Talk:Moldovan language/Archive 10

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An index of archived previous discussions is at Talk:Moldovan language/archives.

Out of courtesy to reviewers of this page and discussion, please sign all of your contributions (new headings or comments) to this talk. Previous discussions:



Consensus

Are we all on the same page on what a consensus is? It is not the majority opinion. It requires to take into consideration the opinions of all parties before any changes are done. What I see here is that people like Bonaparte are screaming "consensus" for his edits, when there never was any. And there have been edits from others (myself & Node included) without consensus. I just want to make sure we're all on the same page. --Chris S. 19:09, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Consensus will be reached when it will be stated "they are identical". -- Bonaparte talk 19:25, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Then I guess there will never be changes on this page then, eh? There are differences between the two languages/dialects/speech varieties/graiuri/what have you, so they are not completely identical. --Chris S. 19:29, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Chris, I understand what you are trying to say but stop reverting. The version that said "the official name of the state language" existed before your version with the "national language". Yes there is not a concensus on the former but there is even less agreement about your version so please can we just talk about it here before making any changes.
Also maybe the infobox should be kept but the 1.2 mil number should certainly be changed or removed. As I stated twice or three times before, there are no ref. about it except an article in the Gardianul which talked about an estimated percentile, but under no circumstances an official number.
Moreover, as I have pointed out before, even if some people have indicated that they speak Moldovan during the census, that does not prove that these people do not consider themselves Romanian speakers as well. I have given my example, during my travels to Moldova when I came across villagers who used to say "I speak Moldovan or Romanian, whichever term you may like".
Another issue I would like to bring forth is the issue of the name of the current Moldovan Wikipedia. I understand that this is not the best place to do so but I see no other forum in which I could bring up this discussion, since the forum over there is largely inactive. My concern is not with the Cyrillic content (despite the fact that it is full of spelling errors). I would in fact be more then glad to participate and even correct some of the errors. However my concern is with the name of the wikipedia. It should not call itself Moldovan since Moldovan is written in the Latin script for over 16 years now. I have suggested the names Shantistan(which is the name that both Moldovans and Romanians use for the people living in Transnistria, the only place where this writing is still being used officially, if you consider the sepparatist rebel region an official entity), Transnistrian or Moldo-Transnistrian. Constantzeanu 19:38, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Constanteanu, it's really not an honest thing to do to tell somebody to stop reverting, and then go ahead and revert the page yourself.
We already have a better version didn't we? So, please stop this theatre and stop saying stupid things, you have no credibility saying and supporting "Bucharestian is a language" I ask you now for the n-time references and proofs that "Bucharestian is a language"
Anyhow, you said "does not prove that ... do not consider themselves Romanian speakers as well" -- so what? The infobox simply says "speakers", not "monolingual speakers", or "People who say they speak Moldovan but not Romanian". And it somehow manages to exclude Ukrainians who claim Moldovan as their mother tongue.
Now regarding the Moldovan Wikipedia. Why should it call itself Transnistrian?? Yes, Moldovan is written in Cyrillic only officially in Transnistria these days, but in Transnistria the official language is called "Moldovan". If you want, we can change it back to how it used to be where it said "Moldovan / Romanian Wikipedia in Cyrillic". But I don't think there's a neccesity there. Anyhow, everybody (contrary to what you may have heard, I'm not the only person there) would certainly be happy if you came over and made some good edits. Currently the article which needs some attention is Bour, it may have bad grammar because it's not transliterated directly from Romanian like most of them are. --Node 20:01, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Node ue, it's not very honest either to go ahead and write in your version before you talk about it here. Also I am going to go to the Bour article so I can see what I can do about it(however I must point out that we cannot go on to call that wikipedia Moldovan). Moldovan whether we think it's a language, dialect or just a grai is written in the Latin script.Constantzeanu 20:25, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I fully subscribe with what Constantzeanu in a very documented approach stated. He is a very good editor and I like his style. -- Bonaparte talk 19:40, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

And I don't agree with your changes! -- Bonaparte talk 19:30, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

This is the map of the romanian language territory:

Romanian varieties (graiuri)
Blue: Southern varieties
Red: Northern varieties

-- Bonaparte talk 19:31, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Bonaparte, you've said that so many times before. Let me ask you, do you really believe that saying it again will change anything? --Node 20:01, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
We already have a better version didn't we? So, please stop this theatre and stop saying stupid things, you have no credibility saying and supporting "Bucharestian is a language" I ask you now for the n-time references and proofs that "Bucharestian is a language".-- Bonaparte talk 20:06, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I gave you references for that, but you ignored them. My credibility isn't what I asked you about -- I asked you, do you really believe that anything will change if you say something one more time even though you've already said it so much? Can you just answerthat?? --Node 20:28, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Wow I left for one minute to the bathroom and already things have changed here. For starters, we have reverted, changed stuff and re-reverted so much that right now the article looks like a mess.
About the Wikipedia in Moldovan, Node ue, you cannot call it either Romanian either Moldovan since these languages are written in the Latin alphabet. It's like writing German articles and call it English.
About the number of speakers there is no such thing as bilingual Moldovan-Romanian. Let's please not get into that. All I am trying to explain is that the number has no backing.
Finally I am going to ask everyone to please talk here about your issues, number them as in 1,2,3, talk about them, wait to get a response from a number of people and then make the changes should everyone agree upon them. Constantzeanu 20:12, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
1) No, it's not like writing German articles and calling them English. I think the situation is comparable to writing German articles in Fraktur, and saying they're German. And then some person comes and raises a fuss -- apparently, since Fraktur is no longer the official script of Germany, we can't call the language German. But that is the language. It is written in German, using Fraktur script. Likewise, that Wikipedia is written in Moldovan using Cyrillic script. Just because a script isn't official, doesn't mean that the language suddenly changes. What about all documents written during the Soviet period in this language? What language are they written in?? Moldovan! Even if I write English in Arabic letters, it's still "English". 2) The number of speakers -- the problem is that you said "does not prove that ... do not consider themselves Romanian speakers as well", which has absolutely nothing to do with the number of speakers of Moldovan -- the number of speakers is just a count of people who claim to speak Moldovan. 3) The reverts. I should ask the same of you. The version you revert to is not canon. In fact, my version has more references than yours, and substantiates things better. If you object to certain portions of my version, you are welcome to remove them to the talkpage and we can discuss them. But simply reverting them is wrong. And let me be clear, when I revert you, I am reverting to a more recent revision. You are reverting to an old revision. I added some stuff between your loved version and the current one. If you don't like parts of it, it doesn't mean you just go and revert. It means you go find the parts you don't agree to, and move them to the talkpage where we will discuss them. That is cooperation -- if you don't like somebody's changes, you talk about it. And there aren't any changes I don't like -- you're just removing my changes, which I don't like. --Node 20:28, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Just makes me wonder, Node_UE, why don't you reply to wikipedia-l anymore, where did your "we don't see moldovans complaining" suddenly go, oh, look they started complaining, so let's just shut up and write some place else, yes ? "When you write something in Moldova using Cyrillic it's still Moldovan", really ? Certainly you can just write a simple script to make an automatic translation of all romanian wiki pages to some new alphabet, and nobody would prevent you to do so, as long as you don't use the same name for the language, it's a different entity, english in cyrillic is not english anymore, it's english in cyrillic, so make your own "noduestrian" and enjoy writing it, maybe some people will start to contribute and you'll end up having the most popular wiki in the world. 212.0.211.25 20:21, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Oh, I reply to Wikipedia-l. I'm just moderated at the time, so all of the replies I've sent have been held in a cache, waiting for approval. It's flattering that somebody so eagerly awaits my messages. Why don't you go ask User:Anthere to release them so you may read them? --Node 20:32, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
False. I don't agree with you Node. They are identical. Moldovan is identical with Romanian. Bonaparte talk 20:34, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Node I am sorry but when you are reverting, you are reverting something that was there before your version. When you revert, you also add some stuff, fix some grammatical errors in order to appear that you do not revert completely.
When you are reverting, you revert something that most people have agreed upon. That is Ronline, Adi, Bonaparte and myself. Gareth Hughes seems rather neutral as well as Oleg Alexandrov who appears that he does not want to involve himself with this dispute right now. Chris does have some minor questions but unlike you he is more constructive and he tries to understand the issue at hand, not pretend that he knows everything there is to know about Moldovan.
I don’t know if you have noticed, but we were getting along very well and we were making extensive progress before you came back and started reverting everything. Moreover your attitude is not constructive at all. I have to ask you to approach this in a mature way and to be willing to compromise.
Right now I have exhausted all my reverts for today so I cannot revert anymore, however I would ask you to please talk about your issues here before changing it again. My changes and Ronline’s changes do not go against your sources. These changes are about the wording which is made more NPOV. If you have an issue with this wording, then please stop making reference to your sources and be mature and state your issues in 1,2,3 format right here on the talk page.

Thank you.

PS: when you write English in Arabic it is called English in Arabic, not English. If you would like to, you can call your wikipedia Moldovan-in-Cyrillic or Moldovan/Romanian-in-Cyrillic, but certainly not Moldovan. Constantzeanu 20:40, 7 December 2005 (UTC)


User:216.253.3.138 has commited vandalism. Please someone revert his edit. Constantzeanu 20:53, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

The User:216.253.3.138 that commited vandalism is nothing else that the suckpoppet of User:Node ue. -- Bonaparte talk 21:38, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Phase 5

Bonaparte, is there any way we can shorten that phase. It looks really long.Constantzeanu 20:16, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

We'll ask for priest Garzo to help. -- Bonaparte talk 20:34, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism of 216.253.3.138 aka User:Node ue

I wonder why it is vandalism when this anon reverts, but not when you guys do? Seriously, if you have problems with the currentversion, why can't you discuss it?? --Node 21:33, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Because it's you User:Node ue. Are exactly the same as your edits. You are because I checked the IP and comes from Arizona - Pheonix! -- Bonaparte talk 21:36, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Wow this is so immature. If it is Node ue then I am really disappointed. If it is not, then I nevertheless think that the IPs should be blocked. Now the unknown person who was vandalizing before has switched to another computer, probably that of his friend or something and he continues to revert the article. It's kind of pitiful.Constantzeanu 22:17, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

That's not me... I did a traceroute, and it sent the packets to LA, which routed them to some other ISP in Phoenix, but the packets were lost after the 18th hop. So that means it could literally be anywhere. But I've never edited from a similar IP. Mine are always in the format of 6x.*, 24.*, or occasionally 7x.*. You're welcome to request somebody with the appropriate permissions use the CheckUser function, but I guarantee you they will find it's not me. If I really wanted to do something like that, I'd use a proxy on the other side of the world, like in India or China, because using one which is located geographically close to me isn't a good idea. --Node 23:07, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Having said that, I think any anon who displays such a pattern of behaviour should be warned, and if they continue such behaviour, they should be blocked in accordance with WP policy. And now some crazy IP just reverted it to your version it looks like -- happy now? --Node 23:43, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Bonaparte's new sections

Bonaparte's new sections certainly have some good additions.

However, they are spelt very poorly, and their English is so confusingly poor that some sentences are literally nonsensical. I made some minor fixes, but I also added {{fact}} because there are almost no sources in the entire thing.

I'm also wondering if this may be a copyvio. From the looks of it, it's a direct (and poor) translation from a Romanian book or website which is most likely copyrighted. --Node 00:31, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Sections I have problems with

The coming of Node has provoked another confusing giant addition to the talk page. When is this whole thing going to end? Node, I have nothing against providing sources, but I think that while you were blocked, we came to consensus here. It's not as if we all have the same opinions, as you can see by the fact that even when you were away, we were still arguing about changes. However, the debate was much more constructive. I think you're using these "sources" to justify changes that don't reflect the accurate situation of what's happening in Moldova. That's what worries me. Look at articles on Moldovan language at other encyclopedias, and compare it to the Wikipedia article. Anyway, here are the sections I currently have problems with:

  • The lead section - not big things, I just need to look at it in a bit more depth. I think it's quite OK though.
  • The linguistic view section: Node, your theory of linguistics, while scientifically-arguable, is very alternative to say the least. If you're going to pester us here about idiolects and about strange abstract definitions of languages, then you should do so at every language article. Until you add this very same thing to articles like Australian English, American English, Canadian French, Brazilian Portuguese, then it shouldn't be accepted here. Again, it's the use of real science facts to try to somehow convince readers that Moldovan is a separate language, in the common definition of language, when it isn't.
No, I'm not using an "alternative" definition. I am using the universally accepted definition. The point is, according to linguistics there is no such thing as a "separate language" because all divisions between related languages are completely arbitrary. Moldovan is obviously a language, the debate is about whether or not it is a separate language to Romanian, and as noted in the article, that is not a scientific debate. It's entirely political. Now, you're welcome to add to those articles the term "language", because linguistically, according to the definition universally accepted by linguists, they are in fact languages. Whether or not they are separate from some specific other language is debatable.
  • The infobox - namely, the classification of Moldovan as Eastern Romance, full stop. That makes it seem as if Moldovan is on an equal level with Aromanian, Istro-Romanian, Megleno-Romanian and Romanian, when it is linguistically a subset of Romanian. Ronline ✉ 01:35, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm not the one who changed that part. I agree that it should have "Romanian" or at least "Daco-Romanian". --Node 20:19, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't think the point of an infobox is to show "equal level" as you put it, because rarely are languages at "equal level." In any case, I took a look at Afrikaans language and I noticed that in the infobox, there is "Dutch" above "Afrikaans" in the Genetic classification field. I suggest putting "Romanian" over Moldovan. --Chris S. 02:03, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, I think that's a good idea. Done.

I agree the linguistic point of view needs to be improved. I'll have to do some brainstorming on this. I liked the Hindi and Urdu comparison, I wrote a while back. Malay and Indonesian can be used as comparisons as well. --Chris S. 04:24, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I am not sure we can compare Romanian with Hindi and Urdu or Malay and Indonesian. Let's treat it as a case in itself, because no two cases can be the same.Constantzeanu 05:00, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree with you on that, but I'm not implying that the cases are not the same at all; I am saying that there are similarities. Hindustani is basically divided by international borders and referred to as different languages in their respective countries. Even in India, Hindu and Urdu are both official languages. With the case of Malay and Indonesian, this is a case of the Malay language being spoken in another country, named Indonesia, and thus renamed. This is situation is a closer analogy of the Romanian and Moldovan situation. Everyone is fine with Malay and Indonesian being called separate languages (due to politics), and at the same time everyone is fine with them being called the same language (due to linguistics). --Chris S. 06:22, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Ronline ✉ 02:08, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Ronline, on all the issues he has brought up. Also I think the lead section needs to be redone. Also, yet again I must draw the attention of everyone here to the 1.2 mil figure. It too needs to be changed. Constantzeanu 02:15, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

How many people speak it? --Chris S. 04:24, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I'm not sure that Chris and Ronline's proposal of classifying Moldovan as a subdivision of Romanian is viable. Did you find a source for that? As far as I know, without using any language names, the situation is as follows: The language spoken in Moldova plus the language spoken in historical region Moldavia of Romania make one language variety. It is this variety that is a subdialect of the language spoken across Romania and some neighboring areas.

Linguists say that Romanian is an Eastern Romance language, along with Macedo-Romanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Istro-Romanian. So Moldovan is not on the same genetic level with Romanian. About the subdivisions of Romanian, Ethnologue has this to say: "Dialects: Moldavian, Muntenian (Walachian), Transylvanian, Banat, Bayash. Little dialect variation." Moldavian variety covers both sides of the Pruth. Romanian linguists go into deeper details and further divide Transylvanian and Muntenian, and add a few finer subdivisions such as Oltenian, Maramureshan, etc. But Moldovan language as defined by the constitution of Moldova is not the same as the Moldavian variety as defined by linguists. Also, I take the risk of sounding like Bonaparte, but remember that the official languages of the two countries are in fact identical.

About the language infobox, while I agree that it provides space for some data such as the language codes, and a sense of uniformity across language articles, I have this to say: This article is not about a language. It is about the name of a language. You will have a hell of a problem trying to make this infobox logical. --AdiJapan 04:50, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Now, this is the idea I find puzzling. Moldovan is Eastern Romance. It is also Romance. It is also Indo-European. It is all of those. I don't know why Moldovan wouldn't be Eastern Romance. --Chris S. 06:22, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


I think AdiJapan is right about the infobox as well as the Moldovan. We have ignored the fact that the Moldovan grai in both the Republic of Moldova and Moldavia(in Romania) are the same thing and toghether form a sub-division of the Romanian language.Constantzeanu 05:03, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Again, you guys are failing to recognise that the science of linguistics discards the distinction between a language and a dialect as arbitrary among related speech varieties. --Node 20:19, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree with this vesion: the Moldovan grai in both the Republic of Moldova and Moldavia(in Romania) are the same thing and toghether form a sub-division of the Romanian language.-- Bonaparte talk 13:08, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Constantzeanu

Constantzeanu, here is a change I propose for the lead in paragraph, which I hope will reconcile our mutual disagreement on this subject.

Moldovan (Latin alphabet: limba moldovenească, Cyrillic alphabet: лимба молдовеняскэ, sometimes translated into English as "Moldavian") is spoken in the Republic of Moldova and the disputed territory (unrecognized state?) of Transnistria.
Opinions vary on the status of Moldovan as a language. Title I, Article 13 of the Moldovan constitution, for example, names it the "national language" (limba de stat) of the country. On the other hand, there are those who consider Moldovan to be merely a dialect of Romanian and then there are many who even consider it to be Romanian itself but under a different name.
With this in mind, the number of Moldovan speakers depends on one's view of the status of Moldovan. If taken as a separate language, then 1.2 million people speak Moldovan. If Moldovan is taken to mean Romanian spoken in Romania and Moldova, then there are around 28 million speakers.

I think we should avoid the official/national/statenamewhathaveyou stuff in the first paragraph. In the second paragraph, we present the two points of view. I was going to say officially names it but the word constitution implies officialness. In the third paragraph, I attempt to reconcile what I believe is your objection to the 1.2 million figure (I think I'm wrong, but..) What sayest thou? --Chris S. 06:34, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


Sure, it sounds like a reconciable idea. However we must mention that it is also spoken in Western Moldavia as well.

Moldovan (Latin alphabet: limba moldovenească, former Cyrillic alphabet: лимба молдовеняскэ, sometimes translated into English as "Moldavian") is spoken in the Romanian region of Moldova, the Republic of Moldova and the disputed territory of Transnistria.
Shouldn't it be clear that the expression "Moldovan Language" do not exist on the actual teritory of Romania - including the region of Moldova? No one - including rural population - uses it. In this case, how much logic is in extending the exclusively political term across the boundaries of the former soviet republic of Moldova, into Romania? --MarioF 19:02, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Opinions vary on the status of Moldovan as a language. Title I, Article 13 of the Moldovan constitution, for example, names it the "national language" (limba de stat) of the country. On the other hand, many consider Moldovan to be merely a dialect of Romanian and then there are a significant number of linguists and scholars who consider it to be simply Romanian itself but under a different name.
When using the word "many", the phrase greately overstates the number of those who consider Moldovan a "dialect of Romanian". The overwhelming scientific opinion favors identity with Romanian.--MarioF 19:02, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
With this in mind, the number of Moldovan speakers depends on one's view of the status of Moldovan. If taken as a separate language, then 1.2 million people speak Moldovan. If Moldovan is taken to mean Romanian spoken in Romania and Moldova, then there are around 28 million speakers.

Constantzeanu 06:51, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Hallelujah. ;-). Ok, we need input and improvements from other people here before being implemented. Ronline, Oleg, Alexander, Node, et. al.?? --Chris S. 07:06, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't agree with Chris S.'s version. -- Bonaparte talk 13:11, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Ok, please list your objections, reasons, and how we can change it. --Chris S. 13:50, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

You're clapping hands too soon. I disagree with your agreement, if I may say that. I'm not sure Chris read what I said before: This article is not about a language, it is about the name of a language. I'm very serious about this. As Constantzeanu was saying above, when you ask a Moldovan what language he/she speaks, the answer will be Romanian or Moldovan, interchangeably. For God's sake, even the linguist who wrote a Moldovan-Romanian dictionary (Vasile Stati) said very clearly that the two languages are one and the same! What that dictionary contains is just differences between the local vocabularies. Just as if you had a U. S. English-Canadian English dictionary.

My cheering is because I feel this can work, but I know that people are going to disagree. But let's find something we can all agree on. Concerning the name of the language, that's fine - but at the same time, this article is also about the colloquial Romanian/Moldovan how it is spoken in Moldova. There are linguistic sources, for example, by Dr. Donald Dyer that explain how this is so. Furthermore, referring it to as a "name" of the language is POV; because that is one opinion, from a sociolinguistic, there are those who consider it another language simply because they live in another country. And I think I've tried to address that in the intro paragraph, but suggestions are welcome. --Chris S. 13:50, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Of course it can work, as long as people discuss. It's just when Bonaparte and Node start warring that it doesn't.
About the intro paragraph I actually prefer something closer to the one we have now, for example modified into
Moldovan (...) is, according to the Moldovan constitution and some experts, the language spoken the Republic of Moldova.
and then develop the idea by talking about whether or not it is a separate language, who says it is or is not, how different it is compared to Romanian, where it is written in Latin script and where in Cyrillic, and so on.

The whole issue is political: You have this country, it has a people, they speak a language. The way you call that language has a strong bearing on what ethnicity that people is considered to have, and this in turn has consequences on the country itself. If a Moldovan says he speaks Moldovan and not Romanian, it simply means that his political position is against the unification of Moldova and Romania. And vice-versa, if he says Molovan is a silly name for that language, it means he recognizes the common ethnicity. Political choice again.

Now someone was classifying the editors at this article along the same lines, and he had put me in one camp. Completely untrue. I am neuter. I don't support any one of those positions more than the other. In what I am concernced Moldovans are free to choose whatever political position they want, and decide their future by themselves. I am a Romanian, but I can understand why half of all Moldovans (more? less?) are against Romanians. You can call me stupid, but not biased. The reason I came here is that I found some very unscientific statements in this article.

In what concerns linguistics, things have long been agreed upon, starting about five centuries ago. The old chroniclers wrote about the language spoken in old Moldavia--at that time a rather large area on both sides of the river Pruth--and called it Moldavian, naturally, because the country was called Moldavia, and the people called themselves Moldavians. At the same time, the chroniclers noted that it was the same language as in Wallachia.

Yes, but 500 years ago? Language is dynamic; it changes everyday, even moreso in that large amount of time. 500 years ago, people spoke Middle English which is difficult for 21st century native English speakers to understand. And since then there are multitudes of English dialects that have appeared worldwide. I think you are referring to the Ureche source - and that's ok to include, but it's important to put the context in which the quote appeared. --Chris S. 13:50, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
My point exactly. People bring up the 500-year old chronicles as arguments that indeed the name Moldovan language is legitimate. The reason why it was called a different name then (just as now) was that it was a different country from Wallachia. And just as now, the knowledgeable people of those times could see and say that in fact the two languages were one.

Sorry for the very long speech, but I'm not done yet. Here is some criticism to the version you seemed to have agreed on:

  • The wording "Moldovan is spoken in [...]" implies that there is a Moldovan language in its own right. The experts at Ethnologue, Columbia Encyclopedia, and all other politically independent linguists don't even include Moldovan in their classifications, because linguistically it does not exist as a separate language, dialect, whathaveyou.
Perhaps the implication is there, but look at the context in which the paragraph appears. We are not just writing one paragraph, the subsequent paragraphs reveal the story. --Chris S. 13:50, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Be careful with Moldova and Moldavia, they do not mean the same thing in English although they correspond to the same word in Romanian. Moldova was introduced in English to distinguish the new country from the old country, having quite different borders. The Romanian historical region is called Moldavia, just like the old country. Same goes for the Moldovan and Moldavian.
  • The Republic of Moldova includes the territory of Transnistria, so you need not mention it separately, unless you say something special about it, such as it being the only place where Cyrillic script is still official.
I'm on the fence about this one. I see the logic and I was in agreement that it wasn't necessary to include Gagauzia (sp?). However, Transnistria is a special case, it seems to me. Maybe "is spoken in Moldova, including the breakaway region (as mentioned in the Moldova article) of Transnistria." --Chris S. 13:50, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree it's tricky. But all we need to say about Transnistria is that it has Moldovan as one of the official languages (just like the rest of Moldova) and in addition that it writes Moldovan in Cyrillic. No need for us to comment on its existence as a separate state.
Ok, I looked at the Transnistria article which said that Russian and Ukrainian are also official there. So in the beginning paragraph, we don't have to mentio where it is official. However, when we get down to mentioning where it's official/national/etc. mention Transnistria by saying that it is co-official there along with Russian and Ukrainian. --Chris S. 20:00, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I omitted other minor remarks. Sorry again for taking lots of space here. --AdiJapan 08:54, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Definitions of Moldovan

Would it be helpful if we agreed what this article is about? The term Moldovan language can mean a number of things to different people in different situations. If we were putting together a dictionary definition, we would separate out the different nuances and number them. I would actually find this exercise quite useful. I'm sure you are all aware that I do not speak a word of Romanian, and am approaching this as a linguist. These points are in no specific order:

  1. Moldovan can refer to the graiul moldovenesc, a northern non-standard dialect of (Daco-)Romanian, which is spoken throughout Moldova, the unrecognised territory of Transnistria and northwest Romania as a colloquial language.
  2. Moldovan can refer to the official language of Moldova, which is almost identical to standard Romanian. It was previously written in the Cyrillic alphabet, but now shares the Roman alphabet as used for standard Romanian. The term was initially used to create an Ausbausprache. As this language and Romanian are virtually identical, many, but not all, Moldovans and Romanians wish to see the language renamed Romanian.
  3. Moldovan can refer to one of the official languages of the unrecognised territory of Transnistria. It is the same language as that official in (the rest of) Moldova, but it continues to be written in the Cyrillic alphabet.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but please don't just say I'm wrong because you don't understand what I've written. As I pointed out above. I've written Moldovan at the beginning of each definition in italic, as I'm referring to the name, not the language (this deals with one of the points we've already discussed). It would be unencyclopaedic not to give Transnistria a fully balanced treatment in this, or any other, article. Transnistria exists and Moldovan in Cyrillic is used there: unrecognized means that its right to exist is questioned. I don't suggest we put this list in the article, but I suggest that we write in such a way as to make the definition of Moldovan we are using at any one point totally clear. --Gareth Hughes 14:21, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Garzo, you're very much right, and I think we should actually include a paragraph in the article to make those points. Wikipedia is not a dictionary, but we need to define Moldovan language before anything else. I have just two minor comments:
  1. I'm not sure if I'm right, but from what I read I get the feeling that in English there is a distinction between Moldovan and Moldavian. In Romanian these two are the same, but in english whenever I read about the language of the Republic of Moldova it is called Moldovan (as this article does) whereas the graiul moldovenesc tends to be called Moldavian (as Ethnologue does). I couldn't find a clear definition though.
  2. First definition: "northeast" instead of "northwest". --AdiJapan 14:40, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
  3. Okay, three comments: A part of the Ukrainian population declares itself as ethnic Moldovan, and a part of this part calls its language Moldovan. A couple hundred people in all. --AdiJapan 15:05, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, Adi. Of course, I meant mortheast! I think Moldavian may be used more often to refer to the grai rather than the official language, so we might want to add that to definition one. I would imagine that the Moldovans of the Ukraine would speak graiul moldovenesc, and write something similar to that used in Transnistria (i.e. in Cyrillic). We could add this information to definitions one and three. --Gareth Hughes 15:12, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
They are a little bit more then a few hundred people. In Bugeac, most of the Romanian-speaking population there, which is about 60.000 people call themselves Moldovan. As far as I know they do not write in Cyrillic, like in Transnistria. The Ukrainian government makes books for them in Latin.
My apologies, I meant a couple hundred thousand people. I'll have to check again but the Ukrainian census a few years ago revealed something like 260,000 self-declared Moldovans of which about 180,000 declared Moldovan as their mother tongue. I can't confirm how many of them are in Bugeac though. --AdiJapan 16:19, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
About 60.000 speakers, out of 78300 people that said they were ethnic Moldovans[1]Constantzeanu 16:41, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
About Gareth Hughes' classification, it is pretty correct, but we have to make it clear to the reader, that although Moldovan can refer to three different things, it is about the same essential language/dialect/variation of Romanian.

Maybe we should state: The issue whether Moldovan is a language or just a vernacular of the Romanian language is a hotly debated one and strongly tied to politics. Moldovan depending on political orientation can refer:

  1. 'to the graiul moldovenesc, a northern non-standard dialect of (Daco-)Romanian, which is spoken throughout Moldova, the unrecognised territory of Transnistria and northeast Romania as a colloquial language.
  1. to the official language of Moldova, which is almost identical to standard Romanian. It was previously written in the Cyrillic alphabet, but now shares the Roman alphabet as used for standard Romanian. The term was initially used to create an Ausbausprache. As this language and Romanian are virtually identical, many, but not all, Moldovans and Romanians wish to see the language renamed Romanian.
  1. to one of the official languages of the unrecognised territory of Transnistria. It is the same language as that official in (the rest of) Moldova, but it continues to be written in the Cyrillic alphabet.


Also it is important to acknowledge that Adi is in essence right. This article is about the name of a language, not a language in itself. For this reason the infobox is problematic. Constantzeanu 15:48, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree to remove and delete the infobox as in the case of Flemish (linguistics). -- Bonaparte talk 16:08, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
The article is about the language in as much as it is different from Romanian, culturally, politically and historically as well as linguistically. I do not think that removing the infobox is a good idea at all. I spent a lot of time working on that template so it could be used in all language articles. Note that the infobox was never removed from Flemish (linguistics) (talk · history · watch), it was never there in the first place. I think the language infobox could be used in that article too. We can edit the contents of the infobox until we feel it gives the right impression. If we do come across something that the template cannot cope with, I can edit the template so that it can cope with it. Actually, I think this stance against the infobox is about politics rather than anything else. --Gareth Hughes 16:51, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


Gareth I don't think this article is about how the language is different from Romanian. I don't think that we should take this sort of a stance. This article is rather about the notion of Moldovan and how some people think it is a language and about how some do not. As in the case of Flemish, I do not think it needs an infobox. You pointed out correctly that Flemish never had one and that requests for the removal of the infobox may be politically motivated in certain cases, however the same argument can be done the other way around. Whoever put the infobox was politically motivated as well or at the least did not have a good background on the whole issue of the Moldovan language. For this reason I do not think that this infobox should stay or if it should stay then some things about it clearly have to be removed like the official in: part and the number 1.2 mil. I do not see how we ca reconcile the 3 statements from above about what Moldovan can mean, which you correctly identified with the official in: part. How can it be official only in Moldova when in fact Moldovan can be either a Romanian vernacular(spoken also in Romania), either a Romanian dialect or either a sepparate language(depending on political affiliation)? I think all that would confuse the reader.
I think we can all agree that Moldovan is not like any other language such as German, English, etc. etc. This article is about the status and name of Moldovan and how they are used. Constantzeanu 17:14, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Constantzeanu. Priest Gareth Hughes why not you check first that the Moldovan was first without any infobox and it was a whole discussion that we don't need that here. It induces only in error the people around the globe. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Moldovan_language/archive01#Infobox). See also there or in the archive. It was tausend time discussed that we don't need that here. This is not the place, I'm sorry that you worked so hard to that info template but this is not the case to impose your POV. -- Bonaparte talk 17:21, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

The infobox is neutral: it says nothing more than the article puts into it. If you give me a chance I can show you how this can be done. The last statement by Bonaparte caused me offence. It is written in very bad English, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt: don't do that again! --Gareth Hughes 17:26, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Romanians are very religious Gareth. They call priests by their title first as in "Father"(in English), no matter the denomination. I think he wanted to say "father", but it came out as "priest". Constantzeanu 17:40, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
I would like you to forgive me, please, but sincerely we don't need an infobox that is not correct or/and induce in error the reader. The info from infobox are false. As it is by now.-- Bonaparte talk 17:30, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Thank you for your apology, Bonaparte: I was distressed that you felt I was imposing my point of view. I would like to suggest how we might keep the infobox and make it neutral, not just keep it as it is. --Gareth Hughes 17:52, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm all ears. Let's give it a try! I am very curious what actually your proposal is. -- Bonaparte talk 17:54, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
I can't support lies. However this place was and partial still is a huge place for russian propaganda. It's good that now this propaganda is decreased. Bonaparte talk 17:56, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Infobox

Moldovan-Romanian
moldovenească,
молдовеняскэ[2], română
Native toThe Romanian spoken in Moldova (incl. Transnistria) is sometimes called Moldovan
Native speakers
2,664,000 speakers of Moldovan-Romanian in Moldova (1979 census) 
Official status
Official language in
Moldova (including the disputed territory of Transnistria)
Regulated byAcademy of Sciences of Moldova
Language codes
ISO 639-1mo
ISO 639-2mol
ISO 639-3mol

Let's have a look at the language infobox again; I haven't done much to it. I've used the joint title Moldovan-Romanian as a way of suggesting a close connexion. I've added română to the box at the top because a significant proportion of speakers call it that. I have made a comment that the name is significant in the spoken in section. Under total speakers I have included the census figures for the Romanian-speaking population of Moldova. Although this is old, I cannot find a better source. Again, I have used the Moldovan-Romanian label to show that this isn't really anything other than Romanian. Ronline added, or re-added, Romanian as the penultimate line in the genetic classification: I think this is fine as it stands. The entire Official status can be removed (not just the entries, the entire section can go). However, it is Moldovan's official status that is the most clear: it is written on the Moldovan Constitution, and, if they have one, probably on that of Transnistria too. The Academy of Sciences does have a role in the future of Moldovan, so that should be mentioned. The ISO 639 codes are all defined, although it is interesting to note that SIL did not give a language code to Moldovan in either the 14th or 15th edition of Ethnologue, but was forced to give it a section three code because other (less linguistic, more political) authorities had given it a code in both sections one and two of the standard. --Gareth Hughes 18:56, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I'll try my version.
Gareth, I'm not necessarily against your infobox, but I'd be very curious about how would your reconcile the logic of your box with the fact that the institution responsible for regulating the Moldovan language - the Academy of Sciences - does not accept the name "Moldovan" for the language? --MarioF 19:20, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Moldovan (Romanian)
moldovenească(română)
Native toThe Romanian spoken in Moldova (incl. Transnistria) is sometimes called Moldovan - in Romania
Native speakers
2,664,000 speakers of Moldovan-Romanian in Moldova (1979 census), 26,000,000 worldwide 
Official status
Official language in
Moldova
Regulated byAcademy of Sciences of Moldova
Language codes
ISO 639-1mo
ISO 639-2mol
ISO 639-3mol

When you say Moldova that includes automatically also Transnistria.

  • official is only in latin
  • if you say that are identical then are 26,000,000 millions people

-- Bonaparte talk 19:09, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


How about this version. It's something that goes between what Bonaparte said and what Hughes came up with, although I think that Hughes' version is a good base to start from. Constantzeanu 19:23, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Moldovan-Romanian
moldovenească,
молдовеняскэ[3], română
Native toThe Romanian spoken in Moldova (incl. Transnistria) is sometimes called Moldovan
Native speakers
2,664,000 speakers of Moldovan-Romanian in Moldova (1979 census) 26.000.000 speakers of Romanian/Moldovan worldwide 
Official status
Official language in
Moldova (including the disputed territory of Transnistria)
Regulated byAcademy of Sciences of Moldova
Language codes
ISO 639-1mo
ISO 639-2mol
ISO 639-3mol

I think the Cyrillic has to stay, as it's a fact that it's still used (although not officially by any recognised country). Either Moldovan-Romanian or Moldovan (Romanian) make the point that we are some how talking about Romanian. However, this little bit of punctuation needs to be backed up by the article text. Saying that it's sometimes called Moldovan in Romania precludes itbeing called that elsewhere, which it is. It would be possible to leave Transnistria out of the spoken in section, as Moldova does technically cover it. However, I would want to keep it in the official section because it is an official language under both governments separately. I think adding the total number of speakers of Romanian is misleading, because the vast majority would never call their language Moldovan. That is why I qualified speakers as being Moldovan-Romanian speakers in Moldova: the Romanian-speaking majority in Moldova. --Gareth Hughes 19:51, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

It is never called Moldovan in Romania! just romanian. Only if you referr to the "grai" which is for all Moldova (from Romania+R. of Moldovan). It is identical this is the truth, and romanian is spoken by 26,000,000 worldwide. -- Bonaparte talk 19:54, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Please keep in mind what Wikipedia says about not using original research and avoiding neologisms. Moldovan-Romanian as well as "state language" falls under this category. --Chris S. 20:06, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Well if we use the term Moldovan(Romanian) then it is not personal research. Likewise state language is a term used all over Moldova by government as well as media sourses. It was a term coined by people who do not want to be labled as "Unionists"(with Romania) or "Sepparatists"(as in supporters of Moldovan independence). So in fact none of these terms actually fall under the category of "original research". Constantzeanu 20:12, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
It is to be preferred moldovan (romanian) against moldovan-romanian. The language of the state is state language.-- Bonaparte talk 20:09, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
I think that as it is right now, we are extreemly close to have a final version as far as both infobox and content are concerned. Only minute details have to be worked out but I think that the most troublesome parts have already been solved. Someone (maybe Gareth) should go ahead and make the changes that we talked about. Constantzeanu 20:17, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

OK! It looks like Moldovan (Romanian) is the preferred choice for the infobox, as a shorthand description. I don't think this style should be used in the text: we should write full sentences. The in Romania bit popped up in the second infobox, wherever that came from. --Gareth Hughes 20:34, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

urgent things that must be done now

There is a list that must be done now:

  • the revert of the Node's edits which despite the fact that does not meet consensus are still in page
  • the infobox that must be changed and/or removed (there are more users that endorse this taking into account the flemish case)
No, this is still in discussion. You seem to be the only one who thinks it should be removed entirely.
Yes. It is closed case. It will be removed. You put it a lot time ago, and ever since it is still in debate. This is the perfect troll.
Can you give a list of the people who agreed it should be removed?
  • the phrase must be "indentical" not virtual, or other synonims
Yet another baseless fatwa, the word "virtually" seems to have been accepted by most except for you and your fellow holy warriors. --Node 20:32, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
What bothers you so much since they are de facto identical? You cannot prove it that is not. You've tried so far but without success.
No, I have. I've given references. But as always, you ignored them. --Node 21:59, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
  • others as well
Holy warriors ? I don't agree with "virtually" as well, does that automatically make me a holy warrior ? 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I will ask for Garzo to do this since there is a consensus about all these issues. The majority of users and also the "reality" supports a version that is against with Node's version. -- Bonaparte talk 20:13, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Ronline seemed to be OK with it except for a couple of issues. Others have made modifications building on my version. Mikkalai and Constantzeanu have also accepted it implicitly by editing it without removing my changes. Now, if you don't like my changes, you need to say why. You accused me before of starting a revert war. It appears now that you're in a similar position. You have just issued a fatwa declaring that the edits of the infidels must be reverted now, and that it's urgent. Really, that's actually funny. --Node 20:32, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Even Cris left you. His proposal is much more normal, but you allway making a troll and revert war. You introduce the legendary phrase "Bucharestian is a language" and still not given any proof. I am still waiting the reference. -- Bonaparte talk 20:57, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Bonaparte, Chris didn't "leave me". We're still coordinating efforts here. Now, I gave you the reference -- three times. You ignored it all 3 times. --Node 21:59, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't think that we should do anything with urgency now. We just had a very helpful look at the infobox, and it might be good to have a similar focus on various points over which we are getting tied. I don't think setting out to undo Node's changes is useful. We should look at the edits on their own merit, not on who made them. Flurries of changes just confuse everyone. Virtually does leave some room for compromise, which makes it favourable: without it, we have to be absolutely sure that not a word, spelling or grammatical construction is minutely different. Last point: let's please keep this calm and less personal. --Gareth Hughes 20:45, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

It is the urgency not to keep an inflamatory version! Since the majority of the users don't agree with it. -- Bonaparte talk 20:57, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
You keep saying that the majority agrees with you. Who are these people? You, yourself, and whom else? --Node 21:59, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Node ue, I think it's pretty silly to accuse people of starting a fatwa. Anyways, once again Node ue, I do not think it's very productive if you start to revert again to something that really nobody agrees with. If you had a problem with Gagauzia, you should have changed that part only, not revert the whole thing. We were just in the process of a major breakthrough after countless discussions and ideas brought fourth by everyone who seems to be interested in solving the issue and making the article as NPOV as possible. Please try to be civil and mature about it and not disrupt it. Thank you.Constantzeanu 20:46, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
You don't start a fatwa, you make it. I think you're confusing a fatwa (declaration or command) with a jihad (ideological war, sometimes called "holy war"). And what Bonaparte said really did resemble an Iranian fatwa -- "We must revert him now, for great justice!!! you know what you doing!!! take off every revision!!!". Now, I did change that part only. Apparently you didn't check the page history -- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moldovan_language&diff=30626814&oldid=30625607 . I'm not sure who's disrupting what here, but... why is it that anons are constantly reverting to Bonaparte's favourite revision of the page? When they reverted to my version, I was accused for sockpuppeting. But nobody's accused Bonaparte yet. Hmm. --Node 21:59, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
PS: also do you notice how Bonaparte suddenly becomes cooperative, polite and nice, when you are not around? Somehow, he has no problem being civil with everyone else, it’s just that when you are interfering that he becomes irritated and agitated. Maybe that says something, don’t you think? Constantzeanu 20:46, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Bonaparte was never polite or nice. Apparently you didn't follow closely when I was blocked -- he kept insisting on his favourite phrase, "...identical...". --Node 21:59, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree that Node's changes must be reverted, as for infobox, the best idea is probably to remove it, or at least remove the cyrillic part. To Gareth: You keep saying cyrillic moldovan is used, yet you show no proof of that, let's see "Lenta PMR" - http://www.tiras.ru/, President's of PMR official page - http://www.president-pmr.org/ . Please, show me cyrillic moldovan there, I could go on with the list if you wish. --8 December 2005 (UTC)
Someone who issues a fatwa is called a mufti: it's quite an honour! Can you show me that Cyrillic is not used in Transnistria? I was led to believe it is. I would like us to think about Gagauzia. Its situation is different from that of Transnistria, and as an autonomous region it does have the authority to declare a language to be official, like Gagauz (for which I've just made an infobox). However, I believe that Moldovan is official in Gagauzia by the default that it is official throughout Moldova, and not by a declaration of the regional authority. --Gareth Hughes 20:58, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Russian is the main language used in transnistria, Romanian is taught in schools with latin alphabet (they tried to change it to cyrillic, but it worked out after all).

So Gareth Hughes! What do you wait to make those changes? -- Bonaparte talk 21:03, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

See the top of http://www.answers.com/topic/romanian-language from CUP's Encyclopedia, I think they put it very nicely there!

Oh yeah! Very nice!
Romanian language, member of the Romance group of the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Romance languages). 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. At the present time Romanian is written in the Roman alphabet, to which have been added the symbols ă, â, î, ş, and ţ. In Moldova under Soviet rule, however, Cyrillic characters were used for Romanian. A distinctive feature of Romanian is the attachment of the definite article to the noun as a suffix, as in omul (literally, “man-the”). The oldest surviving Romanian texts are from the 16th cent., and there are four major dialects of the language.
Bibliography
See J. E. Augerot and F. D. Popescu, Modern Romanian (1971); E. Vasiliu and S. Golopentia-Ertescu, Transformational Syntax of Romanian (1973). -- Bonaparte talk 21:12, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Anyway, my point with the link was, a general rule of thumb for an encyclopedia is: no nonsense, and this article really (with the help of Node_ue) starts to degenerate into one big nonsense.

No more degeneration. We will not let this happen. But please sign your posts. Its easier to see them. You may sign with user:212..... -- Bonaparte talk 21:22, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Degeneration isn't good, nor is name calling. If you use four tildes (~~~~) at the end of every post, it will automatically write your IP address, time and date. I don't think we agreed to remove the infobox, but to change its contents. Also, the removal of Cyrillic wasn't agreed. I really do think that Cyrillic is used for Moldovan in Transnistria, the official seal of the 'government' has the initials in the three official language all in Cyrillic. --Gareth Hughes 21:39, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Also, we talked about the style Moldovan (Romanian) for the infobox, not for the body text. If we use it in the text it makes the whole thing look more ridiculous than it is already. --Gareth Hughes 21:41, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm still not sure about the infobox using "Moldovan-Romanian". After all, this page is called "Moldovan language". --Node 21:59, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
PMR is for the russian! -- Bonaparte talk 21:42, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
However we can ask User:EvilAlex. He is from Transnistria! -- Bonaparte talk 21:43, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

You guys are silly. The "Transnistrian Moldovan Republic" does indeed have Moldovan Cyrillic as an official language. Most of their websites are just in Russian, but the site for the Constitutional Court is trilingual: [4]. It has a section written in Moldovan Cyrillic, using pretty much the same standards as RSSM. --Node 21:59, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Citing YOU:

"Wikipedia is not about what is official and what is not. It's about what is really happening." Here's the link http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-December/042929.html user:212....

I've put up an amended version, which seems to be closer to what we agreed. We were all for changing the infobox, but not all for removing it: so I've changed it. Cyrillic does still seem to be used in Transnistria, so to remove it would be premature. It's fair enough to place it second. I don't think that Gagauzia is worth mentioning in the lead section, but perhaps further down the article. I think we should look again at this official name of the state language. I can see its subtlety, but official language is the usual English for this kind of thing (state language sounds odd), and any constitution will say "this is the official language", not "this what we'll call the official language". --Gareth Hughes 22:15, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with the new version. About "state language", it does not sound odd only in English but in Romanian as well. In Romanian we call it "limba oficială" which sounds much better then "limba de stat". Probably the reason why they chose to call it "state language", rather then "official language" is because they did not want to get into the language debate too much.Constantzeanu 22:40, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but "limba de stat/state language" is precisely the wording used here. Cyrillic _IS_ used in transnistria (their main language is russian after all) but not romanian/moldovan cyrillic, you won't find it in press, you won't find any books. user:212....

Again vandalism on page by user:Node ue

It is the (n+3) time when he makes an edit war here! -- Bonaparte talk 21:55, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Finally, thanks Bonaparte & Constantzeanu, a normal version of the page! Now just keep that troll from reverting. User:212.....

New Infobox

I support Garzo's new infobox, at least as a temporary solution to the infobox problem. Alexander 007 22:14, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

But wouldn't you support "no infobox" more ? user:212....
No infobox would be more accurate in a number of respects, but an infobox is useful for Wikipedians. Unfortunately, it can mislead the stray reader. But the new infobox is less misleading. Alexander 007 22:18, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Alexander. Gareth has made it much better and NPOV. Constantzeanu 22:23, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
At least I have to agree even with this infobox it's still a much better page than before. user:212....


Sadly enough, Node ue has reverted again the version to something that was there before Gareth. As I have already reverted Node's childish vandalism 3 times already, I must ask someone else to please keep an eye on the article. Constantzeanu 22:30, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


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

"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin. I propose to insert also this in text of the article. It defines very well what happend there. -- Bonaparte talk 22:29, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't agree with latest edits of Mark Williamson aka Node ee. This is troll and edit war what he's doing. We'll never going to have a consensus here if he still continues in this approach. Someone block this guy! It was so better when he was blocked! -- Bonaparte talk 22:31, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Bonaparte, you just did the same thing Node did by removing the entire infobox. That's called being a hypocrite. Alexander 007 22:38, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

yes but are you sure that this was about the Romanians in Moldova only and not just about any minority in the USSR?Constantzeanu 22:32, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Node: you have to understand that you are the odd man out in this situation, a certain consensus has been reached along with Gareth's version, stop reverting. user:212....

"Some ethnic-Romanians in Ukraine also claim "Moldovan" as their mother tongue." Okay guys, this is definitely funny =) The joke of the day! =) I must tell my friends about it :) "Some ethnic-Romanians in New Zealand also claim "Moldovan" as their mother tongue." user:212....

I know it sounds funny and yet sad but if you don't believe me look here: [5]. You will see that unfortunately it is not a joke. Constantzeanu 22:56, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Am vazut, oricum e super haios ;) user:212....

This quote of Stalin illustrates his ideas and plans for many minorities throughout the FSU. In the case of the former Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Stalin used linguistic tension and forced-immigration to control nascent nationalist movements. For example, the Soviets liquidated Bukovina and northern Moldova of ethnic Romanians to stem the influence of neighboring Romania's growing nationalism, knowing that it would not be received by Russians and Ukrainians, who were to re-populate these areas. vkxmai 04:32, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Vkxmai, you've made edits to the page before, and comments here. But you seem to have no idea what's going on. Do you know why? That isn't a real quote from Stalin. Who created it is unknown, but it occasionally pops up in discussions of linguistic oppression. --Node 04:39, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Moldavian in the Ukraine

According to the Ukrainian census:

181020 people claimed "Moldovan" as their mother tongue, out of 258600 people claiming "Moldovan" as their nationality. Nearly all of the rest of the people claiming this nationality claimed their mother tongue as Ukrainian or Russian. 138467 people claimed "Romanian" as their mother tongue, out of 151000 people claiming "Romanian" as their nationality. Nearly all of the rest of the people claiming this nationality claimed their mother tongue as Ukrainian or Russian.

Nationality by region had interesting results, too. People claiming the nationality of "Moldovan" were significant numbers in Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Vinnytsia, Kirovograd, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Poltava, Kherson, Chernivtsi, and Sevastopol regions, with a total of 226200 Moldavians. Moldavians outside these regions were 32400.

People claiming the nationality of "Romanian" were significant numbers only in Zakarpattia and Chernivtsi regions, with a total of 146700 Romanians. Romanians outside these regions were 4300.

In Zakarpattia, there is a significant number of Romanians (2.6%) but none of Moldovans; in Chernivtsi, there are more Romanians than Moldovans (12.5% Romanians, 7.3% Moldavians).

So clearly, any article on Moldovan should include the fact that 181020 Ukrainians claim Moldovan as their mother tongue. (молдавська мова - moldavsska mova) --Node 23:07, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

No not Ukrainains. 181020 Ukrainian citizens of Romanian origin also claim Moldovan as their mother tongue. Other then that I must say I am happy to see Node ue for the first time contribute in a mature manner to anything related to Romania or Moldova.Constantzeanu 23:12, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I take what I said back. Node ue, now you are becoming not only childish but also annoying and irritating. Stop reverting Gareth's version. You have already done 4 reverts which is one too many. Constantzeanu 23:16, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Constanteanu, do you know what a "revert" is? It means making the article back to the way it was before. I didn't do that -- I just changed stuff. Now, those Ukrainian citizens aren't "of Romanian origin" -- they claimed their nationality on the census as "Moldovan". I am following census results, you are following your POV. --Node 23:29, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
And are you qualified enough to interpret the results of a census ? Have you read the whole article ? Eu iti mai repet inca o data, tu nu stii limba romana, nu o stii si gata, deja e la nivel de axioma, incerci sa inventezi limbi noi, iti pare haios. Precum nu stii romana eu zic ca automat concluziile facute de tine in baza unui articol scris in romana sunt false. Lasa aberatiile intr-o parte si mai fa si tu ceva folositor, mai invata ceva analiza functionala, topologie, cromodinamica cuantica, sunt chestii super interesante si lasa discutiile politice si cele lingvistice ca nu prea te descurci la ele. user:212.....
I'm not going off of the article, I'm going off of the official Ukrainian census website [6]. And I do know Romanian, at least some. --Node 01:16, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Hehe, Node_ue he is still high on something thinking a lot of people over 30 write "moldovan" in cyrillic, mwoahaha =) Node, it would certainly be easier if you would come for once to Moldova and would go to the villages, people hardly know russian alphabet at all there, not to mention writing in it! =) You REALLY need to visit Moldova, as you have a very wrong impression of it and it seems you just took this project "for fun" just to try prove everyone else they're wrong. Do you need a proof ? Ok, during a math class in university, a professor recommends a book in russian (unfortunately there's a lack of romanian books at advanced level due to high prices, so there are just legacy books left from soviet times) and the first question was : is there a romanian version, they couldn't read it, the majority of the class were coming from villages, then a friend of mine was also complaining as it was very hard for her to read a russian book. Do you see my point here ? I'm not even talking here about moldovan cyrillic (even though I've seen some in the library, worth a good laugh). And certainly thus asking my friends that are from rural areas about their parents would clarify the situation, and do you know what the answer is ? well, guess what, their parents don't write cyrillic for any purpose, they write romanian with latin alphabet. Yet, something must be wrong, how come, it's Node_ue that never was in Moldova and was born in US, he must know everything about the current situation, so, dear Mark, I will keep trying to find someone who writes in moldovan/romanian cyrillic! user:212.....

Node you still exist man? By the way, thanks for last night. Duca 23:38, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I still exist. And don't pretend you had sex with me -- even if I'd ever met you, I'd not have sex with you. I don't engage in sexual acts with people whom I don't like. --Node 01:16, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Wow, this is getting pretty interesting. It seems to me that there is a real contest here between certain individuals about who can be the most annoying and disruptive. Node ue you are masking your reverts with little changes here and there so please don't insult me by pretending not to be reverting stuff. What you are doing is called vandalism. Duca please put back Gareth's last version.Constantzeanu 23:46, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Constanteanu, please check the edit history of the page. I have not made reverts recently. To check if somebody has made reverts, compare two of their edits, and if they're identical or near-identical, it's a revert. [7] Clearly, that's not a revert. Now, you accused me of vandalism. Please see Wikipedia:Vandalism. But you have outright removed information -- in your case, it truly is a masked revert. I made edits to the most recent version instead of going back in the page history and masking it, however you very clearly did not. Although you didn't revert the entire article or even a section, you did outright revert smaller parts of it. And removal of information is totally not allowed. --Node 01:16, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, people, a free encyclopedia is certainly a lot of fun (yet more reasons why a decent encyclopedia would never hire someone like Mark) but there are times to go back to real life. The final point being, there is no such thing as Moldovan language in reality, it's just a renamed Romanian, call it an alias, you say Moldovan you get Romanian, and whatever Node_ue would say or other people would "jugde" from reading god knows what, that won't be changed, so keep on doing whatever you were doing and don't forget, real life is more important than editing/reverting and becoming furious over kids like Mark (yes, Mark, you ARE a kid, and that's a judgement based on your behaviour and not based on your age). Anyway, have fun! Si multa bafta, fratilor romani! user:212.....

Spoken in ..

Node & Constantzeanu - uh, why is the infobox so unnecessarily wordy in the "Spoken in" section? It should simply list the place names. Any other information is in the article, otherwise it is basically duplicating information that is present in the article. Was there a consensus on this particular section of the infobox? I didn't give my two cents in, just on the Moldovan (Romanian) thing, which I am still pondering. --Chris S. 03:06, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

<removed personal attack posted by User:205.215.222.154>

Politics or Linguistics

A couple remarks:

  • Genetic classification: If you have Moldovan under Romanian that would mean Moldovan is a Romanian dialect, a member of the Romanian language family, and there are actually people saying it could be the other way round. So that's not good. If you have Romanian under Romanian, well that doesn't make any sense. I would then agree with this scheme:


Indo-European
　Italic
　　Romance
　　　Eastern Romance
　　　　Moldovan
　　　　(Romanian)


The explanation (Romanian), if it doesn't fit near Moldovan, should be written below, and indented just as much. Maybe a little manual editing is needed instead of the template defaults.

  • The 2,664,000 people in Moldova are all speakers of Moldovan/Romanian, including those who only call it Romanian. Many of them wouldn't like to find themselves counted in the Moldovan group. On the other hand the 181,020 (the number I have is 181,124) people in Ukraine are only those who declared their mother tongue to be specifically Moldovan, while there are another 138,522 people who declare they speak Romanian. I suggest we only count either all Romance speakers or only self-declared Moldovan speakers, but do so uniformly.
  • Spoken in...: Is this a joke? Nobody in Romania calls their mother tongue Moldovan.

The infobox is inconsistent: The title seems to claim that Moldovan = Romanian, whereas the contents is an unfortunate fruit salad.

As you can see, the biggest problem with this article is that it's hard to decide if you want to deal with things politically or linguistically. The two points of view are in many ways completely different, or plain opposite. You can't count speakers, you can't classify the language. Look at these Moldovan/Romanian speaking people, they are all native speakers of two languages, no matter if they know it, want it, like it, or deny it.

And finally: Until we get to a workable version, from where only small changes are needed, we must put up a disputed label, otherwise people might think it's all settled and use info from here in other articles/projects. Is there any label that says both "disputed" and something like "please first discuss changes"? --AdiJapan 08:10, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Well said by AdiJapan. It is correct.-- Bonaparte talk 11:22, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Linguistically is "identical"=Moldovan is identical with Romanian

Linguistically Moldovan is identical with Romanian. That's it. Closed case.

Politically is de facto "identical" but the name is different

As even the president of Moldova recognized it that is in fact identical with Romanian only the name being different.-- Bonaparte talk 11:22, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Regulated by

Official language of: Moldova (including the disputed territory of Transnistria) Regulated by: Academy of Sciences of Moldova

Again, wikipedia serves as a platform to disinform the general public, Academy of Sciences of Moldova doesn't have anything related to "Limba Moldoveneasca". Please see the site of Moldavian Academy of Sciences, institute of Linguistics: http://www.asm.md/institute/lingvist/ . If someone is not convinced then please write an email to the director of the institute. ASM regulates the use of Romanian and not of Moldovan, therefore the statement "Regulated by" is simply wrong in this context and therefore should be deconstructed (aka removed).

I agree with you. Make an account still. -- Bonaparte talk 12:12, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Bonaparte, if credibility on wikipedia is directly related to one having a username or not then I feel sorry for it. Just a tag]
It is even said there: Cercetarile intreprinse in cadrul Institutului de Lingvistica, pe parcursul ultimului deceniu al secolului trecut, se caracterizeaza printr-o mare diversitate si au vizat urmatoarele domenii:
  • gramatica limbii romane;
  • vocabularul limbii romane contemporane;
  • evolutia istorica a limbii romane si contactele ei cu alte limbi;
  • originea, formarea si evolutia numelor proprii;
  • stratificarea dialectala a limbii romane, etc.

-- Bonaparte talk 12:14, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

help

Someone make the note to the reference please.

Heitmann, K., 1989, Moldauisch. In Holtus, G., Metzeltin, M. and Schmitt, C. (eds), Lexicon der Romanschinen Linguistik, Tübingen, vol 3. 508-21.

-- Bonaparte talk 12:15, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

clarification

The added text by me brings a better clarification in the tone, conclusions and agreements that were already spoken here.

"Moldovan language" is in fact indentical with Romanian language, renamed as a "language" for political reasons by the government. Although similar theories have been fielded for other languages, this proposal is now believed to have been made to serve political purposes only, and nobody has provided any evidence so-far towards the idea that Moldovan and Romanian are not from common linguistic stock.
The term "Moldovan" is also a soviet invention (see Dept. of State & CIA). A separate language based on these was declared and promoted for political reasons, in order to further advance a Moldovan identity separate from that of Romania.
The soviet Russians called people of Moldavia Republic: "Moldovan" because they wanted to create a new nation different from Moldavians/Romanians.
"Moldovan" (graiul moldovenesc, in older sources limba moldovenească) can also refer to the speech of the historical region of Moldavia in Romania, one of the northern dialects of colloquial Romanian.
Russians manipulated people of Republic of Moldova and washed their brains to create a new person, the soviet "Moldovan". The real name in English is Moldavian, in Romanian is Moldovean and in Russian is Molidavanin.
Would sound better as: In the continuous efforts of russification by the soviets, a new identity has been artificially created, etc... Just a simple tag
"The name 'Moldovan language' (in Russian, МОЛДaВCKИЙ ЯЗБIK 'moldavskii iazyk'); in Romanian, limbă moldovenească, or, in Cyrillic characters, ЛИMбЗ MOЛДОBeНЯCKЗ was applied in the Soviet Union, as during earlier periods of Russian occupation of the area in question, to the * Romance language used in the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (corresponding more or less to the formerly Romanian territory of Bessarabia, annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940). In reality, 'Moldavian' is nothing else than the *Romanian language as spoken in Moldavia, i.e. both east of the river Prut in Bessarabia (now the Republic of Moldova) and west of the Prut in that part of the former province that remains as part of Romania. Claims made in the post-Second World War period by the Soviet linguists that 'Moldavian' should be recognized as a distinct Romance language were not taken into seriously by western scholars.
Under Soviet domination, the *Cyrillic alphabet was in the use in the Moldavian SSR until the passing of a law on 31 August 1989 (i.e. before the break-up of the Soviet Union) proclaiming Moldavian as the official language of the Republic and the use of Latin script. Apart from a few lexical differences (mainly technical terms borrowed from Russian rather than, as in standard Romanian, from western languages), the written language was thenceforth indistinguishable from that in use in Romania and moves are afoot to harmonize the technical terminology of Moldova with that adopted in Romanian specialized dictionaries.
Heitmann, K., 1989, Moldauisch. In Holtus, G., Metzeltin, M. and Schmitt, C. (eds), Lexicon der Romanschinen Linguistik, Tübingen, vol 3. 508-21. Bonaparte talk 12:19, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Even if the russian tried so hard, there are more than 2/3 of people who still recognize that they are romanians who speak romanian.-- Bonaparte talk 12:41, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Home alone

Bonaparte, I will personally ask your blocking if you continue what you've been doing. I'm not joking.

I'm not sure about other large chunks of texts you added, with no one's agreement, but your last edit is plain forgery. Your so-called comparison text about the vowels is a piece of text that I myself had found in a book written in the Aromanian language and I myself translated it into Romanian and English and put it in that article. That text was never written in Moldovan. I reverted your edit.

Adi, technically Bonaparte is correct, if you don't like that example, he can take let's say a poetry by Eminescu, one from a publisher in Moldova and the same poetry from a publisher in Romania. After all explaining linguistics and blah blah yada yada is utterly useless for an average reader, but giving a good example comparing the two languages face to face serves a good purpose. Just another tag (Unsigned post by User:212.0.211.88)
The conclusions have been taken from the talk page. This express the conclusions from here. It's a non-sense to speak about two different languages since they are identical. -- Bonaparte talk 13:27, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Anyway you did a great job if you made it. Actually your example inspired me. You'll have a medal for it.-- Bonaparte talk 13:28, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I had little trust in your intentions, but from now on your credibility is zero. Flat. Dead. I will completely ignore you, except for reverting your bad edits and requesting your blocking when I find it necessary. --AdiJapan 13:21, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I have only one question: How do you write that text in romanian and in so-called "moldovan"? Please answer me.-- Bonaparte talk 13:25, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

No, 212.0.211.88, technically and morally he is wrong. If you want to show how Moldovan differs from Romanian you take a piece of text originally written in Moldovan (or intended as such) and then you give its translation into Romanian and English. You don't take a text written originally in another language, first translated into Romanian and then made to look like Moldovan.

I agree that the result is basically the same, because Moldovan is in fact (virtually) identical with Romanian. But respectable people do not fabricate proofs.

But since it is the same language (and even in Romania some use sint, and I for example use "sunt") and the fact that some use "sint" in Romania doesn't make it automagically "Moldovan language", it's still the same Romanian. So your use of words "virtually", "basically" is erroneous IMHO in the given context, and given that, you won't find a text in Moldovan, it will be the same Romanian Just a tag, 9th of Dec. 5:51PM

Now if you want a proof you take for example the text below, which was written not by me, not by a Romanian, but by a Moldovan.

So, what you say here is, if I was born in Moldova that makes my language Moldovan, and all I say is in Moldovan and not Romanian ? Just a tag, 9th of Dec. 5:54PM
  • Moldovan (in Cyrillic script): Тоате фиинцеле умане се наск либере ши егале ын демнитате ши ын дрептурь. Еле сынт ынзестрате ку рациуне ши конштиинцэ ши требуе сэ се компорте унеле фацэ де алтеле ын спиритул фратернитэций.
  • Moldovan (in Latin script): Toate fiinţele umane se nasc libere şi egale în demnitate şi în drepturi. Ele sînt înzestrate cu raţiune şi conştiinţă şi trebuie să se comporte unele faţă de altele în spiritul fraternităţii.
  • Romanian: Toate fiinţele umane se nasc libere şi egale în demnitate şi în drepturi. Ele sunt înzestrate cu raţiune şi conştiinţă şi trebuie să se comporte unele faţă de altele în spiritul fraternităţii.
  • English: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

(The example comes from Omniglot.com)

By the way, 212.0.211.88, get yourself a user name. Either way, sign your posts by typing four tildes at the end: ~~~~. --AdiJapan 15:28, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I have more than enough usernames already, and I know all too well about signing posts on WP, I'm just not into it. Just another tag
Guys the intro cannot be that huge as it is right now.It should be shortened.Constantzeanu 15:31, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
I say is good to have it that size. We can delete the other parts. Is like in the case of flemish(linguistics). 15 lines were enough there. This approach can be also applied here. -- Bonaparte talk 16:42, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


Remarks

Some remarks that I don't agree with. These were made by Node and they induce in error the redear:

"Moldovan" (graiul moldovenesc, in older sources limba moldoveneasca) can also refer to the speech of the historical region of Moldavia in Romania, and is one of the northern dialects of colloquial Romanian.

Romanian has no dialects. (exept for aromanian, megleno-romanian, istro-romanian, daco-romanian(romanian))

At High School No.1 in Chişinău the pupils had the right to choose between Romanian and German or between Romanian and Greek until 9 February

This is the correct one.

At High School No.1 in Chişinău the pupils had the right to choose between Romanian, German, and Greek

This is the false one. They had to choose from two variants: (romanian+german) or (romanian+greek). Not from romanian, german, greek

"Artificial evolution of Romanian to Moldovan"

This is the correct one.

"Language shift in Bessarabia"

This is not enough. It wasn't just a shift! And what language? From what language? It was imposed by force, so it was an artificial process, an artificial evolution of the creation of a new language, identity and so on.

"Beginnings of the so called Moldovan language in Soviet Transnistria"

This is correct. Again this was a creation of soviet linguists.

"Beginnings of the Moldovan language"

Again incomplete. It is not good.

-- Bonaparte talk 17:22, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I, too, do not like the word dialect: it might be better to describe graiul moldovenesc as a variant of colloquial Romanian (just as shown on Constantzeanu's grai map. The scope of socio-political argument should be covered by the body text, rather than in the headings. Making a point by the titles is something done in bad newspapers. I would suggest Language policy in Bessarabia and Origin of Moldovan as the better headings. Incompleteness is not an issue: the complete argument should be in the text below. It is more important that the headings are neutral, which I feel is not achieved by "scare quotes" or the odd-sounding phrase artificial evolution.

Coduri internaţionale SIL şi ISO 639-x

Cea mai curentă atribuire a codurilor etnologice de două sau trei litere pentru limba română nu este ro (ISO 639-1), şi nici rum (ISO 639-2/B), ci (conform ISO 639-2/T) ron. Desigur, chiar codurile acestea recunoscute drept standard mondial, identifică limba moldovenească cu limba română.

Someone translate please.-- Bonaparte talk 18:11, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


The most recent ethnologic code containing 2 or 3 letters for the Romanian language is not ro (ISO 639-1), nor is it rum (ISO 639-2/B). According to the ISO 639-2/T, it is “ron”. Naturally, even these universally recognized codes, identify the Moldovan language to be the same as the Romanian language. Constantzeanu 19:26, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

So, the numbers that are now in the infobox are wrong!
I agree to delete it and I will do it. -- Bonaparte talk 19:31, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
But is there a page somewhere with that new list ? If it is indeed as you say and there is a valid reference then yes, change the infobox. Just another tag

Yes! The reference is:

http://www.ethnologue.com/14/show_iso639.asp?code=ron

ISO 639-2/T: ron

ROMANIAN [RUM] Romania. 20,520,000 in Romania, 90% of the population (1986). Population total all countries 26,000,000 (1999 WA). Alternate names: RUMANIAN, MOLDAVIAN, DACO-RUMANIAN. Classification: Indo-European, Italic, Romance, Eastern.

-- Bonaparte talk 20:32, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

But this is ethnologue, we know that ethnologue doesn't have a code for "moldavian" (and for good reasons!), still the truth there is an ISO code for "moldavian", see http://www.ethnologue.com/14/show_iso639.asp?code=mol . Just another tag

New references

http://www.languagehat.com/archives/001538.php

The reason for this proliferation of ambiguities is highlighted in the conflict that produced the title Our Language Day. After 1989, when Moldova was still part of the Soviet Union, it was called Our Romanian Language Day to celebrate the decision, on 31 August 1989, to proclaim Romanian Moldova's official language. Then, in 1994, three years after gaining independence, the country's second freely elected parliament stated that the state language was "Moldovan." The word "Romanian" was subsequently removed from the name of the holiday.

Linguists across the world are, though, in agreement: "Moldovan" is Romanian. Since the linguistic battle over the nature of Moldovan Romanian began in 1994, numerous international conferences, symposia, and workshops have demonstrated that, linguistically, there is no distinctly Moldovan language. There are no longer conferences on the issue. For academics, the issue has been resolved.

But not so for the Moldovan government and many Moldovans. For them, naming the language of the country's ethnic majority is more than a matter of linguistics. The persistent question "Is our language Moldovan or Romanian?" has been mirrored in the paradoxical existence of publications written in the same language but which, below their title, carry the tagline "periodical in Romanian" or "periodical in Moldovan."

And in the bookshops, a Moldovan-Romanian dictionary (the equivalent of an English-American dictionary) has become a bestseller, though as a curiosity rather than as an academic work.

(The academic credibility of the dictionary were, in passing, undermined when Vasile Stati, its author, was unable to explain the meaning of a short story written by a talkshow host using only the distinctively "Moldovan" words taken from the dictionary.)

In the classroom, the United Nations Development Program, which was trying to promote Romanian-language courses among ethnic minorities, two years ago tried to sidestep the problem by saying that its courses were taught in "the language that unifies us."

Hehe, yes, I even saw the talkshow it is referring to, it was fun to watch! ;) Just another tag

Stalin justified the creation of the Moldavian SSR by claiming that a distinct "Moldavian" language was an indicator that "Moldavians" were a separate nationality from the Romanians in Romania. In order to give greater credence to this claim, in 1940 Stalin imposed the Cyrillic alphabet on "Moldavian" to make it look more like Russian and less like Romanian; archaic Romanian words of Slavic origin were imposed on "Moldavian"; Russian loanwords and phrases were added to "Moldavian"; and a new theory was advanced that "Moldavian" was at least partially Slavic in origin. (Romanian is a Romance language descended from Latin.) In 1949 Moldavian citizens were publicly reprimanded in a journal for daring to express themselves in literary Romanian. The Soviet government continued this type of behavior for decades.

Proper names in Moldova were subjected to Russianization as well. Russian endings were added to purely Romanian names, and individuals were referred to in the Russian manner by using a patronymic (based on one's father's first name) as a middle name.

You actually put this on the talkpage once already earlier... that aside, I'm well aware of who Languagehat is, and I read his blog quite a bit. Suffice to say, he has 0 linguistic credentials, and in that particular article he cited no sources. --Node 22:51, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

page protection

If the user:... you all know him will continue his sabotage on the page I will ask an admin to protect the page against vandalism. So be aware, you vandals! -- Bonaparte talk 19:47, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

You have my support for that. Just another tag

Good. I am starting this approach right now.-- Bonaparte talk 20:21, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Although I think we should proceed with caution and moderation when we make the slightest changes to the article (since we got to the present form through a lot of hard work), I am all for banning politically motivated, uncooperative and immature users who constantly revert, rather then offer concrete ideas, here on the discussion page. Constantzeanu 20:32, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Constanteanu, I'm pretty sure you're talking about me specifically here. Please, feel free to check the article history. If anybody's been manipulating this article in a strange direction, it's Bonaparte and his anonymous friends. --Node 22:53, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Page protection is a sign of failure: not yet. --Gareth Hughes 22:58, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
As much as I appreciate your "patience", the whole deal is a huge nonsense now, everybody screws the page in the way he/she wants to, Node_ue apparently doesn't care about the opinion of majority, he has his own master plan (Node, have you considered making your own nodopedia ?), and if someone disagrees he just conviniently calls them "holy warriors", "anonymous friends" and so on. Just another tag

Changes after reverts of Malo.

After Malo reverted a ton of anon edits, the same anon made more changes, which until now have gone unreverted. After that, Bonaparte made some changes, as did another anon. AdiJapan reverted some of Bonaparte's changes; Bogdan made some changes to teh sources section.

I have checked over all of these edits, and pretty much the last valid changes were made by Constantzeanu. The last time his version was visible is when User:Malo reverted to it against the changes of an anon vandal.

Now, before my revert, the article read like a cheap conspiracy theory book. It's quite obvious there was 0 consensus to add that stuff about brainwsahing. --Node 22:47, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi Constanteanu, in your most recent edit, you:
  • Changed "some" to "a significant number of". "Significant number" is POV.
  • Removed a sentence which had cited sources, without justification.
  • Added a Cyrillic equivalent in context.
Now, of these, I think only the last one is reasonable. As I noted earlier after you removed Ukrainian census information, it is not OK to remove information if a source is given for it, without prior discussion, on a controversial page. Likewise, saying that anything is "significant" or "insignificant" is POV. Please don't make edits which you know to be against policy. If you feel these changes really need to be made, please discuss them here. --Node 23:03, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

To Node

Ok, Node, you are oficially a $%&($ now, read above what I wrote about ASM, it doesn't regulate "moldavian" language, but it regulates Romanian language, see the page for it's institute for linguistics, therefore the old "Moldavian language is regulated by ASM" is wrong, I already provided the sources, you reverted it back to invalid information. Just another tag

There does appear to be a significant majority of linguists for whom Moldovan is virtually identical to Romanian. Although Ethnologue does get things wrong, it simply doesn't have a Moldovan page, because it shares this view. Moldovan is a language, but that stuff about lexemes is pure linguistic bantering: it is a truism universally applied, and makes Moldovan no more distinctive. --Gareth Hughes 23:08, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
I concur with Gareth here. It is a truism universally applied, and applies to George W. Bush's speech as well as Mike Tyson's. That statement is just a cheap point-score. And a significant number of linguists do not recognize a Moldovan language. Alexander 007 23:25, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
And still I was referring to "Regulated by:", it is simply wrong, how can one say that "Moldovan" language is regulated by the ASM (Moldavian Academy of Sciences), if ASM doesn't recognize "Moldovan" as a language in the first place ? And its institute of linguistics deals only with Romanian language! Just a tag

I said that I won't come again here...:-)

Node_ue, why the hell are you using the Russian transliteration for Romanian Cyrilic alphabet ? The same letters have a different phonetic value in Romanian and Russian, so, that transliteration is pretty much worthless. ъ is the schwa in Romanian (and Bulgarian, but that's another thing), but not in Russian. Also, the only real Romanian transliterration to Latin is simply the Romanian alphabet. bogdan 23:26, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

That's because he's probably preparing to go to university in about two years, to get that degree in russian literature or something, so he must excercise his cyrillic alphabet... And he still thinks that cyrillic alphabet is the best to represent ROmanian (That really makes me want to hear his accent NOT =)) Just a tag
I agree that the romanisations should use the Romanian alphabet, doing otherwise is obscurantist. --Gareth Hughes 23:43, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Romanizators and Originalists

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

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

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


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

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

You may want to recognize these names:

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

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

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

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

Alphabet and spelling

"In the countryside, many people over 30 — especially peasants — prefer Cyrillic, but may write in the Latin alphabet, though with difficulty", having looked at the reference: " I asked a young woman from AEGEE-Chisinau and found out that people who are 30 years and older learned to write the Moldavian language in Cyrillic characters and since then have been writing that way."

So basically this is a single woman's opinion, great! I have been to different villages many times, I haven't seen people over 30 write in cyrillic, so how should I interpret the reference ?

"Romanian sunt is written as sînt in Moldovan. However, in Moldovan Cyrillic, it is variably written сунт(sunt) or сынт(sînt)." Again, what is the need for "Moldovan Cyrillic" here ?

"Many Moldovans who use "î/â" spellings write sânt, which is not an officially accepted spelling in either country." Okay, this is truly nonsense now, MANY ?! Like who ? Where is this information from ?

Just a tag

Mister, just because you say you're from Moldova (which I don't believe) doesn't mean you're the ultimate authority on the topic. 1) That isn't that woman's "opinion". It is a narrative of a personal experience. She didn't say "It's my opinion that...", she said "I asked... and found out that". Now, you're welcome to go and heckle her about why she is wrong even though that was her real experience, but don't bug us about it. Just because you went to "different villages many times", doesn't mean you've met every single Moldovan villager. And how many villagers have you seen writing *anything*? What, do you go to people's houses and say "Take notes of what I'm saying to you"? Or are people in Moldovan villages so obsessed with writing things that you can watch them do it at any hour of the day??? 2) Moldovan Cyrillic is relevant because it was the standard in RSSM for almost half a century, and still is the standard in PMR. 3) See for yourself -- do a websearch. --Node 07:22, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
So if I write a blog saying "I asked the villagers around and they all told me that nobody writes cyrillic anymore" then right away I could reference myself here ? That's BS man, you should use credible sources, not "Maria told me that ...", "Vasile was certain about ...", that's why statistics made of 2 people is nonsense, and in census there wasn't even info about moldovan cyrillic therefore it was considered to be pointless, hence there is no official data over this, I told you my opinion (which a lot of my friends share, and they do live here, and quite a lot come from rural areas).
You are not careful again, I said "I was asking around", that means I specifically asked if they write in cyrillic or not.
See for yourself -- do a websearch, I will say it again and again, the result of a search engine should not be used as a reference, there are a lot of examples of bad english, that doesn't mean that you have to put "A lot of people in US can't write normal english, they make a lot of syntax and grammar mistakes (see google)" on English lanugage page. As soon as the page gets unblocked this will be modified. Saying that _MANY_ people can't write properly is disrespectful. Just a tag

Spoken language in Chisinau and its suburbs

A lot of misinformation here, there are indeed some russian words that might be used during speech, but the examples given here are blatantly wrong!

Since I live in Moldova, and I DO hear russian words mixed with romanian on the streets, I will come up with some examples that reflect the real situation.

Just a tag

You've made a lot of confusion in your time. First, you say that you moved to Moldova 12 years ago. Then, you say you were born there. Which is it?? Are you from Moldova, or just in Moldova?? And your examples constitute original research. Any example must have a source... --Node 07:14, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
First of all I said I moved in 1991, http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-December/042932.html. Obviously you can't do the math, so I'll do it for you, 2005-1991 == 14 years, since it's going to be 2006 very soon it makes almost 15 years now. Second, I was born in Moldova, then my family moved to Ukraine, then in 1991 moved back to Moldova, what's wrong with that ?
Node, your examples don't constitute a research, they are based on joke sites that are in no way recognized. And if you put an equality sign between the "fuck" article and "Moldavian language" article, then I have nothing more to comment... Just a tag

Ok, I added some russian-romanian mixing examples that occur here in Chisinau (and yes, Node, it's just one-two words). The reference used before is a joke " Молдавско-русский словарик, 2004" -- http://elnoel.chat.ru/others/dictio.html, half of the examples there are related to word f#, dick, and so on and using a site like that as a reference on wikipedia's description of a language is a disgrace! (plus they took a lot of phrases from Planeta Moldova which is nothing more than a product for fun by taking to the extremes the mixing of russian and romanian, and the guys from Planeta Moldova live in Romania and know Romanian very well).

Just a tag

1) Just because examples in a reference use "curse words" doesn't make it invalid. Such words are part of real language. What about the references at the article "fuck"? Each of them uses a curse word, quite obviously. So tell me, what's wrong with that?? Especially because it reflects the real language, not some false concoction you're trying to sell as the truth. 2) I've found 0 sources for what you say about planeta moldova. Some sources said they use a "very clear Moldovan dialect", or that they sing "unique Moldovan words", but nobody said it's a joke, or fun by taking it to the extremes. --Node 07:14, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Great, you're putting an equality sign between article "fuck" and [[[Moldovan language]].
Because they are artists, if you never heard of their products dude then bummer, you don't know what I'm talking about, they are from Moldova (even studied in Mircea Eliade lyceum) but they live in Romania, again. As for using such sources, if you don't understand why they shouldn't be used then I guess you should stay far away from the writing business. User tag
Finally somoeone from Moldova takes action (you should have told us you were from Moldova before). I visited the Republic of Moldova several times and I stopped through and saw several villages. Can you confirm my observations that right now, nobody there (as far as I could see) still writes in Cyrillic. About the Russian-loan words in Chisinau, I noticed a lot of "druc", "clasna", "pidaras"(I know it's a curse but it's an example nevertheless) or "normal"( instead of "bine" when answering to "how are you?"), "noroc" ( for hi), "eu lucrez inginer"( instead of eu lucrez ca inginer which is probably an immitation of the russian Ia robota...), etc. etc. These are very small (minute) things and in no way similar to the examples on this page.Constantzeanu 01:39, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Constantzeanu, the reason it says in the article that people still use Cyrillic is because there is a (recent!) source for it. Anyhow, you're certainly correct about "noroc". Popular greeting phrases in SMS are "norok", "privet", "salut", "saliut", "priviet", and then "shi mai fashi?", sometimes followed by a "tat ii ghini?". Anyhow, you're claiming the examples on this page are invalid. They are, however, validated by 3 separate sources (Noel, Dyer, and Iepuri), and perhaps more. --Node 07:14, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, I think I mentioned before that I am from Moldova (Chisinau). Indeed, some russian curses are used, and words like "ugu, classno, pofig, tipa, vnature, izvrat, gruz" but these are a few (and certainly not used in the amount indicated here before!), as you move to villages these kind of words are barely used at all!. As for "noroc", indeed it's used quite often along with "salut", but still it's a valid romanian word! As for normal, again you are right, but it's used alongside with "bine". As for "eu lucrez inginer" that sounds rather odd, and I don't think is used too often. Just a tag
Yes, you did. But you also mentioned that you moved to Moldova some years ago. You can't have it both ways. Plus, your IP address places you in Italy. It's all very confusing. Care to explain? And of course, all along I've made it clear that such slang isn't used in villages. If you were really from Chisinau, you'd know that in the real Chisinau, you hear very little Moldovan or Romanian or whatever you want to call the language, mostly just Russian. You need to go to teh suburbs to hear Moldovan, and from what I know, in the suburbs is where you find this real mix. But of course in the villages, on farms, etc., nobody uses this type of speech. --Node 07:14, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I moved to Moldova (from Ukraine), and some years ago is almost 15 years ago, and you are 16. And I was also born in Moldova, all my relatives are from Moldova. So ? My ip address is from italy ? Here you go, kid: http://www.ipandcidr.com/country/MD.html, note the line: 212.0.192.0-212.0.223.255; 212.0.192.0/19. So what do you say ? I'm not from Chisinau ? How convinient again of you, it seems you are having a harsh time accepting the reality. Just a tag

As for If you were really from Chisinau, you'd know that in the real Chisinau, you hear very little Moldovan or Romanian -- BS! the real Chisinau?, I didn't know that what I'm looking at outside of my window isn't the real Chisinau, dude, maybe THE MATRIX HAS YOU ? =)). The majority of people talk in Romanian. It's true that there are some russian people, but usually they get a reply in Romanian when they ask something in russian! Stop confusing people here. MOST PEOPLE TALK IN ROMANIAN. Just a tag

Here you lie again kid. That IP comes from Chisinau -->MOLDOVA! Is that clear? -- Bonaparte talk 08:53, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
1) I asked you to stop using that name in a derogatory manner. Please, stop. I find it offensive. 2) Despite the fact that I think nearly 100% of what you say is wrong, I don't call you a liar. It's anti-Wikilove. How can you expect to have a cooperative environment when you're constantly being mean to everybody? 3) What software do you use for traceroute? I use VisualRoute, and it says it comes from Italy, not Chisinau. --Node 09:21, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
I've told you once and I will repeat: don't pretend you don't understand you blatant vandal that makes only revert war, vandalism and POV pushing. Your credibility is 0 after you said "Bucharestian language" and "moldoromanian language". You're just a lier as was proved above, you introduce only hatred here. You're examples are absurd. -- Bonaparte talk 09:53, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
"Noroc" in place of "salut" is even often used by Romanians in the states, as I can affirm. Node may get excited when he contemplates these non-uniform slang variations present in some quarters of the unofficial language, but they really are minor. Alexander 007 02:17, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Alexander, I already knew about it. --Node 07:14, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Editors like Christopher Sundita, if they want to be non-partisan, should be a little more skeptical of Node's claims (an example of a claim from Node in his own words: "Vernacular Moldovan is very different from vernacular Romanian"). He really is doing his best to overemphasize and exaggerate any differences he can find, or thinks he finds (and Node will claim I'm doing my best to underestimate any differences, etc.). I understand that in the Filipino language there is quite an amount of difference between the regional varieties/dialects, but Daco-Romanian (=Romanian + "Moldovan") is well-known for being very uniform. A few variations in the unofficial slanguage of Chisinau and other "Russified" areas? Wow, I guess there are. Stati is a quack if he thinks he can convince linguists or people in general that Moldovan is a separate language on alleged linguistic grounds, because in these cases whether a speech is to be called a separate language or part of Romanian depends on geopolitical issues (=e.g., it depends on the Moldovan government; presently, the majority voice of the Moldovan people is ignored by the Moldovan government, and the majority judgment of linguists is also ignored by the Moldovan government). Alexander 007 02:28, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure which of his claims you're referring to, but for a while people have been saying that Moldovan is Romanian. Now, I have a question. When they say this, do they mean Daco-Romanian or Romanian in Romania? I just read a description of "Balkan Romance" in a book called "Romance languages" published by Oxford. Prior to this, I did not know what to call this dialect continuum that includes Romanian and Moldovan. But now, I know. With this in mind, is it out of line to think that this article, Moldovan article, is about Daco-Romanian as it is spoken in Moldova and that Romanian language is Daco--Romanian as it is spoken in Romania?
I am not suggesting two separate languages in linguistic terms, but one language separated by a political boundary. Now apparently, the separation of the political boundary causes speech varieties to be limited in a particular geographical area. Is this correct? The forms that Node cites are limited to Moldova, right? Furthermore, with related "separate" languages, there is always a degree of overlap. Take Spanish and Portuguese, for example. Now, think of a Venn diagram. I see the degree of overlap to be large with Romanian and Moldovan - larger than the areas that do not. Is this a reasonable view? --Chris S. 21:36, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Alexander, the number of Moldovans who claim their native language is "Romanian" is just barely larger than those who say "Moldovan". It's not 2/3rds like Bonaparte keeps saying. Yes, 1/3rd of Moldovans claimed "Moldovan", but that doesn't mean the other 2/3rds claimed "Romanian". Actually 1/3rd claimed some other language altogether (mostly Ukrainian, Russian, and Gagauz). So in totum, the numbers claiming Romanian are very similar to those claiming Moldovan. And apparently a good portion of people who are ethnically Moldovan and/or Romanian claim Russian is their native language, something that hasn't been mentioned here at all. And as I said earlier, linguists don't decide what is a "separate language" because there are no scientific criteria . --Node 07:14, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Actually 1/3rd claimed some other language altogether, 1/3 of what ? and where is this from ? There is no official data over this yet, so what you say here is called speculation based on invalid data. See http://www.statistica.md/recensamint.php?lang=ro

and also read http://www.bbc.co.uk/romanian/news/story/2005/05/050517_moldova_census.shtml especially take a good look at the last two paragraphs. Just a tag

To correct a sentence of mine from above. Updated: whether this speech is to be called Moldovan or Romanian depends on geopolitical issues. If the Moldovan government next year decides to call it Romanian, all Stati can do is wring his hands. All those Russian loans in the unofficial speech of Chisinau cited as evidence by Stati of some "separate language" will be rendered moot---though they are practically moot as it stands now. Alexander 007 07:49, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
And yes, Constantzeanu, as I previously noted, I haven't seen anyone writing romanian in cyrillic, I was even asking people around for that with the same result. Just a tag

Protected

Protected. again. Please do dispute resolution. Honestly, I'm tired of protecting this page...3rd go round now. And I just protected it...not making any judgements on which is "correct". --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 02:03, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

That's good, thanks. --Just a tag
Yeah. Finally there can be some peace here and hopefully also some discussion and agreement. Constantzeanu 03:27, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Article Plan

I hope protecting the page will make everyone actually talk towards a good compromise, although I have my doubts that some will. Anyway, here's my position:

  • I suggest organizing the article in a way that separates the two sets of arguments, while also having some common parts. I propose dividing it into the following sections:
  1. Introduction, defining the term and stating the dispute
  2. History of the term
  3. Pro-Moldovan arguments
  4. Pro-Romanian arguments
  5. References, See also, Links
Agreed, except someone like Node_ue shouldn't be allowed to write Pro-Moldovan arguments since he is not qualitifed, he hasn't been here, his parents know Moldova that was 20 years ago, he showed many times before that his opinions shouldn't be trusted. --Just a tag
  • The infobox—if we really want to keep it—cannot be written in a consistent logical NPOV form, except if we eliminate a lot of its fields. In fact, the only data we can write in the infobox are the language name, the official status, and the language codes. Everything else needs to be explained separately.
Yes, my point exactly, unless we can remove a lot of fields from it, it would be better to remove it altogether. --Just a tag
I agree to remove first.-- Bonaparte talk 18:32, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I maintain my position that this article is about the name of a language, and this is not POV. (Actually I think by now people have realized that I am neuter on this matter.) It is not POV because those who call the language Moldovan stated that it is identical to Romanian in its cultivated form and nearly identical in its vernacular form. --AdiJapan 04:25, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

True, it's all about the name.-- Just a tag
Again true. It's only about the name.-- Bonaparte talk 18:32, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
AdiJapan, you only have one single quote from Stati which says that. Stati is one out of over a million people who call their language "Moldovan". The number of speakers does not need to be explained separately -- even if 10000 people claimed on a census that their mother tongue is "Gambrolozgargiansadfpa", we could have an article on that language (which doesn't exist, by any measure of the imagination) which said that 10000 people speak it, because census data can be regarded as relatively reliable. Thus, the numbers from Moldovan, Ukrainian, and any other censuses can be used for "number of speakers".
It is for those one or two million people who declare they speak Moldovan that we have this article. I care about what they feel and say, and that's how I agree with having this article. --AdiJapan 08:43, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
And it seems POV to have this article about the name of a language -- by doing so, you're automatically making a judgement that it's not a separate language, which the reader should be deciding for themselves. --Node 07:14, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
It is not a separate language again. It's identical with romanian.-- Bonaparte talk 18:32, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
In the plan I proposed you have your pro-Moldovan section where you can convince the reader that Moldovan is indeed a separate language.
About Stati being the only pro-Moldovan linguist I know who stated that the two languages are one, I have news for you. I know one more, and his name appears to be Mark Williamson. Is it or is it not true that you claim that, beside English, you speak natively both Moldovan and Romanian? Your Romanian Wikipedia user page says that. Now, just like you, all Moldovan speakers are at the same time Romanian speakers, and whenever they speak Moldovan, they also automatically speak Romanian. My judgement is not POV. I have an understanding for those who want to call their language Moldovan for whatever reason, but you, by your own statements, confirm that Moldovan is just another name for Romanian. --AdiJapan 08:43, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Not explicitly, it doesn't. It says my native language is Moldoromanian. The language boxes have mo-n and ro-n together. But I would certainly disagree -- my Moldovan is better than my Romanian. But whenver I try to write anything in Romanian, it always comes out wrong in some way or another. Certainly, something are just outright wrong, but quite a few others would be accepted in Moldovan (the kind people use in SMS and chat -- ie, the colloquial thing, not the newspaper writing). I grew up with three parallel standards around me for Moldovan. First was my parents. They usually used a Moldovan that is basically Romanian with some different sounds and a few different words, which we called "maldaveniasca". But they used English more often than Moldovan, so I heard this less. Then there were my uncles, speaking always a really mixed slangy street Moldovan, which my parents called "maldavenieshti" or "maldavschii" or even "maldabanianieshti". My uncles never said much in English. The third standard was from my aunt. What she spoke was basically Romanian. She spoke in a really hypercorrect way, so that she sounded even more Romanian than Romanians did. Now, out of all of this, I never questioned anything -- it made perfect sense to me that we spoke Moldovan, which came in 3 different ways, and Romanians spoke Romanian. Nobody ever talked about it much. When I used English words with my aunt, she would scold me though and tell me I should speak Romanian. But when anybody else ever said anyhing they just called the language as Moldovan. As I got older, when I started to think more about all of this, a sort of confusion arose. How is it that my aunt is speaking Moldovan, when it's basically the same as romanian? Yes, shes a Moldovan woman. And how is it I could understand movies from Romania?? In the end, I came to the conclusion that "Moldovan" is a wide name for many different things. In some situations it just means "Moldovan people's language which sounds almost just like Romanian", in others it meant something very different, to refer to my unces or parents talk. Now, my preference personally is to call my aunt's speech Romanian (romyna) , my parents speech Moldoromanian (maldaveniasca), and my uncles speech Moldovan (maldavenieshti). But I know that when people use these words, in English or in Romanian, Moldoromanian, Moldovan, or whichever langage, they mean some very different things with them. --Node 09:16, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
You came to your conclusion based on the interaction with about 10 people (and your parents are from old times, which were different), I have my opinions based on interacting with thousandand of people here. That says it all. Just a tag

Well, your "almost just like Romanian"means only one thing: that they are identical...spoken by your own words...However, your personal experience means nothing: here in Wikipedia we are just writting facts. You admitted this also. And the facts are like all linguists are saying that they are identical. I don't care of you're aunt or your relative and so on. We'll stick to the subject only. So, enough with this delirium speeches.-- Bonaparte talk 09:26, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Despite that, though, I would like to add that so far you seem to be one of the least-biased Romanians to participate in this discussion. You have made more concessions than most, and compared to, say, Bonaparte, Constanteanu, Anittas, and their cadre, you're a breath of fresh air. --Node 07:31, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, thankx kid. I will never makes concessions to your "Bucharestian language"! You think that this is your playground or what? -- Bonaparte talk 08:57, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
I wasn't talking to you. --Node 09:18, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Is good that now is protected from blatant vandalism of Node (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moldovan_language&diff=30761682&oldid=30747005) and other.... -- Bonaparte talk 08:59, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Bonaparte, not to sound like you or anything, but: the majority disagrees with your edits. If that weren't teh case, Constanteanu would've added your **** about brainwashing back, or somebody else would've, but nobody did. In this case, you're the extremist. --Node 09:18, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, Node, I agree that Bonaparte's "brainwashing" part was a tad out of line, but that is still closer to reality that the things you are writing here. And if someone is an extremist here, you are. Just a tag

Actually is exactly the opposite. You're the one and I prove it http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moldovan_language&diff=30761682&oldid=30747005) and other....And the majority of people support my edits. The page look better than before. So, I am a winner.-- Bonaparte talk 09:28, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. --AdiJapan 08:43, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

If people like Stati claim that it is a language different more than just in name, then the article is also about such various claims. Alexander 007 04:42, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. --Node 07:14, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

absurd terms like Moldoromanian

  • Again there is a kid here that only introduces terms and concepts perfect for trolling! This kid thinks that here is his playground or what? He is just a blatant vandal who makes a revert war like here:http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moldovan_language&diff=30761682&oldid=30747005) and other...
  • The latest absurd term is his invention: Moldoromanian! He continues his controversial, bias edits in fact he is just a vandal after all. Why should we bother? I need references for your new language Moldoromanian and "Bucharestian" but you seem that you avoided so far.
  • Your credibility kid is 0. With this kind of appproach you're a looser (revert war, trolling, bias, absurd examples...).
  • You labelled other users as "koncenii" - the russian word "sperm" ((http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Moldovan_language/archive01#moldovan_a_dialect))

-- Bonaparte talk 09:38, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Bonaparte, how many times have you said things like this now? If anybody is such a bad person, people will come to realise it on their own. They don't need dozens of your posts to tell them. If I really am a bad person, people will see it. I'm pretty sure people are beginning to ignore you because of the sheer repetitiveness of your posts. If I'm such a bad person, why do you need to shout about it? Why tell people the world is round when they can tell just by trying to peek past the horizon? Why tell people Earth has a moon when they can see it right out in the sky at night? Your continuous postings about me serve no purpose other than to annoy people. If I'm really such a bad person, other people will see that.
Second of all, there is the issue of references for Bucharestian, and now Moldoromanian. I gave them to you 3 times, and you ignored the reference 3 times. I won't say it again -- you should be able to find it in these pages very easily if you're so much smarter than I am as you claim.
Ignoring all of your personal attacks, I feel it's noteworthy that in this post you made one statement that isn't just false, it's downright impossible -- you claimed that I "continue [my] controversial, bias [sic] edits". Now, how can that be the case? At the time you posted this, the article had been locked for hours already. I'm not a sysop, so I can't edit locked pages. It's been obvious for a while that these posts were nothing other than silly attempts at libel and heaps of humourously empty defamation, but here you've proved it once-and-for-all: you, who accuse me of being a liar, have made a statement which is technically impossible, on top of being false. --Node 11:28, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Oh, and PS: what is a "credibility kid"? It sounds like some sort of new method of citing sources. --Node 11:30, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Ahh, and, you're constantly demanding sources. Alright -- give a source for that "koncenii " means wehat you say. --Node 16:01, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Forget about his newly introduced terms, I think he actually enjoys when people answer his absurd statements. Better think about how to prevent him from future editing of this page. I bet after making a proper traceroute (according to him telco-in.moldtelecom.md is in Italy ;)) and looking at different ip databases assigned to moldova he still won't belive I'm from Chisinau, it's just something too hard to believe in for him, if someone disagrees regarding Moldova, then it has to be a Romanian hater, it just can't be any other way, incomprehensible!. Just a tag
Mister Tag, leave administration to the administrators. Plenty of People In Charge are aware of what's going on at this page, and are keeping an eye on it. If any of them feel I'm out of line, I'll be reprimanded. You and Bonaparte have both talked about blocking or banning me, as if it's your ability. Well, it's not. Just because you guys keep saying "oh he should be banned" won't make it happen. --Node 11:28, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
If you will continue to provide false, outdated, unverified information here, you will be banned. Without you around, everyone is having a proper discussion here, and it's not you as a person, it's the false information you provide, think about it. Just a tag
How can you say things like "you will be banned"?? It's not your decision. --Node 16:01, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
He should be blocked otherwise he will continue with his delirium speeches. -- Bonaparte talk 13:08, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes he is Anti-Romanian. Look at his user & talk page.-- Bonaparte talk 13:37, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Node

Anyway, people, it seems the source of all problems here is Node_ue. His sources are simply not credible, he never believes other people (i.e. saying that I'm not from Moldova). So why does everyone bother answering him ?! I say we ignore him, ban him (he is a well known troll, so that shouldn't be a problem) and go on with normal page editing without going to extremes. Just a tag

Dealing with such extremists is better to choose the second option. Since his contributions are so far only troll, revert war, absurd terms the option automatically should be blocking. Don't forget he as done something similar also to other languages as well. Check his history "zlatiborian language" where he condemned the serbian for oppressing! If he will not be blocked I say to revert all his changes and to ignore him. -- Bonaparte talk 13:33, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
He is Anti-Romanian. His actions proove this statement. And stop labelling others as "knoncenii" russian word for "sperm" ((http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Moldovan_language/archive01#moldovan_a_dialect))-- Bonaparte talk 13:41, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
"koncenii" was what, a month ago the last time I used that word towards anybody? And you demand sources from me... what are your sources proving that "koncenii" means sperm? because it doesn't. --Node 16:08, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, the hardest thing for him to realize is that his view of people from moldova is based on what he hears from his parents and uncles (personal research), and even though I note that Romanian is mostly used on the streets, Constantzeanu noted that when he was in Chisinau, other people noted that (see archive) as well, yet, he is determined that everyone is wrong and he is right. The main fault lies in the fact that he hasn't been here, he did not talk to people here, I cannot trust a guy who was never in Australia to tell me how most australians talk, that's why big news companies have international reporters in the first place, to be at the place, to know things, to see them with their own eyes.
No -- I had two different sources for this, Dyer and Nissler. Both are recent. Wikipedia isn't about you -- just because you say you live in Moldova doesn't give you authority over this page. It is about credibility, and citing your sources. I have cited sources, you have not.
Show me those references to Dyer and Nissler. And if you need cited sources, go here http://www.moldova.net/showthread.php?t=4406 for example. At least this source is much more valid than yours (yours is a russian website) this is a forum of people from moldova Just a tag
And when a foreigners opinion about a country comes with contradiction with a native citizen's in regards of language, social structure, then give it a good thought, who should be trusted more.
The one who can find sources to back up their views. And don't call me a foreigner -- you're a Ukrainian.
Let's see, I was born in Moldova, I've lived here for almost 15 years, I am a citizen of Republic of Moldova with an id, passport, etc.. According to you, i'm a Ukranian, do you see the fault in your logic ? Now, you were born in US, you are a citizen of US. That certainly qualifies you to be foreigner. If you don't agree with this, then your thought process is way under that of a sane and logical person, therefore nothing can be rationally discussed with you. Just a tag
But the worst thing is that he keeps making fun of the whole issue, his examples come from sources that cannot be used on WP and do not reflect the reality (but as he noted if it works for the "fuck" article it should work for "Moldavian language" as well). He tries to justify the use of wrong grammar and erroneous words through google, therefore creating the illusion that people from moldova are illiterate. This is offending to the country as a whole. Just a tag
Why can't the sources be used on WP? Yeah, you said the stuff about cursewords but is that anywhere in official Wikipedia policy? If it is, please find it and quote it here, if not, please cease and desist.
Because WP is about using verified sources and not joke sites (look at the policy).
And thousands of people from Moldova are illiterate -- didn't you have a look at those literacy rates? Not 100% (though very close to it). And just because their speech doesn't match prim-and-proper speech of Bucureshti, doesn't make them illiterate -- Singaporeans are certainly not illiterate, and yet they use Singlish. And don't tell me Singlish doesn't exist, or it's minor, because there are dozens of Singaporeans online ready to tell you otherwise lah. --Node 16:08, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Go and study some math

That's for n is ~ 120. Don't call that MANY. As for prim-and-proper, sant is not used, at least definitely not by MANY, and you source is google search engine. Just a tag


Node ue, you cannot compare one case with another. You cannot compare Singapore and Moldova.
And I agree with Just another Tag. You cannot establish all your info about a language based on less then 10 people within your reach. I would go even further and I would say that you cannot even start a Wikipedia in Cyrillic with Romanian words and then call it Moldovan, just because some of these members of your family used to write it in Cyrillic more then 40 years ago. The language has changed; Moldovan now is used for Latin writing. If anything this Wikipedia should be called Moldovan(1940-1988). I think a Moldovan national would be very displeased and offended when he would want to go on the Moldovan wikipedia and he would see that everything is in badly-spelled Cyrillic.
Someone posted the link to the http://moldova.net/showthread.php?t=4380 and here are some opinions:
"idiotism"
"cine-s nenormalii aia?"
"cine a facut-o...a facut-o din "dragii nostri" maldaveni ori rusi care ne iubesc tare"
"asta chiar ii bataie de joc"
"N-am auzit încă de această Wikipedia. Nici nu cred că vreau să mai aud de ea."
bogdan 17:18, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
BTW, Node_ue, Mo.wiki is starting to gather some rather "uncyclopedic" contents:
mo:Кынтэрець, mo:Политикэ, mo:Аероспациу.bogdan 17:18, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
And the answer was: "Nu exista aceasta limba."There exist not such a language. -- Bonaparte talk 17:38, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Node ue should change the name of his Wikipedia or he should change all his writing from Cyrillic into Latin ( in which case there would be no more reason for a Moldovan wikipedia since there is already a Latin Romanian one).
Lastly I would like to point out something. It is very interesting that when Node ue is not around, everyone here gets along just fine. We discuss ideas like civilized people on the talk page. We offer arguments and counter-arguments in a very polite and mature fashion. Then we discuss some more and then we make the appropriate changes. Nothing gets out of hand. When Node ue appears, however, the whole mood here changes, everyone becomes agitated and instead of contributing in a responsible fashion, we start fighting. Now, I think that speaks volumes about the character of Node ue, not the character of everyone else here.Constantzeanu 16:29, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, Constantzeanu! That's exactly what I was referring to, the source of the problems here is Node_ue, he is acting like a child, not accepting anything except of his own. And imagine how much of the useful time is lost on discussing the personality of Node, and it has been going on for quite a while, just have a look at the archive!!? Just a tag

This "mo.wikipedia" in cyrillic is a sham. It is at once an embarassment to speakers of Romanian in Moldova, as well as a perpetuation of misconceptions held by many living outside of Europe. Many Americans and Western Europeans haven't the foggiest idea as to what is spoken in Moldova, but I'm sure their first guess would be Russian.

We go through this every time my wife and I meet someone new or are introduced to new friends. The question invariably arises after "where are you from?" "where is that? and "so you speak Russian?" She of course replies, "actually I speak Romanian" the response goes "oh, I thought that was only in Romania!"

From a personal perspective, my Moldovan wife's grandmothers and grandfathers (who spent their entire lives in villages in central western Moldova) never used Cyrillic, even during Soviet times, to write Romanian. They only used basic Russian when they would have to take a "marshrutka"/rutieră into Chişinău. Furthermore, in my university's most basic European Geography class, as well as the Soviet Geography class, the use of Cyrillic for Romanian is taught as an example of racism and linguistic cleansing implemented by the FSU to control nascent political and nationalist movements, which were of course perceived as a threat to Moscow's control.

It might be useful to observe the discussion of Russian-language influence/presence in the Baltic states on wikipedia, as they had their own difficulties initially in asserting their languages' in the post-Soviet era. vkxmai 05:08, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Please verify

Please verify the contributions of user:Sarcelles related to Moldova. I caught him when he created the following joke initial stub of Hînceşti: "Hînceşti is a town without a university in the part of Moldova not included within Transnistria. It is not among the largest towns of Moldova. It has about 15000 inhabitants. Since 2003 it is the seat of Raionul Hînceşti." mikka (t) 17:33, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

The town indeed doesn't have a university (all the big universities are just in Chisinau anyway), and indeed it's not a part of Transnistria. And how does that make it a joke since the information is correct? According to the 2004 census it has a population of 15260 (see http://www.statistica.md/recensamint.php?lang=ro) Just a tag

BTW what is a better place for Moldova-related announcements? See also Category:Wikipedia new articles. mikka (t) 17:38, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

What is wrong with: "Hînceşti is a town without a university in the part of Moldova not included within Transnistria. It is not among the largest towns of Moldova. It has about 15000 inhabitants. Since 2003 it is the seat of Raionul Hînceşti." Constantzeanu 18:04, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I find it strange that a town is described mostly in terms of "not". Will you allow me to add in to Bucharest that it is "not among the smallest towns and not included in Transnistria"? Of course, factually the article is correct but sounds really weird. Well, it is up to you guys. I warned you because this user created another weird article, currently voted for deletion: Northeastern Russia. mikka (t) 20:37, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
It's a matter of perspective, most do not know where hancesti is situated, but know there is something about this transnistria in moldova, so mentioning transnistria does not harm, your example with Bucuresti does not stand since there are no breakaway regions in Romania. Just a tag
Oh yeah. That's your problem with Russia... We're here to talk about something else in case you didn't noticed yet.-- Bonaparte talk 20:42, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
I am asking to verify the moldovan articles (in case you didn't notice yet) because the author seems to have a strange sense of humor IMO. If you don't see the article as weird, fine with me. I thought the tone of the original Hînceşti article to be a bit derisive for an encyclopedia. You are welcome to revert my editis there, if you don't like me. I don't really care.mikka (t) 21:15, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
I concur with the remark about humor like this not belonging in an encyclopedia article. I'm sure that Hînceşti also is not one home of seven of the worlds most famous rock bands, nor is it a sacred site in two of the world's major religions, but that does not belong in the article, either. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:07, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Russification

Instead of category Articles lacking sources (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Articles_lacking_sources) is better the following category Russification and Anti-Romanian policies. This article has many sources so, in this case it's not about an article that has few sources. In fact this is about the process of russification of a language. I wait your opinion.-- Bonaparte talk 18:14, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Vote for limiting user's Node_ue ability to edit the article about Moldovan language

Since a concensus must be reached. Let's list the contributors: Alex007, AdiJapan, bogdan, Bonaparte, Constantzeanu, Chris S., Gareth, Ronline, Anittas, Dpotop, Dacodava, Oleg Alexandrov, Jmambel, Domnu Goie, me (who did I miss?). That's a total of 15 people, who agrees to limit Node_ue's ability to edit the article ? (I guess most have read already the whole of the talk page and had a look at the archive, those who did not, please please do so).

Counter: 4

I vote for limiting Node_ue's ability to edit the article Moldovan language. Just a tag 21:12, 10 December 2005 (EET).

Very Strongly Support I vote too.-- Bonaparte talk 19:14, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
I am not sure if we can just vote somebody off only because we do not agree with him or her. Maybe we should approach someone of authority, rather then vote it ourselves. I am not sure what Wikipedia rules say about this sort of cases. If, however, Wikipedia allows for others to vote off someone who is disruptive, then I too would be in favor of blocking members who have committed vandalism or have acted in a non-constructive manner (and yes, by that I do mean Node ue). Constantzeanu 20:10, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
I would vote for such a restriction, but the question is, do we have the authority to enforce such a decission? --Anittas 20:11, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
No, you definitely don't. Only the arbcom (or Jimbo) has the ability to do that and it is unlikely they would intervene in a relatively minor content issue such as this. Morwen - Talk 20:14, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
The issue is not minor, the page simply cannot go on, it's a continuous reverts/edits war, it's the 3rd of 4th time already the page has been locked, a consensus cannot be reached while there is someone (and just one person - Node_ue!) who is not thinking rationally about the whole issue. Anyway, it is our right to express our opinion here, then this opinion will be presented to higher forces Just a tag
It's minor in the framework of Wikipedia. Much bigger problems happen on Wikipedia every day. --Node 00:45, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
That's what I thought. My question was hypothetical. --Anittas 20:18, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
We could ignore him completely and revert all his edits. Or a more stronger measure to ask an admin to block him for good, since he's just making trolling labelling others as "sperm". -- Bonaparte talk 20:21, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
False. mikka (t) 20:39, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
False what, mikka ? Just a tag
False, that I never called anyone sperm. Bonaparte continuously accuses me of this. But Just a tag, since you claim to be such a wizard on Moldova, and you lived in Ukraine for a while, perhaps he'd do better to hear from you. I told him, Mikkalai told him "koncenii doesn't mean sperm". Because it doesn't. I always heard it in the context of "somebody who is lost" or maybe "fool", but not "sperm". Please tell Bonaparte what the word really means. He'll believe it coming from you. But according to him, Mikkalai and I are "evil Russians" or "evil Russian antisemitic gay irredentist vandals", so he doesn't believe either of us, even though Mikkalai used a dictionary to check. --Node 00:45, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
It is a slang, basically in russian it means "washed-up", but it is also considered to be quite vulgar (at least here), becase "кончать" would mean in a vulgar sense (you won't find that in a dictionary) to ejaculate, guess what "конченый" (in the same vulgar sense) might be, based on that. Just a tag
So Node and the other pro-soviet guy if I ever catch you guys here with such a language I will block you for good.-- Bonaparte talk 11:31, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, right, you'll block me as well as Mikkalai. Wait... you're not a sysop! And Mikka is! Mikka has blocked you before. You have blocked nobody. And you can't block anybody. You have threatened others with this, too. Well, I have news for you: the privelage isn't yours. --Node 11:13, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Superman will!
well... this page has generated in the last 30 days about 1.5 megabytes of text. :-) bogdan 21:28, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Strongly oppose. This is ridiculous. I see a handful of people like Bonaparte and Constantzeanu making liberal use of the word vandalism against Node. I have taken a look at Wikipedia:Vandalism and I don't see how his contributions can be construed as such. Certainly, since y'all disagree with his contributions, it feels like vandalism, but this is not necessarily so. While it's probably true that Node has contributed what many of you think is radical, he has the taken the initiative by actually looking for sources and contacting experts in the field. A few of Node's detractors, it seems, have done nothing but round up some of their buddies and revert the page anonymously. How can any consensus be reached if this is going on? Stubborness on both sides? Perhaps one could argue that I was stubborn on a number of occasions, but I am now attempting to use a different approach this time, because I know nothing will ever be done if things continue to be this way. Many of you have valid views, and I've incorporated that into my own. And Node has many valid views as well (please, Bonaparte, spare us the strawman arguments ad nauseam about Node's Bucharestian language). In any case, this is proposal is not done on good faith and certainly does not belong here on Moldovan's talk page. If you really want to take action against Node, do it somewhere else. --Chris S. 21:06, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Wholesale reversions around one point

Reversing a whole series of edits based on a disagreement with one point in it, rather than editing the one point.

Sneaky vandalism

Vandalism which is harder to spot. Adding misinformation, changing dates or making other sensible-appearing substitutions and typos (e.g. [2] which was reverted because the source material is easily available).

I will explain an example to you, Chris, one of Node's precious references that he used to give the examples from: http://elnoel.chat.ru/others/dictio.html. Read the first line, it basically says that the dictionary was taken from the web in a bad shape, so first of all his reference doesn't have any real references. A lot of those phrases are taken from "Planeta Moldova", let's look at their webpage http://www.planetamoldova.net/ : "Site cu continut explicit. Nerecomandat minorilor.Contine limbaj vulgar si licentios, scenete de violenta, consum de droguri, consum de alcool, sex. Site-ul este un proiect artistic, deci trebuie privit ca atare." (read especially the part with bold) Also note "Copyright (C) 2003, 2004, 2005 Spectral Productions srl.Toate drepturile sunt rezervate." and "Utilizarea neautorizata a oricarui material de pe site (muzica, scenete, grafica, etc) cu scop de difuzare, prezentare publica sau comercializare fara acordul autorilor sau al producatorului este strict interzisa." so copyrighted information is put on wiki, not to mention that the whole deal is just about some artistical people (that live in Romania!) taking the mixing of the two languages to extremes, and they are making songs, videoclips, etc.. their material is copyrighted. Now, Node_ue posed this as "the way they speak in real Chisinau", I am from Chisinau, people do not talk like that here, Constantzeanu was in Chisinau and confirms what I say, look at the archive page, there were also people complaining about that. Not to mention the fact that only Node_ue finds it relevant to put cyrillic symbols everywhere which is offending to Moldova given its history. Second, he seems to have a strong opinion about the "real" people in chisinau, he even was saying I'm from Italy, the fact that there were people from Chisinau (not just me) who told him about the real situation in Chisinau (read the mo.wikipedia's talk page for the cyrillic version), he simply did not answer, it is not conventient for him that people from Chisinau who live here daily and interact with a lot of people disagree with his opinion formed on solely interacting with his parents and uncles and reading things from the web, should I even note that even now Moldova has a very small internet bandwith (just around 255mbps for the whole country) and there are very few users who even have access to normal internet. Anyway, this is getting very long and annoying, just read the talk page above, see Node_ue's replies (and very often when given concrete information he just shuts up, again pretending he did not see it). There is a limit though to the whole thing, if you, Chris, support someone like Node, without properly verifying his sources, I have nothing to discuss with you anymore. Just a tag
If Node is going to be restricted due to wholesale revert, then other people would have to be restricted as well. Concerning "sneaky vandalism" - you have to take intent into consideration. Based on Node's contributions to other articles, I have reason to believe that he is editing in good faith. If you consider what he says to be a mistake, then it's not vandalism (it's on the section below). Sneaky vandalism is the spreading of inaccurate information based on malicious intent. --Chris S. 21:53, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Ok, we are talking here about the interpretation of a document now, intent is not something that can be classified solely on one's behaviour on other pages, you are taking a leap of faith by trusting Node to have a good intent, ok, then based on the changes done by Node_ue to THIS page and on the mo.wikipedia as a whole, I believe he has a malicious intent. Just a tag
A leap of faith? Come on now, don't be silly. Just because he takes a stand on a certain belief that you do not agree with does not mean he is doing it out of malicious intent. He has conferred with me privately, trying to resolve this matter. He has ideas on the direction of this article, which I don't agree with 100%, but we're refining it. If anyone is guilty of malicious intent, it is those adults who have continually resorted to bullying a 16 year-old young man with ad hominems. This is my last comment on this section. Any replies addressed to me will be answered on the person's talk page. --Chris S. 23:30, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Very Strongly Support Just a tag has very well said.-- Bonaparte talk 21:41, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Bonaparte, you already voted. --Node 04:29, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm trying to give this page a rest for a few days, but then I see this stupid section. Bonaparte and 212.0.211.88, you must surely realise that you cannot impose such ban. The two of you are acting like silly schoolboys: just grow up! --Gareth Hughes 22:28, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
I suggest you do the same, Garzo. Just a tag
But those lies can be imposed by this kid? I will never accept those lies. That's it.-- Bonaparte talk 22:40, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Strongly oppose. You want to start an RfC, and move toward arbitration? Fine. But, otherwise, you don't have any right to tell someone he cannot edit. I think some of his views here are misguided, but I also think he's helped strengthen our thinking about the topic. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:02, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

On the basis of Anti-Romanian evidences he can be blocked for good for editing Wiki articles. Bonaparte talk 09:23, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
guys, as much as I would like to see Node banned for life from anything related to Moldova and Romania( including his silly wikipedia in Moldovan), I have to bring up the question of legality, regarding this thing. I think it's safe to say that Node ue (through his immature and childish conduct) has managed to annoy each and every one of us at one point. However, we(by that I mean the rest of us here) have no right to expell Node ue. What I think we should do is present our objections to a neutral body who can take proper action.
Let's remember who we are dealing here with? We are dealing with a kid. Kids look for attention. Please, I would like everyone to notice how he gets even more stubborn and vocal, whenever he gets more responses.
Notice also, how this talk-page has been transformed into a talk page about Node_ue rather then about the article and the issue of a Moldovan language.
I propose something else. I propose that we igonore Node's blatant remarks. I say we go ahead by improving the article. I say that we concentrate more on the article and less on Node.

First thing we need to do is make a list with issues that have still been left up in the air.

Personally, I think the article is quite acceptable as it is right now but then again that is just me. Constantzeanu 01:56, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
I think we need to get something straight here - Node has not committed vandalism so far in its intrinsic interpretation. What he has done so far is more ideological than that. In my opinion, he continues to put forward views that aren't completely true, as can be seen by counter-arguments from Moldovan editors like "Just a tag". This in itself doesn't justify blocking. Now, I don't know if Node is doing this because he actually believes all the Moldovenist stuff, in which case he should probably ask more Moldovan people, or because he is actually following an ideological agenda - i.e. that he is Moldovenist (or, as some have said, anti-Romanian). These are all points of view, and Wikipedia must cater to these different points of view, but, of course, it is unreasonable to expect that when 15 other people come to a conclusion, one person with widely-differing views can just come and cause edit-warring and all the other problems experienced here. It's true that as soon as Node has come to this page, it has flared up in edit-warring.
One interesting observation is also that, apart from Node, about 15 other people have worked on this page, from diverse backgrounds - from the UK, from the USA, from Romania, from Moldova, Ukrainians, etc. So, from that alone, I think the reason why Node is perceived as having caused trouble is simply because his view is so different in comparison to everyone else here. I think that's what we need to deal with, in a very constructive way - why his point of view is different, why he believes it, etc. We can't just state that his POV is wrong, we've got to talk about it, and try to find out about why we each have these different points of view. Node has one characteristic which annoys me a bit, and that's his over-reliance of sources. While verifiability is important, I think you need back up an argument with actual points, not just sources. That's because Wikipedia isn't a repository of sources or opinions, but an encyclopedia whose prose must be cohesive. But I think the only way in which this dispute will be solved - like any - is not through elements of force, such as insults and bans, but through dialogue.
For example, as soon as Node says something, instead of just mentioning the same things, we need to give valid points against what he says if what he says is misleading or untrue. One really important thing is the opinion of Moldovans. Node has implied that the rift has been between him, on one hand, and Romanians from Romania, on the other, and that many Moldovans didn't feel allegiance to Romania or that Romanians were trying to impose themselves on Moldovans. However, we need to listen more to the Moldovan opinion, which, from users like Just a tag, and the Moldova.net forum, seem to regard the Moldovan Wikipedia as nonsense, and agree mostly with the views represented by the Romanian editors. And since we're on the topic - if people have an objection to the Moldovan Wikipedia, they should mention it on the Wikipedia-l mailing list. That's the best place where things will actually be taken into account. Ronline ✉ 06:34, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
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