[Wikipedia-l] Why MO.wikipedia. - Moldovan, are written in cyrillic ?

Mon Dec 5 11:31:44 UTC 2005

On 05/12/05, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) <rowikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> For some reason, Slavic people seem to think that "Romania is really just a
> Slavic language that has only recently tried to affirm itself as
> Latin/Romance". Not only you, but others as well. Romanian, while influenced

Did he say that? No, he commented only on Cyrillic vs. Latin. Cyrillic
is NOT the same as Slavic; there are many languages using Cyrillic
which are not Slavic, and many languages which are Slavic but don't
use Cyrillic.

> by Slavic languages to a degree, is still overwhelmingly Romance and the
> Latin alphabet is the best alphabet to represent it. Additionally, it

Why is the Latin alphabet the best to represent it? As far as I can
tell, the modern Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet better represents the
language than the Latin alphabet-- Cyrillic represents the sounds
directly with oneletter for each phone, while Latin represents them in
a way trying to make the language look more like French or Latin,
often with situational rules for writing different phones, for
example:

-- c, ch, and k can all represent the "k" sound in different
situations, but then in some situations "c" makes a "ch" sound
instead.
-- g and gh can both represent the hard "g" sound in different
situations, but then in some situations "g" makes a "dj" sound
instead.
-- the letter "i" can be used to represent 5 separate phones, and
sometimes even used where there is no corresponding phone at all.
-- the letter "e" can represent 3 phones, and sometimes even used
where there is no corresponding phone at all.
-- the letters â and î can both represent the same sound in different
situations.

None of this is true for Cyrillic, except for the fact that "e" can
represent 2 phones.

> Additionally, Latin script is the *only* script used to write Romanian in
> Romania. It's just like French is always written in Latin script, Romanian

No, in Romania, Cyrillic is still found in certain ecclesiastical uses.

> is also always written in Latin script. Therefore, it's not OK to justify
> the writing of Moldovan in Cyrillic just because Romanian was once written
> in Cyrillic. It's true, Romanian national revival only came about in the
> second half of the 19th century, and until then Romanians mostly used
> Cyrillic, albeit a different form. But today, the Latin alphabet is the only
> alphabet used in Romania.

No, in Romania, Cyrillic is still found in certain ecclesiastical uses.

> Another point is the use of Cyrillic in Moldova. From what I gather - from
> the media, from Moldovans - Moldova today is overwhelmingly Latin-script.

Overwhelmingly, sure. But not 100%. Aside from Transnistria, there are
at least a few thousand people who strongly prefer Cyrillic, some of
them don't know any Latin at all.

> Aside from the disputed territory of Transnistria, very few people use
> Cyrillic often.

Not entirely true. In the villages, people over 30 often are more
fluent in Cyrillic, and take notes or write diaries in it, but will
mostly use Latin for public life.

Mark

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin