J., eds, Papers from the Second Conference on the Non-Slavic Languages of the USSR (Columbus, OH: Slavica, 1982), pp. 224–229.Google Scholar

3. Madan, L., Gramatica moldovenească (Moldovan Grammar) (Tiraspol, 1929).Google Scholar

4. Bruchis, , One Step Back, pp. 54, 58.Google Scholar

5. Ibid., p. 63.Google Scholar

6. Ibid., pp. 68–69.Google Scholar

7. Ibid., pp. 97–103.Google Scholar

8. Ibid., pp. 104–106, 126–127.Google Scholar

9. Ibid., pp. 122–123.Google Scholar

10. Ibid., pp. 217–218.Google Scholar

11. See Meurs, Wim van, “Carving a Moldovan Identity out of History,” in this volume, and Charles King, “Moldovan Identity and the Politics of Pan-Romanianism,” Slavic Review, Vol. 53, No. 2, 1994, pp. 366–368. As this article goes to press, there are more, important late-breaking events occurring in Moldova. The Moldovan parliament on 12 February, for example, had just rejected the aforementioned earlier resolution by President Snegur to declare Romanian the official language of the republic (OMRI Daily Digest [OMRI Publications, 12 February 1996]).Google Scholar

12. These articles are: (1) Dyer, Donald L., “Moldavian Linguistic Realities,” in Howard I. Aronson and Bill J. Darden, eds, Papers from the Fourth International Conference on the Non-Slavic Languages of the USSR (Columbus, OH: Slavica, 1994), pp. 234–253; (2) Dyer, Donald L., “Moldavian, Part II: Korlètjanu's Gambit,” in Aronson, Howard I., ed., The Non-Slavic Languages of the USSR: Linguistic Studies (Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society, 1989), pp. 93–105; (3) Dyer, Donald L., “Moldavian, Part III: How Russian Is Moldavian Syntax?” in Need, Barbara, Schiller, Eric and Testen, David, eds, The University of Chicago Working Papers in Linguistics (Chicago: The University of Chicago, forthcoming), p. 9; (4) Dyer, Donald L., “Russian and Romanian Intertwined: The Legacy That Is Moldavian,” in Aronson, Howard I., ed., Non-Slavic Languages. 7: Linguistic Studies in the Non-Slavic Languages of the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Baltic Republics (Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society, 1994), pp. 65–77; (5) Dyer, Donald L., “Moldavian, Part 5: Gagauz and Moldovan,” paper read at the Eighth Biennial Conference on the Non-Slavic Languages of the Former Soviet Union (Chicago: May 1993); and (6) Dyer, Donald L., “Moldovan Phonology Revisited,” paper read at the Ninth Biennial Conference on the Non-Slavic Languages of the Former Soviet Union (Chicago: May 1995). Though written chronologically in the order given above, due to publication delays, the three articles which have been published have appeared in an awkward, undesirable sequence. Indeed, successor articles have appeared before their predecessors.Google Scholar

13. Dyer, , “Moldavian, Part II,” pp. 102–103; Dyer, “Moldavian Linguistic Realities,” pp. 237–243.Google Scholar

14. Dyer, , “Moldavian, Part II.” “The Academy grammar” of Moldovan is a reference to Korletianu, N. G., ed., Limba moldoveniaske literare kontemporane, v. I, Leksikolodzhiia (Kishinev: Editura “Lumina,” 1969–1970); and Dyrul, A. M. and Chobanu, A. I., eds, Limba moldoveniaske literare kontemporane, v. II, Fonetika shi morfolodzhiia (Kishinev: Editura Lumina, 1970).Google Scholar

15. Op. cit.Google Scholar

16. Dyer, , “Moldavian Linguistic Realities,” p. 243.Google Scholar

17. Dyer, , “Moldavian, Part II,” pp. 100–101.Google Scholar

18. Dyer, , “Moldavian, Part II;” Dyer, “Moldavian Linguistic Realities;” Dyer, “Russian and Romanian Intertwined.”Google Scholar

19. Kazazis, , “How Non-Rumanian Is ‘Moldavian'?” Kazazis’ conference paper of the same title was read at the Second International Conference on the Non-Slavic Languages of the Soviet Union in May 1981 at the University of Chicago.Google Scholar

20. Bruchis, , One Step Back, Two Steps Forward, and The USSR: Language and Realities (Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1988), among others.Google Scholar

21. Deletant, Dennis, “Language Policy and Linguistic Trends in Soviet Moldavia,” in Kirkwood, M., ed., Language Planning in the Soviet Union (London: MacMillan Press, 1989), pp. 189–216.Google Scholar

22. Mullen, James, “Is There a Moldavian Language?” Irish Slavonic Studies, No. 10, 1989, pp. 47–62.Google Scholar

23. See also Kazazis, , “How Non-Rumanian Is ‘Moldavian'?” p. 226 for more on this phenomenon.Google Scholar

24. Dyer, , “Moldavian, Part II.” See also Bruchis, One Step Back.Google Scholar

25. Bruchis, , One Step Back.Google Scholar

26. Dyer, , “Moldavian, Part II.” See also Bruchis, One Step Back, among others.Google Scholar

27. Korletianu, Nikolae G., “Moldavskii iazyk,” Iazyki narodov SSR. Indoevropeiskie iazyki (Leningrad: Nauka, 1966), Vol. 1, p. 555.Google Scholar

28. Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th edn (Springfield, MA: Merriam Webster, Incorporated, 1995), p. 683.Google Scholar

29. Bruchis, , One Step Back, p. 253.Google Scholar

30. Ibid., p. 137.Google Scholar

31. Ibid., p. 232; see also Dyer, Donald L., “The Interplay of Subjunctive and Infinitive Complements in Romanian,” in Aronson, Howard I., ed., Da, Ná, Să, Të, Te: Constructions with Subordinating Complementizers in the Balkans. Folia Slavica, Vol. 7 (Columbus, OH: Slavica, 1985), pp. 362–380, for further information on such constructions.Google Scholar

32. Comrie, Bernard, The Languages of the Soviet Union (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).Google Scholar

33. Korletianu, , “Moldavskii iazyk,” p. 556.Google Scholar

34. The “classic” example would be Nikolae G. Korletianu, Moldavskii iazyk segodnia (Kishinev: Shtiintsa, 1983), an entire book devoted to matters of the unique Moldovan vocabulary.Google Scholar

35. Bruchis, , One Step Back, p. 132.Google Scholar

36. Alehem, Shalom, Halal de mine, sǐnt orfan! (Bucureti: Editura tinereului, 1956), p. 7.Google Scholar

37. Aleihem, Solom, Băiatul lui Peişi-cantorul (Chişinău: S. S., 1958), p. 7.Google Scholar

38. I wish to thank Professors Dorin Uriescu of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and Sanda Golopenia of Brown University, for the assistance they rendered me in the preparation and editing of the above excerpts and their translations. Interestingly, Professor Golopenia remarked of the Moldovan excerpt: “[But it's] perfect Romanian!”Google Scholar

39. Dyer, , “Moldavian, Part II,” p. 99; Kazazis, , “How Non-Rumanian Is ‘Moldavian'?” p. 227.Google Scholar

40. Bruchis, , One Step Back; Dyer, , “Russian and Romanian Intertwined;” Deletant, pp. 189–216; Dyer, Donald L., ed., Studies in Moldovan: The History, Culture, Language and Contemporary Politics of the People of Moldova (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996). The latter work is the first multidisciplinary work of any magnitude to look at all aspects of contemporary Moldovan society.Google Scholar

41. King, , ibid.Google Scholar

42. Ibid., pp. 366–368.Google Scholar