Talk:Moldovan language/Archive 12

This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

So

What's the status? I was going to unprotect but I want to hear where things are first. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 07:10, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

This is the sort of page that if you unprotect it now, it will become a site of revert wars again. Node_ue will come with his anti-Romanian porpaganda, Romanian nationalists will come with theirs and nothing will get done.Constantzeanu 19:46, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, please. Anti-Romanian? Moldovenism isn't anti-Romanianism. --63.225.223.77 00:23, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Uhm. Right. Well thanx for hiding your name. I can only guess that it is the one and only Node-ue. If I am wrong then Node please excuse me. In any case create an account MR. X. Constantzeanu 05:51, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, this is Node ue. Mark, please don't edit anonymoulsy, nothing good comes out of that. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 08:49, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, moldovenism is anti-Romanianis. It is also a xenofobic and rassist theory.

http://www.studiidesecuritate.ro/nr6/Grecu,%20Taranu%20-%20Epurare%20lingvistica%20in%20Transnistria,pdf.pdf

This is not a helpful comment. Please make an account and contribute productively. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:45, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Why isn't it a helpful comment? Because it has descospire the stalinist origins of moldovenism? Well, please consider the opinion of another very serious Moldovan analists:

"Under the present conditions in Transnistria, it would lead to the preservation of the Great-Russian chauvinism and to the perpetuation of anti-Romanian moldovenism, will cause interethnic tension within the whole state. In the same time, Ukraine will manipulate the anti-Romanian moldovenism conserved and legalized in Transnistria to divide and to oppose Romanian-speaking people of Ukraine into ”Moldavians” and “Romanians”;" (Oazu Nantoi) http://www.ipp.md/print.php?l=en&pl=com&id=38

Yet, another paper on human rights situation in the Republic of Moldova, stipulating that the moldovenism is a xenofobic and rassist theory. It is the same theory that encuraged the Soviet discrimination actions toward the Bessarabian Romanians. See: http://216.109.125.130/search/cache?p=moldovenism&prssweb=Search&ei=UTF-8&fl=0&u=www.unhcr.ch/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home/opendoc.pdf%3Ftbl%3DRSDCOI%26id%3D418f804a4&w=moldovenism&d=RP0P1w0DMHMq&icp=1&.intl=us

P.S. Sure, I will make an account and will write on this topic as an identificable person, but a little later, as I don't have enought time right now. So, I thought you should see these works prior to make any conlusion. Don't you think so?

P.P.S. The name of "Moldavian Language" is also related with "moldovenism". The oldest historical doccuments lead to the conclusiont that there is only one language, and that is Romanian. The conclusion is: all these discussions about this so-called "Moldovan Language" (a language that doesn't exist, according to most famous experts, see: Eugen Coseriu's opinion on this topic), are just another provopcation from the people who can not accept the reality. And the reality is Russia can not control our cultural developpement anymore. Bessarabian Romanians can not be transformed into Russians (or anti-romanian "Moldovans", or "Soviet people", as Stalin and other communists intended).

Sorry for interfering here. And Thank you for reading this. Until later. A.C.

A new beginning

This page has been protected, again. Too bad. On the other hand, Bonaparte, with his never-ending energy for disruption and multiple IP address, is gone. This page will feel more silent.

I suggest a new beginning. My plan is made of three points.

We start working on the text paragraph by paragraph, from the first down, one paragraph at a time.
Anything you disagree about at the current paragraph is dealt with right then, right there. Facts are to be provided if necessary, a vote is to be held, if necessary.
No reverts. No edits which were not talked beforehand. I am a busy person, and you are too. I am willing to commit a good chunk of my time, if slowly and steadily, we are willing to work together to build a consensus about this article, which willl hopefully reflect the views of everybody.

Comments? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:04, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Sure, I'm game. Let's make this work! --Chris S. 07:00, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good, but not sure if it is feasible. Sure, Bonaparte was extremely rowdy and his edit-technique here was... what it was..., but I've seen User:Node ue engage in hotheaded editing as well here. Alexander 007 07:03, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

That's number 3 in the list: no reverts. Also, doing things paragraph by paragraph gets everybody focussed at the same thing at the same time. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 07:06, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Number 3 doesn't cover all of Node's disreputable edits here. Alexander 007 09:08, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. However, there would be another point before point 1:

0. Decide exactly what elements this article should contain.

AdiJapan 12:52, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

That is hard to say right away. My suspicion is that if anything, we have too much stuff in, and certain things may need to be deleted. That can be seen as one goes along. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:10, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree it's hard, but I believe it's the first thing that must be decided. Everything else is just details, wording, arranging, etc. What to say and what not to say is essential.

The other option I can see is to first discuss the introduction. I suggest we make it short and give just the main ideas, without references or details. — AdiJapan ☎ 17:37, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

It is over those details that all the fights ensured.

I disagree with making the introduction short. The last paragraph does not belong here, but otherwise it looks good.

What I am most afraid of is that people will again start arguing about different things. I want to keep it focused. That's why I said, discussion paragraph after paragraph. No jumping around and setting big goals. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:09, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I am up for discussing paragraph by paragraph but I don't agree with you Oleg that Bonaparte was the main reason for the fights. I would say Node ue was equally if not even more disturbing.

Oleg, you are from Moldova right? And you say your native language is Romanian, right? So I take it you cannot be Russian but actually a Romanian/Moldovan from Moldova. So why don't you start by proposing a leading paragraph. Constantzeanu 08:28, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

A check of the edit history will show fights long before Bonaparte, "fights" which were edits against Node's often idiosyncratic edits. Alexander 007 08:44, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Let's stay in focus and not talk about who said what. Here we are supposed to talk exclusively about the contents of the article. AdiJapan 09:42, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it won't improve the article much if we detail Node's behavior. However, Node's idiosyncratic edits often formed the bulk of the contents of the article. Alexander 007 09:55, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Again, let us take things paragraph by pagragraph. Then it is easier to see where disagreements are. And again, my suggestion is also about allowing no reverts whatsoever. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:01, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Leading paragraph

Present wording:

The Moldovan language (limba moldovenească, sometimes translated into English as Moldavian) is the official name of the state language of the Republic of Moldova as specified by its constitution, as well as of the disputed territory of Transnistria.^[1].

I see several problems with it:

"Official name of the state language of [...]" sounds strange and is pleonastic. The idea of official is given in no less than 4 times: official, state, Republic of Moldova, constitution.

"sometimes translated into English as" means "sometimes called". Why such a phrasing?

From this paragraph the reader could get the idea that Transnistria is another country. Instead of "as well as" it should read something like "including Transnistria".

Moldovan is called this way not only in Moldova but also in the Ukraine. The Ukrainian census counts Romanian speakers and Moldovan speakers separately. That gives it a sort of official status in Ukraine also.

Maybe you'll say this is POV, but if this is a linguistic article then it should mention from the very beginning the belief of most linguists about Moldovan.

AdiJapan 09:42, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I like this pagragraph the way it is, at least for now. I suggest we move down to the next one. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:01, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I thought we were discussing the article, paragraph by paragraph. I don't like this paragraph the way it is, and I gave my reasons. AdiJapan 17:22, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I saw this page listed over at RfC. I noticed the redundancy in the first paragraph as soon as I saw the article. A "state language" is, by definition, the official language. I suppose this could be specified by a law rather than in the Constitution, but 1) I don't think it's that important how the language was made official and 2) in the absence of a specific reference, I would always assume it was in the Constitution. I hope that's helpful. It's not clear to me if the original cause for the RfC is still an active problem. | Klaw ¡digame! 19:32, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

OK then. Anybody cares to write a paragraph which would satisfy everybody?

I suggest removing the last paragraph in the introduction, any comments on that? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:47, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with that. Although I think what it's saying is true (that these languages are identical), its phrasing is POV and rather aggressive about it. | Klaw ¡digame! 19:34, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

The source of Jan Dlugosz

I would like this source to be added to the article:

The Annals of Jan Dlugosz; ISBN 1901019004; page 593; A.D. 1476

"The Bessarabian soldiers, who share a language and customs with the Walachians and know their secrets and domestic affairs, are able to inflict more damage on them than can the Turks"

Note: Dlugosz refers to Moldavians as Walachians and sometimes will mention The Voivode of Moldavia's Walachians; while the southern Wallachians of Wallachia are mentioned as Bessarabians, and their country as Bessarabia. Sometimes, however, Moldavians are called just Moldavians. Dlugosz was talking about the Battle of Baia. --Anittas 17:24, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Opening paragraph

As you could see I'm no specialist in phrasing sensitive stuff, so I'll just give it a try hoping that you'll find a better wording:

The Moldovan language (sometimes Moldavian; in Moldovan: limba moldovenească) is the official language of the Republic of Moldova, including the unrecognized state of Transnistria. Most experts agree that Moldovan is in fact the same language as Romanian, renamed for political reasons.

I think the first paragraph should show what Moldovan is all about. It is the official language of Moldova and linguistically the same as Romanian. After that we can come with details about why both statements are considered by some to be inexact. What do you think? — AdiJapan ☎ 17:27, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

How about "most linguists agree," assuming that's accurate? | Klaw ¡digame! 17:48, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Why not say which linguists. - FrancisTyers 17:55, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

All of them, with the exception of a few Soviet era politicians-cum-linguists. bogdan 18:14, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't like the new paragraph suggested above. It glosses too quickly over a complicated issue and is too biased towards the Romanian side of things. I believe the third paragraph in the existing introduction does a better job at giving a balansed view, and it says all the right things, that it is a contested political issue. My suggestion would be to cut off the second paragraph in the introduction, as well as the fourth and the sixth, and what remains would be a reasonably neutral summary of the issue. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 18:16, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

It glosses too quickly over a complicated issue and is too biased towards the Romanian side of things. I see your point, but I think your discussion of "sides" is misplaced in what seems to be a question of fact, not of opinion. Is this an issue with two equal sides (i.e., a debate over Moldovan's status as a separate language) or an issue with a well-accepted and fact-based resolution but with a small dissident movement (i.e., Moldovan and Romanian are the same language, but some people choose not to accept it)? Scholarly works (e.g., Ethnologue) don't distinguish between the languages, and neither do lay sources:

The CIA Factbook lists the language as "Moldovan (official, virtually the same as the Romanian language)"
Encyclopedia Britannica says that "Moldavian is a form of Daco-Romanian spoken in Moldova and is written in the Cyrillic alphabet," making it a dialect of Romanian; it also says in the article on Moldova that "the differences between the two languages are of little significance and are confined to phonetics"
Lonely Planet refers to Moldova as "this predominately Romanian-speaking country"

If my second scenario is the case - that these are essentially the same language, with differences on par with those between British English and American English - then the article should say so up front, while devoting a section to the controversy where it delineates the points offered by those who argue that Moldovan is its own language. Wikipedia articles can take a stand when the stand is verifiable, as long as the controversy is acknowledged and sources are provided all around. | Klaw ¡digame! 19:51, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

What really annoys me is the part "renamed for political reasons" in the suggested introduction. While it is true, I would like it treated more carefully. So, I am fine with the text saying "Official moldovan language is virtually the same as Romanian", but let's treat better the issue of "politics". Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:25, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree. It's not our (Wikipedia's) place to speculate on motives. We could have a section for "reasons for the dispute" and cite experts' opinions on the matter, but the "renamed for political reasons" line is POV, unsourced, and needlessly inflammatory. The best Wikipedia articles are thorough but are matter-of-fact in tone. | Klaw ¡digame! 21:37, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't see why any discussion of motives is by definition speculation. There are enough people, involved in the debate, on the record as to make such a statment anything but speculation. Dalf | Talk 01:26, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree! Oleg, how exactly do you want to make the superficial reader understand the specificity of the Romanian language in RM? How would you explain in several words the following facts:

1) The language did not appear on the actual territory of RM and it appeared centuries before the very name “Moldova” with its derivatives and the respective medieval voivodate; 2) The literary form of the language did not develop on the actual territory of RM, but in Romania (in XIX-th century) at a time when on the actual territory of RM Russian was the official language while Romanian was a rudimentary patois; 3) In the soviet Moldova, the literary Romanian was tacitly adopted as is and transcribed in Cyrillic alphabet (after the failure of Ceban-like projects); 4) On the territory of Romania, where the language appeared and developed into a literary language as it is used today in RM, nobody calls it “moldoveneasca”, including the writers from the Romanian province of Moldova. 5) In Romania - a country which inherits the spiritual goods of one of its constituents, the principality of Moldova – the word “moldovenesc” with its derivatives is uniformly used with a completely different meaning than the soviet counterpart. Moreover, Romanians from the province of Moldova find the soviet meaning deeply offensive, including the idea of “limba moldoveneasca”. The question is: what right do you have to impose a falsified understanding upon the word “moldovenesc” without specifying the political forgery? In what way do you have more rights to define this word more than Romanians from a region of medieval Moldova which was never colonized or denationalized? 6) In the actual RM, the very institution responsible for its standardization – the Academy of Sciences - calls it “Romanian” and explicitly states that in whatever articles they published during soviet times “limba moldoveneasca” refers to Romanian. 7) The language studied in the schools in RM is Romanian. 8) The whole fuss around the name of the language is purely political and it is merely based on the postcolonial ripples of the Russian occupation, on the vote of some kolkhoznics who voted the name in the Constitution, on the blatant idiocies of V. Stati and on the ignorant insistence of the Party of Moldovan Communists? So, how can you avoid introducing the idea of political influence in the lead paragraph inasmuch as this is the actual definition of “Moldovan language”???--MarioF 04:13, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Encyclopedia Britanica? Let's see... It says : "also spelled Rumanian , Romanian Româna Romance language spoken primarily in Romania and Moldova. Four principal dialects may be distinguished: Daco-Romanian, the basis of the standard language, spoken in Romania and Moldova in several regional variants; Aromanian, or Macedo-Romanian, spoken in scattered communities in Greece, Yugoslavia, Albania, and Bulgaria; Megleno-Romanian, a nearly extinct dialect". I don't see there any references to "Moldavian". Maybe they changed their mind? :) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.186.241.207 (talk • contribs) 21:11, 16 January 2006.

You didn't read far enough. The quote I posted above is at the end of that article's first paragraph. | Klaw ¡digame! 21:14, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I would like to ask everyone to stay calm and keep their comments short and focused. If we restart talking about everything at the same time we won't be able to achieve anything.

Now as I expected my version of the first paragraph was contested. I tried to combine the two main aspects of the Moldovan language: political (official in...) and linguistic (virtually identical with...). And if we say that it's the same language then we have to explain why it has two names. The phrase "political reasons" is what I found in lots of places, and it's not POV. Even Stati says the whole thing about naming the language one way or another has political reasons:

De ce ne impune cineva părerea lui, că nu există limba moldovenească ? Asta doar pentru ca să nu existe moldoveni şi dacă nu sunt moldoveni, nu există Moldova. Este o ţară românească şi ce să facem cu o altă ţară tot românească ? Să o anexăm. Este doar un singur motiv – politic, destul de bine cunoscut tuturor.

English (my translation): "Why would someone impose their opinion on us, that there is no Moldovan language? It could only be so that Moldovans wouldn't exist, and if there are no Moldovans then there's no Moldova. You have this Romanian country and what can you do with this other Romanian country? Annex it. There is one single reason - political, quite wellknown to everyone."

What Stati says is, obviously, that Romanians have political reasons to call Moldova's language "Romanian", but then the rejection of such a political position is sure enough also political. — AdiJapan ☎ 06:59, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

First, I don't really understand why Stati's opinions should be introduced in any discussion about any language. The guy is simply incompetent and unworthy of any consideration: how can someone be considered a linguist when writing a moldovan-romanian dictionary with equivalents such as michimaus=dracusor and roman=tigan???? Second, the whole point with the idea of “Moldovan language” is that its political character cannot be excluded from the lead paragraph. I defy anybody to show to me how “Moldovan language” developed as a literary language: who are its writers, who were the linguists responsible for its normative rules, when and where exactly was the language developed into a modern idiom? How can you talk about a language in an encyclopedic article without specifying the time and location of its first documents and books? When and where was the language first used officially in a state and as a vehicle of mass-media? If all these happened on the actual territory of Romania, under the name of Romanian, how can anyone eliminate the political aspect from the lead paragraph?--MarioF 18:33, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

We will never reach any agreement that way. All of us have strong opinions about things, but what we need to do is write a neutral summary of what the facts are. There must be a mention somewhere of the political business, but not in the very first paragraph. And the purpose of this article is not to criticise Stati (I don't like the guy either), but to explain that the Moldova's government and Moldova's constitution calls the language Moldovan, without a huge amount of speculation as to why.

That is to say, let us cool down and be constructive. The article the way it is now is part Romanian nationalist propaganda, and part anti-Romanain silliness. That does not help anybody. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:32, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

And the talk page is getting longer and longer, and then Node_ue will join it, and the real "fun" will begin. Oleg, you were eager to say: let's discuss all the paragraphs, piece by piece and yet instead of making suggestions went to "I like it the way it is, let's move on". Look at the russian article, notice how long it is ? And how it very well says everything there is to say about the moldovan language ? That's what should have been done all along, drop the bullshit from this article, write 4-5 statements and enough, it's really everything there is to say. Too much time has been lost on this endless discussion and my insights into the matter won't help I'm afraid. So, good luck to everyone, this article will certainly do one good thing for you: improve your typing skills. --Just a tag 00:04, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

If you read below what you quote above, later I agreed to discuss the openning paragraph also. But it seems that there is more concern with how imbecile Stati is. Yeah, I agree this is all a waste of time. On one hand we have Node ue, whose information might not be very reliable, on the other hand we have some people who appear to be from the Romania Mare Party. It will be hard to do anything constructive. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:22, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Oleg, you didn't address in any way the concern about whether or not the political aspect has any objective merits. Hopefully, your dart with “Romania Mare” didn’t concern my comments, since I’d be really disappointed… It is easy to show that, at least in what concern the literary language, "Romanian language renamed for political reasons by some groups in the Republic of Moldova and its territorial predecessors" is the actual definition of "Moldovan language". This is no POV, it is easily provable by following the development of the language step by step from its first documents to its condition today pointing out the respective references. In its current state, the article is very poor for an encyclopedic text. One of its most poignant problems stands in the fact that, while the article itself lacks the necessary ingredients for a really informative article about a language, it skips a clear redirection to the article about Romanian as an actual extra-source of information.--MarioF 14:56, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I will reiterate what I said. The moldovan language is a political construct. But I don't want the issue dismissed with just the words "for political purposes". There's got to be an entire paragraph explaining the thing. So, the first paragraph in the introduction may say that Moldovan is the state langauge of moldova, and it is identical to romanian. Second paragraph could summarize shortly how that "language" came about. That would be more fair I believe. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:16, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. How about this:

The Moldovan language (sometimes Moldavian; in Moldovan: limba moldovenească) is the official language of the Republic of Moldova, including the unrecognized state of Transnistria. Most linguists agree that Moldovan is in fact the same language as Romanian.

I replaced "experts" with "linguists" and cut off the reasons. — AdiJapan ☎ 17:38, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Since it would be rather redundant to add information about the history of the language unrelated to the collonial intervention (inasmuch as it is available in the article about Romanian), do you think that the link to Romanian should be stress as a source of extra-information? Personally, I reckon that the main concept of the article should be to inform the generic reader who presumable doesn't know anything about the subject and is not necessarily eager to dig for information if not readily available. The very "matter-of-fact tone" predicated by someone above, would be simply misleading about the representativeness of the expression "Moldovan language" for the actual idiom. While Oleg is somehow right in the sense that the details of the political character of this name should be developed in an extended paragraph, I think that eliminating the idea from the leading portion is wrong. It's very simple for a superficial visitor to assume that the "little but brave moldovan culture fights against the cultural colonialism of Romanians" (read most of the comments of the foreigners who dropped by here). For these imprudent visitors, the fact that huge chunks of the Romanian literature and the literary language itself were imported from Romania, striped off of its original national character and embedded into the double-thinking project of the soviet “Moldovan language and literature” concept, must be clarified. The visitor must guess from the beginning that the term is politically suspicious and makes necessary a more detailed research.--MarioF 18:41, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The leading paragraph should give proper true objective information but without distorting things the other way.Constantzeanu 02:41, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree too. But in my opinion just stating that Moldovan is the same as Romanian, without immediately giving a reason, will lead any logical reader to realize how things are. Two countries, same language, different names for that language. There must be something political. And then the political issue will be clarified in a separate paragraph, with facts and details. — AdiJapan ☎ 05:50, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Listen, we spent 150 years as part of Russia and 20 years as part of Romania. Many Romanians forget these things too easily. I will not agree in any way to dismiss the differences between thinking of Romanians and Moldovans by just saying "political issue". As I said, let the first paragraph be clear that the language is the same. Let the second paragraph do a good job at explaining why, without a quick "political" dismissal. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:24, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Oleg, tovaraşe, pardon: but you guys also spend cca. 500 years as part of the principality of Moldavia, and Romania is a direct succesor of that principality so you did not just spend only 20 years with Romania. And also you spend about 300 years under the Mongols and about 100 years under Hungary(before Moldavia) and another 200-300 years under Kyevan Rus' and another 1000-2000 years under the Dacians before them. I think if you are going to count how many years you have been under this and that power, you either count them all or you count none of them. We are talking about a language here, not the history of Moldova and how many years it spend under this and that country. I think that the fact that you spend 150 years under Russia and only 20 under Romania and you still speak Romanian says something about the roots of the people living in Moldova.Constantzeanu 01:52, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Oleg, that's exactly what my proposed version does (copy from above):

The Moldovan language (sometimes Moldavian; in Moldovan: limba moldovenească) is the official language of the Republic of Moldova, including the unrecognized state of Transnistria. Most linguists agree that Moldovan is in fact the same language as Romanian.

No political reasons mentioned. What do you say? — AdiJapan ☎ 17:26, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Looks good to me, but you need to convince MarioF and I assume Constantzeanu about it. Again, political business can be discussed in paragraph two if people feel strongly about it. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:36, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Oleg, I don't really understand your point with the time spent "in Russia" (sic!)... The Romanians from Basarabia may have been under the influence of the Russian weltanschauung, and I'm the first to admit that there is a difference of mentality on the two sides of the Prut. However, this is irrelevant in the context of the linguistic problem: in its literary form, the language used in RM didn’t spend “150 years in Russia” simply because it was not developed on the actual territory of RM; the only period under Russian occupation when one can speak about an official character of this language between Prut and Nistru is after WW2.

Anyway, here is an example of introductory paragraph which would depict for the clueless visitor a more accurate picture of what "Moldovan language" is:

"Moldovan (moldovenească, sometimes translated into English as Moldavian) is the language name used in the Republic of Moldova as an alternative for Romanian, an Easter Romance language. In this country, the Moldovan vs. Romanian conundrum is a heavily politicized issue, due to the perceived symbolical value carried by name of the language in the ongoing nation-building efforts viewed as a process of confrontation with the soviet past and, on the other hand, with the ethnical and cultural kinship with neighboring Romania. The official language name is regulated by two documents: the actual Constitution – voted by the parliament in 1994 – and by the law on language of the Moldavian SSR – promulgated in 1989. The Constitution declares Moldovan as the state language, while the law of language asserts the real existence of "linguistical Moldo-Romanian identity"".

In the rest of the article, it should be strongly emphasized that the only territory where the language is studied academically under the name “Moldovan” is the breakaway region of Transnistria. Any reader should realize that the language is available only under the name of Romanian everywhere in the worldwide departments of Romanistics or Slavic and Eastern European Studies. Also, there should be a strong emphasis on the very relevant fact that even the local school system, the PEN club or the Academy of Sciences of Moldova do not use the term Moldovan when referring to the language. So, if considered a separate language, "Moldovan" would be a language sans a literature, a normative body and a educational system. The backbone of the perpetuation of this name is solely its presence in the Constitution, the communist political activism and a substantial percentage of mostly uneducated population which, as Oleg bewilderingly noticed, spent 150 years "in Russia".--MarioF 19:03, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

How about a dab-style link at the top that says:

This article is about the history of the Romanian language in Moldova. For information on the language itself, see Romanian language.

Or something along those lines? I don't think this article should contain any information on the language itself, since that would make it redundant with the article on Romanian. But an article on the history of the language (official/unofficial, Latin/Cyrillic) would be useful. | Klaw ¡digame! 19:43, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of redundancy, see: mo:Лимба_молдовеняскэ, mo:Limba_moldovenească, ro:Limba moldovenească, different from each other. Andreas 20:23, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

MarioF, your suggested introduction is leaning more and more towards the Romanian nationalistic view on things, dismissing everything happening over the Prut as an aberration. I am bailing out of here. You did not yet encounter the real opposition to the Romanian view on things. Try to be around for a couple more of months. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:53, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Oleg, can you point out to what exactly is nationalistic in my comments. Should I understand that you believe that, at the time in XIX-th century when the literary language used today in RM was being developed in Romania, there was any significant contribution from Basarabia? Should I understand that the language named today “Moldovan” in the Constitution of RM is substantially different from the language spoken before the very name “Moldova” appeared in XIV-th century? (And, if it is substantially different, what is the nature of those differences and did they appear on the actual territory of RM?) C’mon, Oleg, the whole purpose of an encyclopedic article is to give to the generic visitor an idea about the reality, mostly if, by applying a very rigid scheme of sticking to formal details, the article may easily become deceitful (see for example, the rather misleading detail that the word “Moldovan” appear alone in the Constitution).--MarioF 14:56, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

The real opposition to the Romanian view comes almost 99% from Node ue, an anti-Romanian 16 year old( I would say more but it's not the place here). Constantzeanu 02:00, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that Node_ue is anti-Romanian. He is just a very young character but with a relatively well articulated formal discourse. So, he is probably encouraged by the easy access to the world of the grown-ups and the admiration of some other kids. Consequently, he behaves with the same perplexing and misplaced over-confidence at any point on his learning curve, even if his ideas may seem really childish and ignorant for the more informed ones. In several years, after learning that ignorance plus stubbornness may clout the good intentions, he’s going to become a respectable and less annoying opinent.--MarioF 20:13, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

And what kind of "in Russia sic". You did not read well what I wrote. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:56, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I read it and as far as I know, you guys also spend cca. 500 years as part of the principality of Moldavia, and Romania is a direct succesor of that principality so you did not just spend only 20 years with Romania. And also you spend about 300 years under the Mongols and about 100 years under Hungary(before Moldavia) and another 200-300 years under Kyevan Rus' and another 1000-2000 years under the Dacians before them. I think if you are going to count how many years you have been under this and that power, you either count them all or you count none of them. We are talking about a language here, not the history of Moldova and how many years it spend under this and that country. I also find it strange that you should mention that Moldova spend 150 years under Russia. What do you mean to say by this? That Moldovans are closer to Russians? Perhaps that is true in some sense and no I am not one of those Romanians that "forget that", however as I mentioned above you also spend 300 years under Mongol-Tatar domination. Does that mean that you are also closer to Tatars and Mongols then you are to Russians? I think that the fact that you spend 150 years under Russia and only 20 under Romania and you still speak Romanian(Moldovan, whatever you wanna call it) says something less about the language but rather more about the roots of the people living in Moldova. After so many years of persecution, they still managed to maintain their culture and values. I am surprised that they survived at all. Constantzeanu 02:00, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Constanteanu, I belive that Oleg's comments were well intended. He simply tries to avoid having a bias towards what he perceives as being Romanian POV. The whole situation is somewhat ridiculous, since the actual objective situation with "Moldovan" may seem somewhat as a biased POV in the eye of a inocent but clueless visitor...--MarioF 14:56, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Daco-Romanian

I have arrived to this discussion late as I haven't had the time lately. I once proposed mentioning Daco-Romanian and how it's given different names depending on the country, Romanian & Moldovan. What do you think of this? I mean I think it'd be wise to specify since Romanian seems to refer to multiple meanings:

Romanian as the group of 4 languages (Daco-Romanian, Istro-Romanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Arumanian)
Romanian as Daco-Romanian (the language of Romania and Moldova)
Romanian as the language of Romania.

Otherwise if you don't specify, then it can get be confusing to a reader. And when I first came to this discussion several months ago, I was not informed of the differences of the term until last month. --Chris S. 03:12, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

You know, you are pretty much right to point out that Romanian is sometimes used for all these three. Except Daco-Romanian, Instro-Romanian, Meglenitic and Aromanian are not 4 languages but 4 dialects. You tell a Romanian that they are languages, you are going to get a pretty angry reaction. Now about your point to call it daco-romanian, it would not be a bad idea, however I am not sure if it actually officially exists as a dialect. I know it is accepted as such by most people but maybe you could tell us if it really is recongnized as such by most linguists.Constantzeanu 05:38, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I don't think we as Wikipedian are in the business of pleasing people, provided that the stuff is true. Wouldn't you agree? In any case, you have to remember that the distinction between dialect and language and whether or not something "officially exists" as such is of little importance to linguists. They prefer to use variants, but doesn't mean they don't use language and dialect at all. One book refers available on print.google.com to the 4 "dialects" as "variants." In my copy of the 1988 The Romance Languages editted by Harris and Vincent, Graham Mallinson says there are four variants of "Balkan Romance". The Daco-Romanian variant is the national language of Romania.

The introduction of the book on page 22 says "There are two principal dialects: Moldavian, spoken in the northern part of the country and indeed right up to the Dniester river within the two Soviet republics of Moldavia and Ukraine, and Muntenian (Wallachian), spoken in the south of the country and underlying the literary language developed ... and based on the language of Bucharest." --Chris S. 21:35, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Chris, if you're talking about what linguists say then your points 2 and 3 must be combined. There's nothing else, except Stati. And don't forget tha t Romanian is spoken in other areas too, such as Ukraine, Hungary, etc.

Constantzeanu, whether Aromanian and the other 3 are dialects of Romanian or separate languages is disputed, and is not the object of this article, so let's ignore for now the angry reaction of a common Romanian. I assure you that a common Romanian, angry or not, couldn't have a fluent conversation with an Aromanian. — AdiJapan ☎ 05:55, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

If points 2 and 3 must be combined, then do you know what this means? This means not only getting rid of this Moldovan article, but also the Romanian one. All of the pertinent info would instead go into the Daco-Romanian article. But, is this wise? Again, I point out that there are separate articles for Malaysian and Indonesian as well as Hindi and Urdu. Though the later has Hindustani. The trend on Wikipedia is to name most articles based upon political naming conventions rather than grouping them on the basis of mutual intellgibility or just plain closness. Otherwise, we'd have only one monolithic article on Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish; German and Dutch; Tagalog and Filipino; Macedonian and Bulgarian; Serbian and Croatian; Portuguese and Galician, etc. --Chris S. 21:35, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Oleg, as much as I tried to do it your way, sorry, but it doesn't seem to work. As I said before, this article cannot be discussed paragraph by paragraph, simply because we did not agree on what should be included in the article. Actually, it is still not clear if this article is about a language. It is actually about the dispute around the name of a language. There are some pretty silly things in the article such as the language infobox. Several fields in this box are simply illogical, and cannot be made logical: Spoken in, Total speakers, Genetic classification, Regulated by. All you have as valid info is where it is official and the language codes.

I suggest we actually talk about what information this article should contain, and leave phrasing for later. We've been trying to paint a house that doesn't have walls yet. — AdiJapan ☎ 05:55, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

A short history for the inocent visitors

Here is a brief history of the subject at hand for the uninformed visitor which should help him understand why the name "Moldovan" cannot be used as a language name without misleading the uninformed reader. So, consider a language which appeared sometime at the beginning of the millennium with a surprisingly degree of uniformity (fact which was used by some to place its birth place in a much more confined territory, possibly south of Danube). Centuries after, in XIV-th century, the population speaking the respective language – called Vlachs of Wallachs by foreigners – suddenly jump into history as inhabitants of two princedoms initially formed as anti-tartar buffer marks by the kingdom of Hungary: Moldova (or Moldo-Vlahia or Moldua) and Walachia (or Muntenia or Tara Romaneasca). So, attention, the proto-Romanian language long preceeds even the word "moldova" and it is highly improbable that at that time it was even used on the actual territory of RM.. (For instance, the Slavic elements in Romanian are almost exclusively south-danubian.) Further on, the first known documents written in Romanian date from the beginning of XVI-th century and were written in the north of Walachia and southern Transylvania. However, in the second part of XVI-th century, there is an explosion of mostly religious translations (most likely due to the Lutheran propaganda in Transylvania) and the bases of the literary Romanian language are set by the work of a guy named Coresi whose language is a combination of the north walachian (same as south transylvanian) and moldavian speech (since some of his books are revised versions of religious books previously translated from Slavonic in northern Transilvania and Moldova sharing the same type of Romanian subdialect). The sole name of the language is everywhere “româna” or “ru/ro/mâneste”. In the respective extended period, the only cases when the language is called “moldoveneste” (see e.g. Neculce) is in the sense of “language of a those living on a territory called Moldova”, while the actual name of the language is “româneste” (see Miron Costin who clearly states in XVII-th century about the colloquial speech in Moldova: “One do not ask “Do you know moldavian?” (Stii moldoveneste?) but “Do you know Romanian?” (“Stii romaneste?” from Latin “Scis romanicae?””). Later on, at the beginning of XIX-th century, Russian empire seizes the eastern part of Moldova along the Prut river. Attention, there was no large town on the respective territory and the sparse population was rural. The remaining part of Moldova is already involved in the Romanian nation-building, including the development of a literary language by massive borrowings mostly from French, Italian and Latin. In fact, the contribution to the vocabulary and grammar from writers from the Moldavian province is overwhelming. However, none of the respective writers, or literary critics or linguists calls the language Moldovan. Ever! Meanwhile, the Russian seized territory - renamed Basarabia - is subject of colonization and the aboriginal language becomes more and more a patois under the pressure of Russian. By the beginning of the XX-th century, the language called Romanian is a fully developed modern idiom, with a rich literature and technological lingo, well established regulatory institutions and documentation. In 1918, Basarabia becomes part of Romania and the state opens hundreds of schools in Romanian in order to revert the effects of the russification. That is pretty much the first time when the Russian and soviet authorities realized that they must invest more propaganda and social engineering into diverging the course of the Basarabian population from its Romanian course. One initial solution was to create an artificial language based on a very contaminated dialect from a Transnistria – a territory which had never been even part of the medieval principality of Moldova. The project fails, and the new solution was to simply confiscate the literary Romanian language (together with some censored classics from the Romanian province of Moldova), write it in Cyrillic alphabet, dub it “Moldovan”, pretend that it has nothing to do with Romania where the language “was infested by French language” and voila!, once the territory is reconquered from Romania there is a new language and a Moldavian literature separated from the Romanian one… The trick is just to repeat as much as possible that these artifical constructs exists, in order to instill this idea in the minds of the uninformed visitors which may even pledge for the Moldovan right to not be what they actually are. For example, a well intended visitor may innocently believe that Romania puts some cultural pressure onto the Moldovans to Romanianize their own cultural achievements, while the truth is that, unfortunately, the Romanian cultural establishment doesn’t even care too much about what’s going on in RM. The biggest pressure for synchronization with the cultural life in Romanian comes from within RM, from the local intellectuals – writers and linguists – and institutions responsible for regulating the language. For instance, the most prestigious literary magazines from RM – such as Contrafort and Sud-Est – circulate even more in Romania, part of the Romanian common cultural space, than in their own country. In fact, most writers in Romanian language from RM consider Romania as the main market for their creations, inasmuch as RM suffers from a disturbingly influent Russian speaking environment.--MarioF 18:42, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

a fresh start for a fresh year

Although it's almost certainly a mistake, I've unprotected this article anyway, because it's been protected for almost a month and that's just unwiki. Try not to edit war quite so enthusiastically this time, guys; by editing this article now, you agree that your New Years' Resolution is to stop getting upset over Moldovan language. Happy editing! fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 10:23, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Disputed statements

I have a problem with the following statement:

The number of Moldovan speakers depends on one's view of the status of Moldovan. If Moldovan is taken to mean Romanian spoken in Romania and Moldova and by the Romanian/Moldovan diaspora, then there may be as many as 29 million speakers.

We can't argue that there are 29 million Moldovan speakers, when only around 1.3 million people claim they speak Moldovan, which is already mentioned in the infobox. A better thing to say would be that Romanian is spoken by xx million speakers. But I really don't see the point of the above statement. Also, the 2004 census data is out AFAIK, so why use the 1979 data? The 2004 census mentions 1.2 million speakers. Ronline ✉ 10:29, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

It does ? where ? www.statistica.md doesn't know about it. ---Just a tag 15:57, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

The part with 1.3 or 1.2 mil Moldovan speakers has to be erased. First of all, all we know from some newspapers is that 1/3 of the population said Moldovan and 2/3 Romanian. Those 1/3 is really a rough estimate. It could be 1 million, 900.000 people or even as much as 1.5 million. This is an encyclopedia. Let's not put words in other people's mouths. To say that there are 1.3 or 1.2 mil. Moldovan speakers goes against wikipedia rules about trying to post your own personal research. Let's stick to 1/3 of the population like the newspapers say. Official Moldovan data on it has not been made public yet so let's refrain from making such estimations based on Node ue's urge to push for a "Moldovan language". We can argue that if Moldovan is ment to mean Romanian, then there are 29 million such speakrs in the World. So that sentence is perfectly fine, in my opinion. Also the infobox should be gone. This article is about the name of a language, not about a language itself. I will refrain from erasing the infobox though because I do not want to start a revert war. Someone however should after we all agree on it. Constantzeanu 18:23, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Constantzeanu. Trying to say that N speakers speak Moldovan/Moldavian is silly, because they're speaking Romanian, yet to say that all Romanian speakers are speaking Moldovan is sillier. The infobox should go, and anything not directly related to the orthographical or phonetic differences in the Moldovan vernacular should go. Overview-History-Differences-Controversy-Sources would be a great outline for the new article. | Klaw ¡digame! 18:33, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Klaw's point about "to say that all Romanian speakers are speaking Moldovan is sillier". That's why I disagree with the saying that there are 29 million speakers of Moldovan if it's taken to be the same as Romanian. While all Moldovan speakers can be argued to be speakers of Romanian, you can't say that all Romanian speakers are speakers of Moldovan.

Ronline ✉ 22:13, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Suggested rewrite

Intro

Moldovan language is the official name for the Romanian language in the Republic of Moldova and in the territory of Transnistria. Most linguists consider standard Moldovan to be identical to standard Romanian, although one Moldovan linguist (Vasile Stati) has disputed this. There are, however, more differences between the colloquial spoken languages of Moldova and Romania, most significantly due to the influence of Russian in Moldova which was not present in Romania. The matter of whether or not Moldovan is a separate language is a contested political issue within and beyond the Republic of Moldova.

"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 varieties or dialects of colloquial Romanian.

Moldovan may be written in either the Latin or Cyrillic alphabets.

History

(as is)

Controversy

The 1989 law on language of the Moldavian SSR, which is still effective in Moldova according to the Constitution [3], asserts the real existence of "linguistical Moldo-Romanian identity". [4] Title I, Article 13 of the Moldovan Constitution, names it the "national language" (limba de stat) of the country. In the unrecognized state of Transnistria, it is co-official with Ukrainian and Russian.

Despite the official nomenclature, standard Moldovan is widely considered to be identical to standard Romanian. (sources) In 2002, the Moldovan Minister of Justice, Ion Morei, said that Romanian and Moldovan are the same language and that the Constitution of Moldova should be amended, not necessarily by changing the word Moldovan into Romanian, but by adding that "Romanian and Moldovan are the same language"[32]. Education Minister Valentin Beniuc said "I have stated more than once that the notion of a Moldovan language and a Romanian language reflects the same lingustic phenomenon in essence."[33].

According to newspaper reports about the most recent Moldovan cenus, about 2/3 of all respondents declared their language to be Romanian.[35].

Orthography

(as is)

Comparison

(only if folks feel this section is necessary ... I think it belabors the point)

Thoughts? | Klaw ¡digame! 15:37, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Comments on suggested rewrite

It's good. And I have to agree that the "comparison" section is not required. Btw, one more thing, can the history go to "History of the moldovan language" or something ? --Just a tag 15:41, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Just a tag. The rewrite is good, but the history section is too long, maybe we should keep in this article only a digest with the most important points and link a "Main article" at History of the Moldovan language. The comparison is also silly and there's no reason to keep it. bogdan 15:49, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I also agree with the suggested rewrite above. I think a comparison is good but the history should be moved to another article that deals only with that since it is too long and takes too much space here.Constantzeanu 16:50, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you all for the comments. I removed the infobox and the comparison section. I farmed the history section out per your suggestions, and I wrote one original paragraph as a summary stub for it. The only problem I see with my rewrite is that some of the endnotes probably have lost their refs earlier in the article. I hope this rewrite provides a useful new template for everyone to work with. | Klaw ¡digame! 21:49, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

You did well. Thank you! --Candide, or Optimism 21:57, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

For what reasons was the infobox removed? I was disappointed that it was taken out as there was no consensus on this. Surely there would have been a way to keep it. I've reinstated it pending further consensus. Come on folks, I don't want to see another edit war. --Chris S. 23:47, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Linguists do not recognize Moldovan as a language distinct from Romanian (see what Ethnologue says), so there's no point in having that box, which is supposed to be used for actual languages. bogdan 23:54, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Also, if one wants to see the linguistic affiliation, one can look at the Eastern Romance languages box with Daco-Romanian, etc. bogdan 23:56, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

As I have said above and previously in the archives, linguists do not recognize other languages as being "distinct" from another but yet they have their own infoboxes. I have given Malaysian/Indonesian, Serbian/Croatian, German/Dutch, Valencian/Catalan, Hindi/Urdu, and others as examples. --Chris S. 23:59, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I really disagree with your comment here Chris. I also disagree with your attempt to compare the Moldovan-Romanian case with other cases like Serbian-Croatian, German-Dutch, Hindi-Urdu or Malaysian-Indonesian. This case is unlike any other cases you have presented here so please try to refrain from doing that in the future. I suggest either some serious research on the subject (on your part) or some Romanian language lessons first before making such bold statements. Everyone else contributing right now to the article has done either one or the other. And please don't take this in an offensive way(because this is not my intent) but to say that Romanian-Moldvan is like German and Dutch is just wrong. I think even "scholars" like Stati will tell you that. Moreover, I think that Klaw was right to remove the infobox. Remember Chris, that this article is not about a language, but about the dispute about the name of a language.Constantzeanu 00:17, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm studying Romanian right now and I do see them as one language. But that is not the point. Furthermore I am afraid you are not seeing my point with the languages I am comparing them, see dialect continuum for more information. But back to my point. Why does Romania get to call whatever they have a language but yet Moldova cannot? In the end they both speak Daco-Romanian. --Chris S. 00:28, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Chris, you made me curious, can you explain briefly why you do not see "them" – Romanian and “Moldovan” - as one language? What do you mean by "dialect continuum"? Do you suggest that the language named “Moldovan” in the Constitution of RM, i.e., the language used in newspapers and books has its roots in the cumbersome language spoken colloquially nowdays on the streets of Chisinau or in the rudimentary language of the rural population? In your opinion, when did "Moldovan" language become a language developed enough to write a modern Constitution? Anyway, read my previous comments about the specific linguistic situation in this country. And who exactly is your "Moldova" which is not allowed to have a language, in your opinion? The overwhelming majority of the writers in RM are active part of the Romanian cultural area, the language studied in schools is curricularly called Romanian, the Moldovan Academy is repelling the name "Moldovan" as inaccurate... The only academic institution worldwide which studies Romanian under the name "Moldovan" is in the breakaway region of Transnistria. Then, who is "Moldova" demanding for a language? What is the regulatory body of this language? If there is a Moldovan language, can you give several names of writers using it in a coherent and independent way? --MarioF 01:22, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

First off, from a linguistic perspective I do not see Romanian and Moldovan as separate languages. They are both part of Daco-Romanian. Similarly, I do not see Indonesian and Malay as separate languages. Second, due to the fact that the Daco-Romanian in Moldova has been given a new name of Moldovan, then I do consider it a separate language by law just as Indonesian and Malay are separate languages by law. Calling them languages on this basis does not in no way imply that they are linguistically separate. Neither should the presence of an infobox. Now, one of my arguments is that on what specific mechanism can one remove the infobox for a language like Moldovan when it is perfectly acceptable to have infoboxes for languages in a similar position? Saying that it is basically Romanian is not sufficient reason because others have argued that some language is basically another but the infoboxes are preserved. --Chris S. 01:42, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

You didn't answer my questions? Please, could you ask yourself "What language was renamed "Moldovan""? Do you have the details about the political situation in RM when the Constitution you keep in bringing about voted the name "Moldovan"? Do you realize that, sticking with your “by law” over-conformism, you promote the ridiculous situation when several politicians (mostly of them former soviet nomenclatura and kolkhoz engineers) voted in 1994 a language name considered by the intellectuals in Moldova as a Stalinist symbol? In your opinion, since the language called “Moldovan” in the respective Constitution was developed in Romania under the name of Romanian at a time when Russian was official on the actual territory of RM, do Romanian have a say in the whole argument? In your opinion, since you seem to be so into the “by law” argument, what is more lawless:

stealing a language and several chunks of a literature and renaming them in order to control better a population about to be denationalized, or
disregarding a language name voted in the Constitution by some soviet postcolonial politicians against the will of the Moldovan intellectuals?--MarioF 02:11, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

There are three comments regarding the infobox on this page, all favoring its deletion. There are no comments in favor of retaining it. And since the consensus is that this article is not about a language at all but about differences in nomenclature (and to a lesser degree orthography), the infobox is out of place here. That's why the infobox was removed; I'm not sure why you're demanding greater consensus than what we already have, as several others have chimed in and/or edited since the rewrite without lamenting the infobox's absence. | Klaw ¡digame! 00:10, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

The linguists recognize all those languages. All of them have their own Ethnologue entry, even if they are only dialects. Moldovan does not has its own entry. Ethnologue simply says Moldovan is an alternate name for Romanian. bogdan 00:11, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Flemish has an Ethnologue entry but yet people are not making an infobox for that. In any case, I am seeing that no one is listening to my arguments and I find myself repeating and repeating. Let's do it this way. We'll hold a week-long poll based on the guidelines at Wikipedia:Straw_polls and Wikipedia:Current_surveys. Any action taken will be the result of a clear consensus (75%-80%) and not by a majority (50%). I'll respect any consensus arising from this poll. --Chris S. 00:22, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

And then someone has to come up with the text, then we'll have to make sure to explain the situation to everyone, then comments, comments, comments, replies, replies, replies, ...., what was I talking about ? Ah, right, polls, so, all of that for what ? Because you think it's a good idea to keep it, your argument being "others have it", why don't you make a poll for Flemish while you're at it ? --Just a tag 00:34, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

There's no need for a poll! The editors here: bogdan, constantzeanu, just a tag, klaw and anittas make already a consensus, even though you oppose. Usually, polls are not made when one or two editors disagree with the rest. bogdan 00:29, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

In the long run, it will be better. I have not heard from Node in a while, neither do I think he knows about this. Whatever the case is, when he returns there will probably be an edit war again. This will hopefully prevent one as far as the infobox is concerned. Furthermore, we need more outside input. --Chris S. 00:36, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

So basically what you are saying here that in the long run, each edit should be made via polls or otherwise will come node_ue and will start edit warring ? I mean am I the only one who finds that to be a bit ... odd ? --Just a tag 00:49, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

He is more likely to respect consensus. --Chris S. 00:50, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

More likely than who ? --Just a tag 00:55, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Not whom, but more likely than not. --Chris S. 01:09, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

In any case, I am seeing that no one is listening to my arguments and I find myself repeating and repeating. We've all heard your arguments and it appears that everyone here disagrees with you. Solid counterarguments have been raised; you appear to be the user who is not listening. And yes, I too think a poll here is silly. | Klaw ¡digame! 00:51, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I have not seen any "solid" counter-arguments. The arguments I've seen appear to be a misreading of my comments. --Chris S. 00:55, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Then it seems you are the one who has been misreading, why don't you start a similar poll on the Flemish (linguistics) article ? --Just a tag 00:59, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's fair to characterize disagreement with you as "misreading." That's more of the condescension I cited below. If anyone is misreading, it is you, offering the inaccurate analogy German:Dutch::Romanian:Moldovan. If people want the infobox here, it's fine with me, but I believe we had already reached a consensus on the new structure, and you have unilaterally overruled it, and are now mandating a 75% supermajority for anyone to overrule you. That reeks of page ownership to me. | Klaw ¡digame! 01:00, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I sincerely think I am being misunderstood, condescension or not. My point with German and Dutch is that they are part of a dialect continuum just as Romanian and Moldovan are. I have stated in just a tag's talk page that a better analogy would be Malaysian and Indonesian. They are virtually the same language just as different as British English and American English are. But yet, each of these are treated as separate languages due to political reasons. There are other languages that are in similar positions as Romanian and Moldovan. --Chris S. 01:12, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Chris, should I understand that Indonesians have been for more than a century under the occupation of some empire which first suppressed their language and then simply imported the Malaysian language renaming it Indonesian as an exercise of socio-cultural engineering? Really, you should be a wee bit more less pressumptions with your poor comparisons... In fact, if you don't want to sound ridiculous, any comparison should be preceded by a well balanced research. You may consider yourself like some kind of unbiased visitor saving the right of a small culture to define itself… Well, in this case, try to read more about the nature of this “Moldovan” language before intervening, since the only thing you empower with the symbols of respectability you’re trying to promote is a relict of the soviet propaganda perpetuated today in RM only by a communist party (mostly Russian speaking) and a part of the uneducated population which cares less about “limba decat ce-i pe limba”…--MarioF 01:47, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Infobox poll

I have put the infobox poll at Talk:Moldovan_language/poll. Read the rules carefully. --Chris S. 00:47, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

That poll is not valid. You have no authority to start such a poll and impose its decissions. I ask a neutral admin to close the poll. --Candide, or Optimism 00:49, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

That is fine. Though I wonder why you all are apprehensive towards the poll. This is one of the first steps of the dispute resolution process. We should have done this a while back. --Chris S. 00:52, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I've added a third option that more accurately reflects my view. And I dislike your condescending tone in this discussion, Chris S. | Klaw ¡digame! 00:55, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I apologize if I sound condescending, that's not my intent. In any case, I think consensus actually involves getting everyone's opinion rather than charging ahead without seeing if there is opposition. For one thing, I think you acted hastily rather than waiting for other editors who have a different view to chime in. --Chris S. 00:59, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Where in Wiki policy does it say that we need to reach 75-percent consensus? --Candide, or Optimism 01:02, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Not explicitly stated, but it gives examples of a range of 60%-80% for a supermajority at Wikipedia:Consensus. I am willing to take 75% as consensus, based on the poll. --Chris S. 01:07, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok, infobox: spoken in: it's a renamed language, what's the point of saying spoken in ?, total speakers: number unknown, no data from census, confusing; genetic classification: already there, see the box below at the bottom of the article, official language: already says so in the article; regulated by: again, ASM doesn't deal with Moldovan language; so it's again confusing, as it doesn't regulate the "Moldovan language", iso-codes: could be easily inserted in the text. So what exactly do you find utterly important there to keep the whole big green box ? --Just a tag 01:12, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Chris S., I can only assume that you haven't been following the discussion over the last week or so. The first "take out the infobox" comment was three days ago, and every comment on it since then has concurred. I think your move - re-inserting it without discussing it, then imposing an arbitrary 75% hurdle - was the hasty one, and I point to the flood of opposition to these moves as evidence. I have no problem with discussing the infobox; I have a big problem with your handling of the issue. | Klaw ¡digame! 01:16, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Looking above, I see AdiJapan calling the infobox silly, Ronline discussing what is inside the infobox, Constantzeanu stating his opposition to the infobox, and you expressing the same feelings. The infobox has been part of the article since the summertime. Before removing that's been part of the article for a long time, let's get a poll going, that's all I'm asking. --Chris S. 01:30, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

And you seem to not care about what others say, you did not make a single comment as to what exactly in the infobox you find worth keeping. You keep repeating your "I think moldovan is a dialect of romanian language, and not a "grai", and since there are no scientific criteria to distinguish a language from and a dialect, it's worth keeping the infobox for all the dialects that have been politcally called languages". --Just a tag 01:44, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Chris stop talking about dialect continuums. This is not the case for Moldovan and Romanian. Also, please stop comparing Romanian and Moldovan to other cases because to do that would be wrong: this case is a case apart from any other. Please don't take this badly but if you are indeed studing Romanian right now, it really does not show. There are no dialects in Daco-Romanian. Refrain please from saying that Moldovan and Romanian are part of the same Daco-Romanian language. Moldovan and Romanian are not dialects. Daco-Romanian and what most people understand as Romanian are the same thing. Also this choice with the poll which has to be aproved by the strange 75% of voters seems to me a bit strange. Why 75% and not 60% or 80%? Why did you choose this percentile yourself without even consulting anyone else? I don't recall you having any authority to make such a poll. All I see is a pretty big consensus right here. Constantzeanu 03:15, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

There are no dialects in Daco-Romanian. That is, I'm afraid, absurd. I don't mean to be rude, but have you studied linguistics, and I don't mean folk linguistics. You might consider doing some research and rewording that statement. - FrancisTyers 12:57, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Of course there are "dialects", it's just that the differences are really small. Look at this map: each region has its own mini-dialect. Of course, the differences between two regions are usually really small. I could found so far five differences between "Bucharest Romanian" and "Dâmboviţa County Romanian" :-)

a la/lăia (to wash, instead of a spăla), a căta (to search, instead of a căuta), hulă (road through a landfall on a hill), păuză (stake, instead of arac), hudiţă (narrow street, in addition to uliţă) bogdan 13:48, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I said before that the infobox is silly, and here is why. Except for the language codes and the official status in Moldova everything else is ambiguous, inexact, or plain wrong:

Spoken in: Nobody in Romania says they speak Moldovan. Also see below.
Total speakers: How do you separate the Romanian speakers from the Moldovan speakers? In the 2004 Moldovan census forms there is a field where people specify the language, but then everyone in Moldova knows they speak the same language as in Romania, so the choice between Moldovan and Romanian is either random or purely political.
Genetic classification: Ridiculous. All reputable linguists specialized in the Eastern Romance languages (including Russian linguists) identify Moldovan with Romanian. And what the infobox states here is even more ridiculous: Romanian is a dialect of Romanian?!
Regulated by: Nobody. The Moldovan Academy of Sciences calls it Romanian.

Now about the linguists. There is a long list of experts who defended the linguistic point of view in this matter: Rajmund Piotrowski, Stanislav Semcinski, Eugeniu Coşeriu, Ion Dumeniuk, Anatol Ciobanu, Nicolae Corlăteanu, Nicolae Mătcaş, Silviu Berejan, etc. etc. and on the other side there is Vasile Stati, whose claim of being a linguist has been strongly contested and whose Moldovan-Romanian dictionary has been criticized as blatant stupidity (see the numerous Moldovan writers and scientists who have raised their voice against this enormity: this page and the following, 14 in all).

The poll on the infobox is useless. I am against polls when things can be clarified with arguments. If we want to have the infobox then it should state: Official language of: Moldova (which repeats info from the leading paragraph); Language codes: mo, mol. So in the end the only reason we would have the infobox would be to mention the language codes. — AdiJapan ☎ 05:22, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Fine. I'll remove the poll. I guess there has to be another way of handling this. --Chris S. 06:46, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the idea of having everyone sign off on their opinion (without responding to each other) just to get an idea of the consensus is not a bad idea. We should just remember that Wikipedia is not a democracy, and at the same time even m:Don't vote on everything talks about procedures for doing votes. I don't think we should have a vote here but if everyone put a bullet below and said in less then 5 sentences what their stance was on the issue of the language box it might be a good starting place for a slightly more constructive discussion. Then again I might be being naïve here. Dalf | Talk 06:56, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you on the guidelines. I thought the infobox was a major component of this article since it is part of the Wikipedia:WikiProject_Language_Template, among other reasons. If there is anything silly in the infobox, then it needs to be addressed rather than deleting the infobox outright. --Chris S. 07:23, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

The infobox is redundant in an article that should be about a name not a language, and would give the wrong idea to the clueless visitor. An infobox scales up a title of respectability undeserved in this case, since the language name “Moldovan” is only a propagandistic invention imposed upon the literary Romanian by the soviets and it is consequently strongly and specifically repelled by the Moldovan intellectuals and the Moldovan institutions responsible for language regulations. The fact that the name appears in the Constitution alone is only due to the vote of several soviet nostalgics in 1994 and it is grossly misrepresenting the language situation in RM. On the other hand, Chris, I'm really curious about how would you explain the fact that, in this rather tedious discussion, the degree of disapproval with the Romanian view is directly proportional to the degree of ignorance with respect to the history and linguistic specificities of the region? Can you logically understand that, as an outsider with a very superficial knowledge about the facts and a very schematic system of comparisons and models, you may grossly misinterpret the truth as a biased theory? I while ago, I had a rather useless discussion with Node_ue[4], noticing how he behaves with respect to the historical idiosyncrasies in the region very childishly, as an elephant in a china shop. Well, subsequently I realized that the guy is actually a kid… In your case, what excuse do you have?--MarioF 16:38, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

My excuse is that I am trying to reconcile linguistic concepts with political concepts. That is all. AFAIK, if one says that Moldovan is the name of a language, then they should probably say the same thing for Romanian. This is something that is exhibited in other languages around the world that I have mentioned ad nauseam. --Chris S. 21:52, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Chris, there is a very important difference that you seem to fail grasping: the name "Romanian" for the language appeared naturally and the word was already there when the language was in its infancy. The word itself was born within the language since it comes from the Latin "romanus" following the phonetic processes undergone by most Latin words inherited by Romanian (as in ventus – vânt, canis – câne, etc. etc.). So, the language called Româna was already there long before the very onset of the medieval state of Moldova and the word "Moldovan". Moreover, the most outrageous detail is that the name "Moldovan" was given very recently to the literary language which is a result of a terminological enhancement and regulatory effort which took place on the actual territory of Romania, under the name of Romanian. So, using the name "Romanian", you follow the internal logic of the language, while using "Moldovan", you justify an exclusively political forgery which is most fiercely opposed within the boundaries of the Moldovan Republic. --MarioF 16:03, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Chris, please don't remove other people's posts, unless you want to archive them. There were some valid arguments there on why not have the infobox. — AdiJapan ☎ 08:14, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

What you guys thnk about moving the eastern romance languages template

...Up to where the language info box was. It might look funny I have note even tried yet. But without the info box the article formatting and length looks a bit worse, and then you have this very tall info box at the bottom all alone. It might only look funny to me since I generally brows wikipedia in a 21" monitor at full screen but still. Does anyone object strenuously? Is there some sort of policy on that template about placement? Dalf | Talk 10:40, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I have no objection to this. Can we narrow the box at all? It's quite wide on my screen. | Klaw ¡digame! 16:46, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Incorrect!

In the current form of the article, at least the following phrase is incorrect: "Despite the official nomenclature, standard Moldovan is widely considered to be identical to standard Romanian[5] (although one Moldovan linguist, Vasile Stati, disputes this[6])." Stati does not contest the identity of the literary form of Romanian and "Moldovan". See the interview taken by Basa Press in 2004 [5].--MarioF 18:05, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

BTW, even Voronin, the Moldovan president said "Nu există şi nici nu pot exista deosebiri între limbile moldovenească şi română. Aici nu sint necesare dovezile lingviştilor. Este un fapt evident." ("There are no differences and there cannot be any differences between Moldovan and Romanian. Here, we don't need the proofs of the linguists. It is something obvious." bogdan 18:13, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

It looks to me like Stati is claiming that what the world calls the Romanian language is actually the Moldovan (or Moldavian) language, based on historical evidence that the latter name appeared first. We could mention that in the article, although I think that he's fighting last year's war on that matter. Meanwhile, can anyone find the source for the Stati comments that MarioF mentioned to see what Stati actually said about the two names? | Klaw ¡digame! 18:32, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Klaw, I wouldn't put too much price on Stati's word. The guy is a compulsive liar and proved forger (ironically enough for this nasty anti-Romanian character, in soviet times, when the access to Romanian literature was very restricted in SSM, he was exposed after he plagiarized some Romanian text). And anyway, even if his reference is true, it is more than obvious misreported since none in Romania would ever used the name "Moldovan" language for a text written in "Dacia literara" which had a program addressed from the very beginning to all Romanians for "o limbă şi o literatură comună pentru toţi". Stati’s theories are at most good examples of double-thinking propaganda backed by a very rudimentary system of "proofs" designed for dimwitts: for instance, in his opinion Moldovan language was created by folks like Eminescu, completely disregarding the fact that the respective people never used the name "Moldovan" for the language and actively participated in the Romanian nation-building. Personally, I have a hard time understanding the attention offered to this guy. He is obviously incompetent, ill-meant and unworthy of any academic reference (for instance, he keeps in hinting that Roma (as in Gypsy) and Romanian is pretty much the same thing...).--MarioF 19:22, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

MarioF, thanks for the response. If Stati has contradicted himself between his 2003 book and the 2004 interview, that is more than enough reason to take him out of the article. If anyone can find that 2003 book and see what he argued about Moldovan vs. Romanian, it would be very helpful. | Klaw ¡digame! 20:06, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Klaw, I don't think Stati is arguing that Romanian (as a whole) is or should be called Moldovan, but rather than Moldovan should exist as a name even if it's the same as Romanian. A lot of Moldovenists consider Romanian and Moldovan to be the same language, but argue that, despite this, the official language of the Republic of Moldova should be called Moldovan as an expression of a distinct national identity. Hypothetically, it would be like Austria declaring its official language to be Austrian, instead of German, as a sign of "nationalism", while asserting that the language is identical to German. This is where this whole notion of "renamed for political reasons" came about, regarding Moldovan. It's true, though, that Stati has been engaged in a lot of bogus research. His Romanian-Moldovan dictionary was full of made-up words in Moldovan, implying that the languages are different, but he later declared that they are the same thing. Also, as Mario pointed out, I think that in the dictionary he put "Romanian" and "Roma" as synonyms. For that reason, I think it's quite safe to say that all linguists support the idea that Romanian is the same as Moldovan, only some (the Moldovenists) believe that the language should still be called Moldovan (to them, calling it Romanian is a sign of Romanian - more precisely, Wallachian - cultural imperialism).

Ronline ✉ 20:38, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

That makes sense to me, and the article should reflect that rather than what it says now. My only concern is whether the 2003 source referenced in the article says something different. I don't want to run roughshod over a sourced comment, especially since it's clear that it's not my viewpoint. | Klaw ¡digame! 21:24, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

In the context of Ronline's comments, I'd emphasize the fact that the strongest opposition to the ideas of Stati's "school" comes from within the Republic of Moldova and it is seen as a part of the long due emancipation from the mentalities instilled by the soviet colonial ideologies. However, one of the most desperate discursive techniques employed by Stati is to obsessively label his opponents (here is an example of label: "românomari") and necessarily define them as (paid) agents of the Romanian state: it is a simple propagandistic strategy, on one hand one has "the brave multinational people of Moldova" and, on the other hand, the Romanian fifth column – the evil "românomari". Ironically, the Romanian cultural establishment is rather inert and uninformed in this matter; it also tends to practice an unnecessarily harsh critical approach to the literary products from RM, even if the respective space produced in the last 10 years some of the freshest and original contributions to the contemporary Romanian literature. Nevertheless, it is obvious that the program of synchronization with the Romanian mainstream promoted by the writers from RM is a success. I’ve been following the phenomenon for about 6 years now and there is a huge improvement in the adequacy felt by these writers in Romanian context, compared with 6 years ago. It is obvious that the old isolationist strategies of the soviet propaganda and its preachers are somewhat inefficient nowdays…--MarioF 21:32, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Klaw, about your last question: if by Stati’s "source of 2003" you mean his infamous “dictionary”, the answer is: no, he didn’t change his opinions between 2003 and 2004. And this is not necessarily because in 2004 he didn’t say something opposed to what he maintained in 2003, but because Stati is by definition incoherent and unreliable being very much prone to say something completely contradictory even in the same paragraph, as long as it serves some local political argument. In fact, his common discourse is completely devoid of scientific ethics: it is a only a perplexing mixture of incredibly crude political attacks injected with specious scientifically looking statements leading to a type of rhetoric easily explainable only as a propagandistic tool, since it is well known that any propaganda feeds upon its own previous creations declared by definition as scientifically reliable. So, I repeat, since Stati cannot be considered as a scientifically reliable source, by any means, I don’t think that his work can be referred without proper comments.--MarioF 22:29, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

That is a minor difference. I propose to say "the so-called scholar Stati", instead of erasing him altoghether and then write a sepparate article on Stati himself.

I think the "the so-called scholar Stati" is too POV. A phrase such as "very contested primarily by the overwhelming majority of Moldovan linguists and writers" would be closer to the provable situation (since the Academy does not accept his theories, he was expeled from The Writer's Union (for plagiarism), he is not accepted in the Union of Journalists, and, most relevant for his lack of reliability, he does not have a publishing portofolio in Western journals of linguistics).--MarioF 16:23, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

In any case, I think that the article right now is much more ballanced and well-written as well as shorter, which is good because almost nobody would have had the time to carefully read all that was there before. I would like to give my congratz to Klaw, MarioF, Ronline, Just a tag, Chris, Dalf, bogdan, adi, Candide, or Optimism and everyone else. This was a hot issue before and you guys have managed to settle all the major issues in less then a few days without even a revert war (which believe me in this case is quite something). Constantzeanu 05:08, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Congratulations

Dear all,

I have to congratulate you for managing to sort this article up. I don't know how to give each of you a barnstar, but consider I have.

Yours,User:Dpotop

PS: I've seen in the previous thread a funny remark, something like "Stati says Romanian is in fact Moldovan". Just to add my pinch of salt, I will say that many Moldovans proud themselves that Eminescu, Creanga, a.s.o., the guys that gave shape and content to the Romanian language and culture, were Moldovans. :) User:Dpotop

Official definition

You may get yourself Romanian barnstar, but the constitution of Moldova defines Moldovan language as official state language, not synonym of Romanian language. So plese cease the discriminative edits and respect other state. mikka (t) 21:32, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

No one said that the official language of RM was not named Moldovan. It is named Moldovan, but that has nothing to do with the language not being recognized as a seperate language from Ro. --Candide, or Optimism 21:34, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

This opinion is present in the introduction. Whatever linguists say, official state definition goes first, interpretations second. mikka (t) 21:42, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Mika, first of all, may I say that your behaviour is way childish, and you are very close to acting like a troll, what is this "OK let it be 1/3" are we playing here ? And since when you are an expert in the issue ? Most of the people editing here know the language and I'm from RM, and you are ? You don't know the language, you didn't read the statistics, you don't care, you just push and revert, that's childish and it's highly unpleasant to the rest of us, but I think this is your ultimate goal isn't it, to get your pitty revenge. Second, the text clearly says that it's the official language, official legislation again states the ro-mo identity. --Just a tag 22:00, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Strike two. mikka (t) 22:04, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Removal of language tag is an outright discrimination. If they are synonyms, they have equal rights to be tagged. I am not going to Romanian language page and not defining "romanian" as a "synonym of moldovan". So you be respectful to other languages as well. mikka (t) 21:46, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Did you care to read WHY it was erased ? You prove again, when it comes to moldovan articles, your ignorance is beyond the borders of normality. --Just a tag

Strike three. One more insult and you are have troubles. I am no longer going tolerate badmouthing as I used to. mikka (t) 22:02, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Obviously now you're trying to interpret everything I say as an insult, it's your right, but your behavior is very transparent. --Just a tag 22:06, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Just a tag's behavior

J.a,t, stop playing shrink at my page and take a pill yourself. You are reverting my text, so you owe me explanations. My position is plain and simple: Mold lang is officially the language of the state. And this official opinion of a souvereign state overwhelms all your opinions. Now, are you saying that you have more rights than the state of Moldova over Moldova's language? mikka (t) 21:54, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

AFAIK you reverted the article to the text that was before, without consulting with ALL THE OTHER editors involved, you ignored everything that has been discussed over the days. And I think _we_ deserve an explanation other than just "it's 40%, ok, it's 1/3" taking the data out of thin air again ? If you had good intentions in mind you would start by reading the talk page and then presenting your opinion on the matter, not just "I think it should be like this, everyone else shut up". --Just a tag 22:03, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

1/3 was original text in the infobox, not out of "thin air". I don't know who and why put it there. The number 46% was discussed earlier, basing on the publication in Guardianul. If you have a better number, please provide it. mikka (t) 22:36, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Also you owe me apology for the description of my summary as "silly summary". mikka (t) 21:57, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Guardianlul says that 41% declared their language as romanian (and there is no official data on this), it doesn't say anything about how many declared their language as moldovan. Guardianul also says that 34% declared themselves as Romanians, while the official data says 2.2%, since when we start putting newspaper estimates in an infobox ?Tthe article as it was did say that Moldovan is the official language, you may not like the formulation, but this is called contentual dispute that you would have to talk out here (as one would expect from an admin) rather then forcing your opinion. --Just a tag 22:51, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think I owe you anything. --Just a tag 22:03, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

And I am no longer reading anything written in offensive language. mikka (t) 22:38, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

If you find my remarks offensive then I'm sorry, but I've found your behaviour even more offensive on the matter, it's not right to put your own opinion above everyone else's. --Just a tag 22:53, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Respecting each other

I've noticed that there seems to be a dispute between Just a tag and Mikka, which while minor compared to what this page saw a few months ago, is still significant enough to potentially cause a revert war. Firstly, it would be great if neither of you broke 3RR. Secondly, please find a way to solve your disputes in a more constructive manner. One thing I have noticed here is that as soon as someone new comes, with different views, he is immediately pounced upon by the other users. This is not good. On the other hand, there is a justification - the users working at this page feel quite frustrated when they have nearly reached a compromise, often through hard work and prior negotiation, and then someone else comes, with differing views, and breaks that. Remember, though, that consensus is part of the Wikipedia working method, and we need to respect that and the many different views that come with it. So, I will give both of you some advice about how this dispute can be averted:

To Just a tag - please try to talk in a more constructive, neutral manner. I wouldn't say you've necessarily attacked Mikka personally, at least not in comparison to what's been done at this page historically. However, it would be good if you stop using words like "you are very close to acting like a troll". I don't think anyone has trolled here recently. It would be good if you wouldn't treat Mikka as some "arrogant outsider seeking revenge", but rather as a user with a different point of view, and try to constructively and with dialogue solve the content issue. That means that you should take more of his proposals with good faith, instead of just seeing them as an attempt to introduce anti-Romanianism on Wikipedia.
To Mikka - it would probably be good if you engage in discussion more. I think just saying "Strike two" or "Strike three" to people causes quite a degree of annoyance, and that's not good. The point here isn't justice, it's not even trying to annoy the other user, it's negotiating a good solution for the article. Just a tag was right to an extent when he said "you just push and revert". Honestly correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you still see this as some "war against the trolls", where dialogue and ample justification isn't really necessary. You have made edit summaries that explain your edits, but overall it would be good if you really discuss the issues here rather than actually applying them to the article. It would be good if you wouldn't treat Just a tag as "troll" - which pisses people off because they don't feel understodd - but rather as a user with a different point of view, and try to constructively and with dialogue solve the content issue.
Excuse me, I don't buy your crooked logic. I don't treat his "like a troll". I even answered one of his concerns stated in neutral tone. It is he who treats me like a troll. So very nice meeting you again, putting blame upside down. I am saying here that I will not read any offensive text. I will be counting offensive remarks, just in case. mikka (t) 23:30, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Right, so I should be saying "Bad, bad Just a tag. What you do is inacceptable and you will soon be banned". And that's mediation? It's true that he also treats you like a troll, but you should try to engage with his point of view more rather than just dismissing it as "chauvinistic".

Ronline ✉ 00:27, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the key word here is empathy. Both of the above users should empathise with each other and genuinely try to understand the other's views. A lot of the problem comes from people coming here with preconceived ideas about the other "side". And hence they like to "annoy" the other user and push him/her out of the article negotiation. As long as we see this as a "battle against the outsiders" or "battle against anti-Romanians" or "battle against the trolls", we'll get nowhere. When people feel you don't understand them - you don't empathise with their point of view - that's when irrational behaviour starts kicking in. And we were so close to a resolution...

On a more subjective content-related note, I support Mikka's version in this case (without the infobox). I think saying: "Moldovan is the official language of Moldova but most linguists think it's the same as Romanian" is better than "Moldovan is the name for the Romanian language in Moldova". The infobox is controversial, but consensus says it shoudl be removed. Ronline ✉ 23:07, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Mikka should be blocked for another 24-hours - not for violating anything on Wiki, but for making us listen to Ron's rhetorics. --Candide, or Optimism 23:15, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I blocked myself for, like, 240+ hours. So now I can violate 3RR 10 times :-) mikka (t) 23:47, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Intro

The recent developments on this page can only be described as a step back and a result of disruptive changes. Please do not change anything, unless you come with sources to back them up. I think it has been properly established that Voronin himself and Stati himself have said that Moldovan is another language for Romanian. Unless you can come up with another reliable source which will say that in fact they have never said that, then leave the article alone.Constantzeanu 23:20, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Colleague, constitution of the souvereign state is the most authoritative source for me. It says "limba de stat" ie, "state language", not "name of the state language". So please leave interpretations out of the intro. mikka (t) 23:30, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

According to the 1989 law, "Moldovan" is just another name for "Romanian". That law is still valid, see the archives of this talk page. bogdan 23:34, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

No it does not say so in these words. It says "the really existing linguistical Moldo-Romanian identity" (or do you have in mind another place?). I.e., it says "identity", but it does not say that "Romanian" is another name for "Moldovan" or "Moldovan" is another name for "Romanian". The law, unlike you, uses a careful non-discriminative phrasing. let me remind you about Trinity: three are the same, but we don't say that holy spirit is a synonym of God the Father. Limba moldoveneasca has the same right to be named as limba romana until people say otherwise. mikka (t) 23:41, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

"Linguistical identity" means that language A is identical to language B. Oh, for crying out loud, even Voronin says that there are no differences between Moldovan and Romanian. bogdan 23:46, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

For crying out even louder, who disputes this? Did I delete this from the article? I am saying that if constitution says "limba de stat", it is "limba de stat", not "synonym of something". It has constitutional rights to be its own name, not someone's else synonym. mikka (t) 23:50, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

No it does not because you are looking only at constitution. One must look at the 1989 law as well. Both are in effect, by the way.Constantzeanu 23:52, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Please read Constitution article and then I will answer you. (warning: no insult intended, just to make sure that we know the same things, or you understand yourself what I mean). mikka (t) 00:02, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Maybe it should include both pieces of information in the first sentence: a) that it is the official language b) that it is the name for Romanian. bogdan 23:54, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Maybe: "Moldovan language is the official language of ... It is a renamed Romanian language with most linguist ..." Probably doesn't sound too good, but maybe it's a start. --Just a tag 00:05, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

That's exactly what I wrote. But this knee-jerk reaction with all-guns preemptive assault of j.a.t. makes me think you guess what. mikka (t) 00:02, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

A debate on that matter is pointless now, as we're finally discussing something of essence here, which is exactly what was required. Nevertheless, I'll reiterate: you've made a radical change (by reintroducing the infobox and changing the intro text to the old one), hence my reaction. Were you to say: look guys, the intro doesn't mention that the language is official in Moldova, let's try to rewrite it a bit, I would endeavour to carry a constructive discussion, which would have led to a proper rewrite. I admit, I might have acted a wee offensive, but I'm writing that off to a "cause-effect" case. --Just a tag 00:27, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

OK lets say peace. mikka (t) 00:58, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

ok. --Just a tag 01:02, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Mikkalai, do you live in Belarus or abroad? I am only asking because your English seems quite good. In any case my reaction is not knee-jerked. First of all, there are two pieces of legislation here: one is the constitution, the other is this 1989 law that states that Romanian and Moldovan are the same thing. Now don't get me started with what the law says and what it does not. Law is subject to interpretation and I think non-biased scholars will interpret it as such. About the wording, well it already reflects both pieces of legislation. On one hand it states what the name of the official language is: that is Moldovan. The other part states what this name represents(again based on the second piece of legislation). To enforce this point, I would like to, once again, restate that this article is about the name of a language, not a language in itself. Even the most hard-line Moldovenists have stated, as shown in the sources provided in the archives of this talkpage, that Moldovan and Romanian are the same language and that Moldovan is just another name for the Romanian language. This article is fine the way it is so unless you cannot bring clear and reliable and sources that depict otherwise, please do not attempt to change it. Constantzeanu 00:10, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

You again seem to totally ignore what I wrote. I am not disputing (and never disputed) that they are same languages. By the way, did you read Constitution article? And I disagree that the article is about the name of the language. There is much more to say. Otherwise we'd rather put it right into wiktionary. mikka (t) 00:17, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

We diverge greatly on this one, I believe that the present article should be about the name of the language rather than the language itself (which is romanian). --Just a tag 00:36, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok firts of all, Mikka, the tone has to change. Notice how I am trying to make small talk and be nice to you so try to do the same. I am not ignoring what you just said. You are ignoring my point about the two pieces of legislature. The article should reflect both. If you do not think that this is about the name of a language, please come up with scholarly articles that prove beyind any doubt that Moldovan is a language in itself.Constantzeanu 00:38, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Notice how I am repeating for the third time: I am not denying that they are the same. I did not delete, never ever, this info from the intro. Since you did not answer me whether you read the Constitution article for whatever reason, let me remind you that Constitution is Basic Law, i.e., all other laws of the state are derived from it. In democratic states there is a Constitutional Court that may cancel laws that disagree with constitution. Now, my point is, that the primary definition must be quoted from constitution. And then you may say whatever you want. Just like I wrote in the intro: "M.L. is the official state language. It is considered identical bla-bla-bla...". And your resistance to put Basic Law first baffles me. Can you explain the reason why you refuse to start the definition from what constitution says? mikka (t) 00:55, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I will answer your points one by one. Yes I have read the constitution. Yes, the constitution is basic law. I would never dispute that. That, however, does not mean that just because it is written so in the constitution it must appear here in the first sentence as "The language of Moldova is Moldovan." This statement is not clear at all. The reader will think that Moldovan is a kind of different language right of the bat. We had something similar before and it didn't go anywhere. Node ue wanted to change identical to almost similiar, then we got into revert wars, etc. etc. Also constitutions are sets of laws as well. Laws are subject to interpretations. Combining this constitutional article with the 1989 law, one gets the exact result as the first sentence currently states: "Moldovan is the official name of the Romanian language in Moldova". Remember mikkalai, this is not about a language, but about a name of a language and the controversies that arise with it. Constantzeanu 06:38, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

2/3

The article Moldovan language, referring to Guardianul says: about 2/3 of all respondents declared their language to be Romanian
Guardianul writes: iar 40 la suta din cetateni au declarat ca "romana este limba lor materna".

Am I missing something? Where did this 2/3 come from? mikka (t) 00:47, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I know that math can be quite a pain in the butt for some people so I will take the intitiative and help you out, commarade. Btw, do you speak Romanian? You seem to understand what Gardianu has written...

In anycase, the math goes as follows: 40% of the citizens of moldova=4/10 of RMpop. I think that is pretty self-explanitory and requires no further explination :)

The article was written ahead of the official census so it assumed that the moldovan population was still 65% Romanian (or Moldovan as it was known in the "good old Stalin days", which some people on this talk page seem to be extreemly fond of in some masacistic kind of way). Hence 6.5/10 *2/3 = 4/10. And there you go. For any further questions or clarifications feel free to use my talk page. Constantzeanu 00:58, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

It's not math that is the problem; it is assumptions. In particular, it doubt that the author relied on 65%, because he knew more numbers: it particular she knew the number of "Romanins" (circa 34 la suta din cetatenii Republicii Moldova s-au declarat romani) So I have no reason to assume she did not know the number of "Stalin Moldavians". So the question is: how do you know that she used "65"?

My knowledge of Romanian: don't you know it is 30% slavic, 100-200 words Dacian and Illyrian, and the rest is broken Italian? (just kidding) Also, I have read quite a few texts on walls, like "nu fumati decât în locul special" and "Пролетарь дин тоате цэриле, униць-вэ!" in my life. mikka (t) 01:27, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, by the way, right at this moment, I have found that O-Zone ripped off a song of a good old Moldavian band Norok: "De Ce Plang Chitarele"]. It was a huge hit in my young days. Now I have a very good giess about the roots of the quarrel around Dragostea din Tei: I strongly suspect that both ozone and gaiducii ripped off still another Soviet song. mikka (t) 01:37, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I see. Romanian is not really 30% slavic. More like 15% slavic and only 3% of those slavic words are actually used:) about o-zone. I don't know. They get accused about a lot of stuff. Nobody cared where dragostea din tei or de ce plang chitarele came from until they got noticed and famous. So I would not be too quick to judge. Constantzeanu 01:45, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I knew "de ce plang chitarele" by heart in my childhood, but since Norok still sings, so looks like they got some kind of agreement (unless no one from current Norok remembers what their predecessors sung). mikka (t) 02:05, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I never heard noroc sing but you might be right. in moldova and romania, rumor has it that the father of the lead-singer is very high up in the political arena in chisnau and pulled alot of strings to get this band going. So I would not be surprised if they managed to buy some kind of rights from noroc. But when they get so popular, rumors are bound to appear and sometimes things get so inflated that there is not way of knowing if they simply stole the song or just bought the rights for it.Constantzeanu 04:36, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I suppose it in such things it does matter who to ~~blame for~~ give credit to for songs like dragostea din tei ;) Though I do like de ce plang chitarele. Dalf | Talk 05:18, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

What is the purpose of an encyclopedic article?

By asking this question, I’m trying to understand whether some people - such as Mikka - can really see the forest for the trees. In particular, I'm wondering about the specious idea that the fact that the name "Moldovan language" appears alone in the Constitution should supersede the much more complicated linguistic situation in RM… So, I’d advise Mikka to do the following Gedanken experiment:

Take in one hand the following facts: the name Moldovan appears alone in the Constitution, a substantial percent of the population uses this name.
Take in the other hand the following facts: the Constitution was not the result of a referendum, the socio-cultural space of RM is a postcolonial one, the name is applied to a language which historically did not appear and did not develop as a literary language on the actual territory of RM, the institutions responsible for linguistic regulation in RM do not accept this name, the overwhelming majority of the writers consider the name offensive, there is no press in Romanian using the name "Moldovan" for the language except "Comunistul" (even among the pro-governmental press), there is a direct proportionality between the level proficiency in the respective language and the willingness to repel the name "Moldovan", the Romanians from the province of Moldova of Romania (the legal heirs of the medieval principality) consider the name "Moldovan" as misused and abused by the soviets.

Then, Mikka, try to balance the two loads and answer several questions: how can one stick with your Constitutional rigidity and not misinform the generic clueless reader of this article? Does Romania and Romanians have a say about the name of a language which was developed by them under the name Romanian only to be tacitly confiscated and renamed by the soviet authorities? Do you understand how ridiculous is the entire situation? For instance, the very promoters of "Moldovan" name for the language consider that there is also a Moldovan classical literature involving Romanian writers from XIX-th century, even if the respective writers always used the name Romanian for the language. Actually, most of the time, there is not even a page of their manuscripts on the territory of this ghastly “Moldovan literature” and the respective writers never stepped on the actual territory of RM. Don’t you think that this situation is symptomatic for a kind of perverted thinking injected by ideology which should be properly described in an encyclopedic article? And, in the final, I’m going to ask you the same questions I asked Chris - the other guy stuck with the holiness of the Moldovan Constitution: so, I'm really curious about how would you explain the fact that, in this rather tedious discussion, the degree of disapproval with the Romanian view is directly proportional to the degree of ignorance with respect to the history and linguistic specificities of the region? Can you logically understand that, as an outsider with a very superficial knowledge about the facts and a very schematic system of comparisons and models, you may grossly misinterpret and dismiss the truth as a biased theory?--MarioF 16:45, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I know about moldovan/romanial way more than you assume, and your mentoring tone is amusing.

Ah, ok, so I should allow myself to be amused by the condescendence of some Belarusian explaining me stuff from Belarus… No, thanks. I have more respect for you as a mirror of the respect for myself. --MarioF 18:28, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Let me answer:

how can one stick with your Constitutional rigidity and not misinform the generic clueless reader of this article?
- One has to stick with facts, not with our wordplay. mikka (t) 17:25, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Can you point to what's non-factual in what you consider as the biased hand? Can you understand that, if any of those facts can be proved (as they can be), overemphasizing the Constitution thing equates a gross misinformation?--MarioF 18:28, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Does Romania and Romanians have a say about the name of a language which was developed by them under the name Romanian only to be tacitly confiscated and renamed by the soviet authorities?
- In wikipedia you don't have any special preferences with respect your gender/religion/expertise/nationality. What is more: wikipedian's opinion means nothing. Just stick with facts you can refer from reputable source. mikka (t) 17:25, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

The question was mostly directed to your sense of rational decency and as a conceptual framework for an answer for what an encyclopedic article should be. I don't predicate any specification about this fact in the article. However, the different understanding of the word "Moldovan" by the population of the Romanian province of Moldova (which was never subject of any colonial pressure and is about twice more numerous than the Moldovans in former soviet republic) should result from the text of the article. AFAIK, Romania protested officially against the use of the word "Moldovan" in 1994 Constitution. Does this count as a fact? --MarioF 18:28, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

how would you explain the fact that, in this rather tedious discussion, the degree of disapproval with the Romanian view is directly proportional to the degree of ignorance with respect to the history and linguistic specificities of the region?
- I explain it with your disrespect to opinions of those who disagree with what you think is absolute truth.

Your answer is objectively speaking a non-answer. As long as it is easily provable that the fiercest opposition to the view which is perceives as pro-Romanian comes from people who actually do not speak the language and can be defined as outsiders, it is logically inadmissible to disprove it by an internal argument (“lack of respect”) which would assume an equal knowledge about the matter at hand. Saying that you are limited by your ignorance of the language is a strong functional truth, not an attack (like your “lack of respect” presumption).

So please stop reading my mind and stick with facts, answering my yes/no question, which is the matter of your current assault on me. mikka (t) 17:25, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Fact #1 The moldovan language is the state language of the Respublic of Moldova, yes/no (no games)?

No, "Moldovan" is not the state language of the Republic of Moldova. --MarioF

I hope these questions are not addressed to MarioF exclusively, so that everybody can partake. The "state language" is alotted to both romanian and moldovan. If you take in account what is written in the constitution, then yes, it is the state language, if you reckon the opinions of many officials (which are published) and common citizens, then it's romanian. As has been said before, it's a matter of naming convention. So, your question, as the throng of other questions out there, doesn't have a straight yes/no answer, just as the world is not black&white. Some q's indeed have a bold yes as the answer: "Does the constitution of the Republic of Moldova say that the moldovan language is the "state language". Wikipedia is about presenting facts, and the fact is, moldovan is a renamed romanian language (the established consensus doesn't border this talk page only but rather comprises the whole scientific community). That being said, I have nothing against a formulation along the lines of "Moldovan is the official language of RM... It is a renamed Romanian language, ...", but then again I have nothing against the current formulation either. --Just a tag 19:23, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

How the constitution of moldova defines the state language? mikka (t) 18:31, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

A state language is more than a word in a document, be it the Constitution of a state. An official language is about the status of a language in the respective country, that is it depends on the administrative aspects, beside on a simple declaration in the Constitution which is not absolute and can be attacked in a constitutional court or detailed in its relevance by law, precedence and practice. You can say at most that the official name "Moldovan" is official, but not a "Moldovan language" inasmuch as there is no language recongnized under this name by the regulatory linguistic institutions of the Moldovan state.--MarioF 19:17, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Now that is what I would coud weaseling. There is a constitution declaration. You rudely disallowed me to enter this obvious fact into the article, because you don't like it. mikka (t) 22:42, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

And here is my counter-question: how come you Romanian experts failed to write a reasonable history the history of romanian language, in particular, the period of the recognition of the unity of the Romanian nation and language by Ureche, Costin, Cantemir? mikka (t) 18:31, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Lord, what the heck are you talking about??? Is this you trying to prove that you "know about moldovan/romanial way more"? Can you give me a list with names of Romanian linguists you've ever studied in order to reach to the bewildering conclusion that "Romanian experts failed to write a reasonable history of romanian"... I'd be reeealy curious. Ok, I won't pretend from you to point to (or the lack of) articles substantiating your, ahem!, theory published in linguistic journals from Romania such as "Revue roumaine de linguistique" or "Studii şi cercetări lingvistice" or "Fonetică şi dialectologie" or "Dacoromania" or "Anuar de lingvistică şi istorie literară". You are allowed to pretend that these journals confine their interest to the period after "the period of the recognition of the unity of the Romanian nation and language". I'd ask from you only a minimal content from the "Journal of Linguistics and Literary Science" of the Moldovan academy...--MarioF 19:17, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I was writing not "Romanian experts", but "you Romanian experts" (asd opposed to me ignorant troll), implying that you failed to write reasonable wikipedia articles about Romanian language that would answer a number of interesting questions, including that of the usage of the term "limba moldovoneasca". Instead, you prefer to ingeniously prove that "molodvan language" is "just a word" (which is not). mikka (t) 22:42, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

You're right. Romanian language is a literary language and the article is not reflecting enough this aspect. --Vasile 04:05, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Mikka, advising rigorousity demands your formal clarity. "you Romanian experts" sounds exactly as it was (mis)interpreted. Anyway, talking about a "number of interesting questions, including that of the usage of the term "limba moldovoneasca", points out again to a lack of knowledge about the respective period. If you are really interested in the subject you can write me on my talk-page or e-mail me at "mariofrea@yahoo.com". What you should learn from the beginning, though, is that the earliest writings in Romanian with reference to the name of the language used exclusively and clearly the name "ru/româneste" and circulated over the whole territory of actual Romania (most of them were religious translations from Slavonic from Northern Walachia, Northern Moldova and (initially) Northern Transylvania collected and printed in Sibiu (by Filip Moldoveanu) and Brasov (by Coresi)). Later on, as late as XVII-th century, when the first (very few ) nonreligious texts appeared in Moldova, the term "limba moldoveneasca" was used a couple of time but only in the sense of "the language of Moldovans" (as in "the language of Americans") while there are explicit statements that in colloquial speech the name of the language was "româneste" used naturally. The XVIII-th century, dominated by Greek princes, in both principates the language is documented rather plentifully and is consistently called "româneste" (for instance, in my family we have a marriage seal from about 1778 "pre rumîneste") and there are the first signs of the cultural coagulation of what became the nationbuilding of the Romanian nation.--MarioF 16:26, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

You are so sure in your superior knowledge... How you explain then that Grigore Ureche had to specifically waste paper to explain that "the Moldavian language was the same language as Wallachian and that Moldavians, Wallachians, and Transylvanians, were of the same ethnicity"? (quoting from wikipedia) I have to assert that either not "over the whole territory" it was called limba romana, or as I stated, "you Romanian experts" failed to write clear wikipedia articles about the history or Romanian langauge, wasting your time in political battles. More specifically, what you have just written in your angry text above must be stripped from personal attacks and added somewhere into articles about Romanian langauge. Again, that's exactly what I mean: you are ready to show off your knowledge to prove that I am an idiot, but you don't care about wikipedia overall quality. mikka (t) 17:56, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

[trolling and personal attacks removed]

Yes, Mikka, as long as you do not produce a list with authors you've ever studied dealing with Romanian language, I am humbly sure about my superior knowledge when it comes to the subject at hand. It is just a logically construed inference and it is not meant to insult you. I agree with your criticism about the misdirected efforts. The page about the history of Romanian can be improved and completed and it will be done. On the other hand, when defining my texts as "angry", I think that you transfer your own emotional state. I'm an extremely calm individual and most certainly I don't try to prove you an idiot. If you have this impression, it's solely your problem.--MarioF 19:02, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Your zeal in proving your superiority over me that followed my attempt to add a single sentence into the article "By Mold constitution, Mold lang is the state lang of Moldova" is unwarranted and totally misdirected. Please tone down. I am glad that you agree that you are spending your time in the wrong place. Now try to understand that the pissing contest is equally meaningless in wikipedia. You must prove you superior knowledge by writing many good articles in your area of expertise. So far I have no reason to believe in your superior knowledge no matter how you much you write in talk pages. mikka (t) 21:26, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

You see mikka. This is the problem. You say that Moldovan is not just a word, but a language. Right off the bat, you are biased. I understand where you are coming from. You grew up in the Soviet Union, you spent most of your time as a "Soviet Man". You probably were fed the same Soviet crap that about another 250 mil. people were fed. Some swallowed it. Some did not. I really do not blame you. If someone would have brainwashed me for 20-30 years, I would have probably thought that Moldovan was a language too, that Stalin was a great man and that Lenin was a genius unlike any other.

In any case, by saying over and over again that "Moldovan is a language" without proving any reliable scholarly sources will never get you anywhere. And if that is all you plan to do, then you are really wasting your time here. People have arrived at a consensus, not based on biased opinions, but based on a number of scholarly articles and quotes (some of them from Moldovenists themselves that say that Moldovan is Romanian, hence the language is Romanian but just renamed--> remember this article is about the name of a language and not a language). Constantzeanu 00:10, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

You see Constantzeanu. This is the problem: miscommunication. YOu are trying to read my mind where I did not finish the sentence. You added :"but a language". I did not say that. I've have already written here, that if it were a word, put it into wiktionary and done with it. What I meant is that it is not a word, it is a notion, with complex history (which I know quite well despite persistent accusations in my ignorance). mikka (t) 02:17, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Your only argument is a sentence in the constitution of Moldova. You totally ignore the 1989 law which clearly states that Moldovan is Romanian. Secondly, you cannot take information just based on a constitution. You also have to consider the opinions of the people in that country, media and the language media says it is using, the education system( in Romanian) and the Academy that regulates the language. The Academy of Sciences in Moldova considers the language to be Romanian, not Moldovan. Moreover, the Soviet Constitution as well as the Nazi Germany constitution defined these respective countries as democratic. Does that mean that the leading sentence in a wikipedia article should be "THE USSR was a democratic state" or "Nazi Germany was a democratic state". No. So I repeat one last time, either come up with a reliable scholarly article that undisputedly makes it clear that Moldovan and Romanian are not alike or leave the article alone. Constantzeanu 00:10, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

My only argument is that this sentence is a fact of importance. You are welcome to comment on this fact as you wish. You are still ignoring the fact that I never questioned the validity of Romanian position. In fact, several times I edited in this direction, eg here. It is user:Bonaparte who hypnotically poisoned brains of all Romanians so that you see only an enemy in me. mikka (t) 02:17, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Mikka, I honestly do not see you as an enemy. I just think that we have different opinions. I also do not think you are ignorant. I just think that Soviet propaganda has gotten into you and has shaped the way you think about Romanians and Moldovans. I think I would have probably thought the same way if I had lived in the USSR. No doubt about it. Constantzeanu 02:42, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Your ideas about me are wrong. Besides USSR I lived (and worked, not just travelled) in Poland (before and after communism), Germany (East & West & united), Japan, United States. (And in Moldova, by the way, but I guess "USSR" covers it). Now, I don't know what exactly you mean about what I "think about Romanians and Moldovans". (And by the way, I hope you know that in Romanian humor Moldovans are portrayed as stupid, rustic and primitive (every national humor has this kind of ethnic stereotype), so don't even start to preach me that Moldovans and Romanians are "the same"). But let me tell you what, about Germans. One language, one ethnicity. Two states. United. And it immediately became very visible that West Germans and East Germans are two different nations. Different mentality. Different culture. It requires at least a generation change to change this. So, back to you: what exactly do you think I think about Romanians and Moldovans? mikka (t) 03:52, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Again with the stereotyping as a "proof" of ethnical difference... Mikka, do you suggest that the fact that Romanians from the province of Moldova (or Bucharest) make derogatory jokes about Oltenians (and vice-versa) as stupid has any influence upon the Romanianess of the respective groups? Do you think that ethnicity has anything to do with the someone from Bacau county considering that Botosani county is backward? And again with the difference of mentality between the two Germanies... C'mon, Mikka, apply yourself and try to understand that the ethos of a given population is defined through the internal imagology of the group only in an integrative context: i.e., in the given case, the fact that there are perceived differences is still an internal detail of the German ethnos, and it is simply fallacious to assign more representativeness and a specific name to one of the groups before studying how deep the respective differences are shared at all levels of society and how much the respective perception is more than an artifact. In Moldova/Romania case, the identity crises in the Moldovan society is defined as such in the first place by the Moldovan intellectuals and it is viewed by them as an internal problem of the Romanian ethnos in the respective region. In fact, the situation in very different in the different strata of the Moldovan society. For instance, the fact that most uneducated population - a rather civically inert group resulted from the soviet "multicultural" politics - use the name "moldovean" for themselves is only a superficial artifact imposed functionally by a denationalizing environment (ever since the Tsarist empire). This simply means that the genetic and cultural differences in rural areas across the river Prut are very slim and definitely without influence upon the substance of what defines an ethnos. Your conjecture works better at an urban level, where the population is closer to the soviet uniformity instilled throughout USSR. However, paradoxically this population is the more active in defining itself as a part of the Romanian nation. The pro-Romania, european and anti-communist protesters and the most anti-soviet voters are recruited from within this population even if their level of proficiency in Russian and adherence to the cultural products coming from Russia is somewhat more manifest than in rural regions.--MarioF 17:40, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

To add to the above, there is another state where people speak German, that is Austria. Ask Austrians what language they speak and they will tell you that it's German. But ask them whether they are "Germans" and some will tell you where to go and/or what to do. --Irpen 03:58, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

This is a specious argument. There is an Austrian literature and a genuine Austrian very powerful culture, while the Moldovan writers consider themselves Romanians and the only literature that could be called Moldovan is the stalinistic propaganda texts. The Austrian vs German dichotomy is not due to some colonial indoctrination and in Austria there is no crisis of German language as in the case with Romanian in RM where most medium-age population is unable to speak correctly neither Romanian not Russian due to the more or less subtle denationalizing techniques of the soviets. However, the best example of what makes the difference between RM and Austria is the necessary ingredients for a nationbuilding process: for instance, loosely speaking, to build a nation a population needs first of all a set of shared national myths and a consensus of civil society. While the Austrian society (after WW2) did go through such a decantation of national concepts since, as I said, there is a very glorious and specific Austrian cultural paradigm and a clearly Austrian past, RM simply does not have a history of its own. Everything is either shared with Romania – home of a nation which legally inherits the legacy of the medieval Moldova – or with Russia – the former colonial power which tried to transform its subjects into a civically inert population of ketmen (see Czeslaw Milosz) and mankurts. Moreover, there is no civic pressure in RM for the onset of a Moldovan language. The overwhelming majority of the Moldovan intellectuals consider themselves Romanians, part of the Romanian culture, and explicitly and programmatically push for the synchronization with Romanian mainstream (see literary magazines such as "Contrafort" or "Sud Est"). Anyway, the comparison with Austria is another signature of the ignorance (be it innocent) with respect to the situation of RM.--MarioF 15:52, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

But try to put yourself in someone else's shoes. Not a Romanian's. But someone who would be totally neutral to this like a Frenchman, a German, a Norwegian or a Chinese. I think they would just go ahead and say that Moldovan is Romanian and that is the official language of Moldova, end of story. In fact I know of a very funny incident a few years back. I remember how a Chinese official in Moldova said at one point "Finally I have managed to come to Romania". And then he was corrected. The fact that he thought he was in Romania I think says alot. Constantzeanu 02:42, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Would the same Chinese official, had be been sent to the USA, had said: "Finally I have managed to come to England" because English is spoken there? This story only shows the ignorance of some people. This article is necessary because it informs about the reasons why the alternative name Moldovan for Romanian is used officially, whereas in other cases such as English in USA or German in Austria or Portuguese in Brazil, the language retains its original name. Andreas 03:16, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Indonesian vs. Malay

There is one similar case: Malay [...] is practically the same as or mutually intelligible with Bahasa Indonesia, the official language of Indonesia, but differentiated in name for political reasons. On the other hand, Indonesian [...] does differ from the Malaysian form in some ways, with differences in pronunciation and also in vocabulary, due in large part to the many Dutch words in the Indonesian vocabulary. Andreas 03:16, 26 January 2006 (UTC). See also: Differences between Malay and Indonesian Andreas 03:21, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

We don't speak those languages so we cannot be the judge of your scenario. Nor do we care very much. We don't believe in proving a point by making analogies. --Candide, or Optimism 18:05, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

My point here is less the analogy than the idea that the specific situation in Moldova has to be explained to somebody who (like me) doesn't know much about it. Andreas 18:11, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Romanian language is not just pronunciation and vocabulary. --Vasile 04:07, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

What is a language?

Now that the Romanians have taken over this article pretty much entirely, driving out all objective and opposing participants with their fiery rhetoric, trolling, and less-than-collegial tactics, it seems there is pretty much nothing left to discuss.

They have finally succeeded in getting their opinions (or, as they call them, "facts") written in the article:

That Moldovan is "in fact indentical to" (to use the words of Bonaparte) Romanian.
That Moldovan is not a language
That "everybody" knows Latin, even if they prefer Cyrillic
Many more "facts" which are not sourced or are poorly sourced.

[6] shows nicely how, with the help of Romanian nationalist POV-pushing apologists like Vasile and MarioF (the biggest two), and Constantzeanu, AdiJapan, Just a tag, and Bogdangiusca (to a lesser extent), this article has turned from a semi-chaotic almost-NPOV article to a totally biased chaotic article written entirely from a Romanian nationalist/Moldovan unionist POV.

Now, most of what can be said about Moldovan depends on what is and is not a language. The silly Romanian nationalists are like the US courts when it comes to pornography -- they can't define what a language is, but they know it when they see it. But since when are Romanian nationalists also experts in the field of linguistics? Since when can they be entrusted with the definition of a term such as that? A language, as defined by LINGUISTS, who are experts in the field, is quite simply a system of words and the rules that string them together.

In linguistics, there is 0 concept of "different languages" in the way that the Romanian nationalists seem to think. And by their constant badgering, the Romanian nationalists have succeeded in pushing away all with any amount of linguistic expertise -- Chris Sundita, Francis Tyers, and even at one point the wonderful Moldovan linguist Valentina Iepuri (supposedly -- it could've been someone pretending).

But be advised that eventually, this article will be neutralised, your biases will be removed, the real linguists and the real Moldovans will have their say in what is true and what is just propaganda, and justice will be served.

Oh, and, by the way, congrats, Bogdan, on your adminship at mowiki, where you were made an admin by your little Romanian buddy Romihaitza despite the fact that you just registered and that you didn't have a plurality of votes, and that Anthère suggested waiting. --Node 04:29, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

What can I say, we are all big nationalists, fascists, nazis, communist and all the bad things. Romanians are big monsters, node, big monsters. Stay away from them at all times cause they are very very bad. Wherever they set foot, chaos sets in. I wonder how the World put up with us. I mean, for crying out lound, we are soo chaotic. You know, I am surprised that you did not ask that we all get blocked and banned forever from Wikipedia.

Uhm, this is pretty funny. So attention everyone. Lesson of the story here is: "Language is like pornography".

Yes, us Romanians. We bullied, tortured any oponents, agressively shoved only our POV and we have turned this whole thing upside down. We are soo bad. I mean we are monsters, right?

Yes Node, justice. Justice shall be served by Node, defender of all non-Romanian-loving Moldovans, worldwide, wherever they may be and who cannot presently post their own opinions here themselves for whatever reasons. Btw, Node you are not Moldovan.

I demand you to show right the way examples of that POV-pushing you "accusing" me. Otherway, please refrain spreading your vicious rumours. You can seriously imagine that declaring on wikipedia a special religion and a special sexual orientation, you could say whatever you want about other users. --Vasile 12:08, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Lest this turn into a giant heap of confusion, I have moved your "in-line" responses all to the end of my post. Now, Vasile, I'm not surprised at what you say given your reprehensible defences of some of the egregious violations of Wikipedia rules which were proven against Bonaparte and Anittas. Everywhere you show up, you give an extreme Romania Mare POV. To accuse someone of POV-pushing is not forbidden on Wikipedia in the same way that attacks on a person's sex, religion, national origin, age, sexual orientation, disabilities, are. Now, I'm talking about in the last month or so. Before that, this article was on a good path to neutrality; after you guys drove all opponents out, it turned into a one-sided debate between Transylvanians and Moldavians about almost-meaningless fluff. Just because a few Romanians are nasty people doesn't mean all Romanians are. Ronline is good, for example; Bogdangiusca is usually good; Danutz is good sometimes; Constantzeanu has his good days too, although in this case he was the major contributor to the POV-ification of the article it seems. Romanians are not evil. Romanians are not bad. Romanians are just normal people. But in this case, you and your band of Romanian hooligans have declared this article your territory and pushed everybody else out. Do I mean ALL Romanians on Wikipedia are responsible? Of course not. Many of them just sat and watched passively as their compatriots slowly squeezed out opposition -- Ronline, for example, didn't do much of anything wrong; there are actually some Romanians who don't touch this article at all anymore. And don't tell me my nationality, that's for me to say. --Node

Do I denote a little hostility in your tone? But who can blame you, node? I mean, us Romanians, monsters as we are, we stick our noses into everything. We are trully evil. All of us, right? We just don't live you alone. Wherever you turn your head, there we are creeping you out with our nationalistic conspiracies to rule the world and stick our agents everywhere. EVEN IN THE MOLDOVAN WIKIPEDIA, out of all places.

On a more serious note, Node, you really displayed a great deal of immaturity with this post. I only answered to you the way I did to show you, how silly you sound:

Just listen to yourself:

Now that the Romanians have taken over this article pretty much entirely, driving out all objective and opposing participants with their fiery rhetoric, trolling, and less-than-collegial tactics, it seems there is pretty much nothing left to discuss.

If you cannot see the 100 things that are wrong with this post, then you are a hopeless case but just look at how you reffer to some of the people here "Now the Romanians". Now that to me sounds really racist. You should be ashamed of yourself. I have never in my life generalized like this and you at least on Wikipedia should abstain from doing so.Constantzeanu 06:15, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Constantiianu (as you call yourself on the Moldovan Wikipedia), nowhere did I say that Romanians are inherently bad. Most Romanians are good people, I think. But there are a few, especially on Wikipedia, who have big problems with neutrality. You're trying to make it sound as if I'm paranoid, by mentioning "conspiracies". Well, despite what you may think, I don't think there's any Romanian conspiracy to take over the world. To take over Rep.Moldova, maybe, but certainly nothing beyond that. Romanian participation and interference (there has been both) at the Moldovan Wikipedia can be enlightening at some times and irritating at others. Ronline created lots of nice new articles, some Romanians gave helpful input; on the other hand, many Romanians showed up talking about how Cyrillic is somehow inherently evil and should be impaled, or in many cases even petty vandalism (blanking of pages, adding personal statements to pages, creating empty or gibberish articles, etc). Now you say that it sounds really racist to you. Well, it doesn't sound racist to me. "The Romanians" contextually refers to the band of Romanian thugs which has taken over this article. It does not refer to the Romanians as a nation or peoples. And where were you when Anittas and Bonaparte were being racist? And especially, especially, especially Dacodava (he even made death threats against Poles and said some very nasty things to Hungarians)?? --Node

Constantzeanu, you're wasting your time, trust me. Node needs to grow up and it won't happen tonight.

Node, if you are as mature as you want to sound, just say where the article is wrong, and stop blaming people for being nationalist. Oh, and by the way, serving justice is not on Wikipedia's agenda. — AdiJapan ☎ 11:57, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

The article is wrong pretty much everywhere. Follow the diff I provided and you will see that given how much the article has changed, and pretty much entirely rewritten by the Romanian thugs here, there's no Quick Fix. --Node

What I find most amusing in Node's tantrum is the pomp with "the true Moldovans"... Talk about a ridiculous situation: on one hand we have an American kid named Mark Williamson with a nebulous ancestry (nothing bad in this..) and a weird obsession and, let’s put myself on the other hand, a Romanian guy from the province of Moldova, from a purely Romanian family with documents attesting its history in Moldova ever since Petru Rares, throughout four centuries in Suceava and Neamt counties. However, the American guy pretends that he represents the "true Moldovans". Can somebody explain me how can someone be so disillusional?--MarioF 15:22, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I didn't say I represented true Moldovans; I said that the True Moldovans will show up. Do I consider myself a "true Moldovan"? Yeah, I do, because it's in my immediate ancestry. Do I think I'm the "truest Moldovan"? Certainly not, I've never been to Moldova. Now, you say I have a nebulous ancestry. I have made my ancestry very clear. You are from Moldavia, my parents are from Moldova. You may not believe what I say, but then, why should I believe what you say? If my ancestry is nebulous despite the clarity I've lent to it, yours is just as much so. --Node

You are not Moldovan, nor are you Vlach. You are a Russian-American-Jew. Mike Tyson is more Moldovan than you are. A crocodile is more Moldovan than you are. Harry Potter is more Moldovan than you are. You are a mixture of American, Russian, and Hebrew. --Candide, or Optimism 23:46, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Anittas, Hebrews were an ancient people. :-) bogdan 01:06, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what you call him. If I say Jew, they say I talk religion. If I say Israeli, that would also be wrong, because he's not a citizen of Israel. What then? I don't know... All I know is that he's not Moldovan and that's enough for me. :) --Candide, or Optimism 01:18, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Jew is both an ethnicity and a religion. But anyway, why do you have to call him something ? :-) bogdan 01:21, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm still optimistic that he would find his roots and stop dreaming about being Moldovan. --Candide, or Optimism 01:37, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Mark, better leave it alone. Had you been a more mature individual, you'd understand that the absurdity is not in the ridiculous semantics you try to impose here ("Moldovan" not "from Moldavia", LOL), but in your already annoying attacks against everyone you perceive as opposing your sciolist ideas about a region and a culture you’ve never really visited. For instance: when you try to sell vindictive theories about how the “ugly Bucharestian” writing was imposed upon your “Moldovan” (while you are not a Moldovan, and the literary language in Romania and RM has nothing to do with the subdialect of Bucharest), or when you declare the Moldovans opposing your view as “unionists” (while there is no necessary connection between the opinions about the language and unionism)… Do you understand how absurd you are when pretending that you are a Moldovan, even if you've never been in that part of the word, while you insist to make a difference between Moldovans and Romanians from the province of Moldova since the culture is different on the two sides of the Prut? Who is closer to your hypothetical "Moldovan"? You, some American kid, or a Romanian from the Romanian province of Moldova??? Anyway, please understand that the ridiculous aspect of this whole situation is that the people coming from there, educated in the respective culture, aware about some nuances and matter of facts you have no way to understand keep in telling you again and again about how wrong you are while you still insist in masquerading a “true Moldovan”. Otherwise, I called your ancestry nebulous for the simple reason that you declared that you are partially Jew, partially whatever something that gave you the name Williamson. There is nothing bad in having a mixed ancestry; what’s wrong is artificially stressing a culturally speaking faded compartment of this ancestry as a weapon against the actual members of the respective culture. The first time when I addressed your ignorance and lack of sensitivity, I declared your behavior childish without knowing that you are actually a child. Now that I know, I tend to find attenuating circumstances for your impetuosity. However, please grow up!--MarioF 23:24, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

You see, I think we are dealing with a very special boy here. The obsession with Moldova on the part of Mark Williamson( a.k.a. Node) is pretty strange for a 16 year old kid. Constantzeanu 15:38, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that he is not a 16yr old kid, but eg, a fat old former minister of culture of Moldavian SSR? (you know, all these misleading avatars, when a KGB spy or a child molester presents himself as a 12-year-old girl...) mikka (t) 18:28, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Uh-oh... you busted me... How did you know!?! --Node

No, no. Not at all. I am quite convinced that he is exactly what he says he is: a 16 year old teenager. The fact that he did not bolster (I would not say hide it, because to be honest, he never lied about his age when confronted with it) the fact that he is just a kid, actually makes this even more plausible. I just think it is odd for a 16 year old kid to be obsessed with this sort of stuff. Maybe, even strange. Constantzeanu 01:06, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Whats up with the IP's?

I just wonder why so many of the editors who want to change the article from the current version are posting with IP's its pretty clear that they are probbly one of the editors with accounts who have been participating in the discussion. Is it just that they do not want to be associated with their own edits? Dalf | Talk 02:35, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I also have an idea as to who we are dealing with here. In essence it is only one ip: that is 128.something.something.something. What 128 is doing here amounts to vandalism. Things must be discussed first, sources must be presented and then we proceed with changes to the article. Also if trolling is the case here, I will ask an admin to check it out. Constantzeanu 03:32, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Consteantzeanu, I resent your accusation, although you weren't explicit. Now, I am not that IP. I think that user should log in. BUT, I think what that user is doing is about AS FAR FROM VANDALISM AS YOU CAN GET -- see Wikipedia:Vandalism. People should discuss their changes ideally. But this is Wikipedia -- simply making changes to a page without discussing it first is encouraged, see WP:BOLD. Besides, did you discuss more than one or two of the massive changes you made to this article? No... And you asked for scholarly sources from me -- did you give any for your changes? No. My best guess is that that IP is a not-logged-in Christopher Sundita or someone else who has kept up with this debate. --Node 10:46, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Reversion

Please see [7] -- I'm just curious, did anyone ever actually look at my changes? I've noticed that nearly all of the edits I've made to Moldova- and Romania-related articles recently have been instantly reverted, including a couple which were just spelling and grammar fixes. I'm beginning to suspect you folks are reverting on sight without looking at my edits. Now, that aside, as you can see, I made very few changes to the article.

Had I made more extensive or more obviously controversial changes, reversions would be understandable. However, in this case, despite the fact that they were accompanied by edit summaries, I would not hesitate to call these "unexplained reverts". Given the small extent of the changes, I think you should be able to enumerate specific objections to my changes. --Node 10:58, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Node, I would call that large extent of changes. Look at the difference between versions. And when you mix good changes (spelling, wording) with bad changes in one edit, you cannot expect the other editors to carefully revert just part of the changes. It's not practical. Why don't you edit in steps, one kind of changes at a time, starting with those which nobody would have reasons to revert? — AdiJapan ☎ 12:41, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Large extent? Hah. Most of the changes were addition of {{fact}} templates, which you have no right to remove even if you dispute my other edits, or changing of wording from Constantzeanu (such as "Romanian language in Moldova" to "official language of Moldova" and other changes from judgemental POV wording to neutral non-judgemental wording). --Node 14:48, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I would like to know, is it possible to get an IP check for sockpuppet for that IP and find out if it is Node ue or not. And if so can we get Node ue banned for life? Duca 16:07, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Huh, are you a troll? That IP is registered to the University of Minnesota [8] - I thought Node was 16 and lived in Arizona. Either way, that wasn't a very nice thing to say. I'd just like to make a few comments now: this article is located at "Moldovan language" - that means that Wikipedia is acknowledging it as a language (and not a mere dialect of some other language). In Wikipedia, regional variations of languages are usually in the form "region - language" - e.g. American English, Canadian French, Mexican Spanish, Egyptian Arabic and so on. If this article were full of Romanian POV, then this article would be at Moldovan Romanian. It isn't, so I think that the current version is totally acceptable. You can't ignore the experts: Ethnologue, Britannica, World Book Encyclopaedia, Encarta and the Country Studies of the Library of Congress all indicate that it is a Romanian dialect (part of the Romanian language). The title of this article, in my opinion is a sufficient concession and I think it should stay this way, as the Moldovan government recognise it as an independent language. There is no need to fill the article with the Moldovan government's POV as well as having their title. Of course, I don't really know much about this, it is just my ill informed opinion. Latinus 16:29, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Kalimera. You are pretty much right latinus. On top of all that you said, which is 100% correct, the Moldovan government according to the 1989 language law recognizes a Moldo-Romanian unity in the language and states that Moldovan is Romanian. As a result, yes they left that article 13 in the constitution where it says "Moldovan language"(a Soviet-era legacy) but in actuality the 1989 law makes it pretty clear that Moldovan and Roamanian are the same thing according to Moldovan law. Mos Grigore 17:41, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Gee, yet another mysterious sockpuppet. I wonder whose it is :-))) Latinus 18:06, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Well you saw that a racist and unballanced user has called me a sockpuppet and now you go ahead and repeat the same thing. You want to check? Fine check and see if I am this same Bonaparte person.Mos Grigore 18:22, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Just check Mos Grigore's talkpage. Ghirlandajo simply accuses him of sockpuppetry with no mention of who the operator is, and Mos Grigore responds by saying he is not Bonaparte. Nobody even mentioned Bonaparte. Hmm. --Node 14:50, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Node, I guess you were referring to my edit summary when you said it was misleading. What did you find misleading about it? I did exactly what I said: reverted your changes but kept some. Specifically I kept those changes which, as you can check, were not going to be reverted by subsequent editors. For the other changes you will have to reach a consensus. And consensus will not be reached by warring. Be reasonable. — AdiJapan ☎ 19:57, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Resistance to neutrality.

It seems that just a couple of weeks ago, there was a real argument going back and forth where on one end, the article was slanted a bit towards Moldovenism, and on the other, it was slanted more towards Romanianism.

However, with the help of our good friend Consteantzeanu and a little bit of computer troubles on my part and constant berating on this talkpage from MarioF, Vasile, and co. towards all who disagreed, it was quickly slanted towards Romanianism and now the debate seems to be Romanianist POV vs Romanianist-slanted Neutrality. How we got from trying to search for some middle ground to trying to search for a still-slanted-but-somewhat-less-slanted version is amazing to review.

Now, again, I would like to raise the issue of discrimination against me in reversion of my edits. I still don't believe people check the diffs before reverting, this is something I do and something you absolutely must do before reverting because otherwise it's indiscriminate reversion which is against the rules. To simply follow around a user and revert all of their edits to particular articles without reviewing them is unacceptable.

That aside. [9]

The main issues seem to be.

Description of the language as either the "Romanian language in the Republic of Moldova" (and variations thereof) or the "official language in the Republic of Moldova". Constantzeanu has been Eccentricism insisting that I cite scholars for every minute change I make, but it doesn't appear he cited any for this change of his (it didn't used to say "official name for the Romanian language" in the first sentence!). To be sure, according to the definition of "language", "Moldovan" is not just a "name for a language" but is in fact a language. The debate is about whether or not it is a separate language from Romanian, and that is elaborated on later in the article. There is absolutely no reason to say in the first sentence that Moldovan=Romanian-no-ifs-ands-or-buts, other than POV maneuvering. This is not universally agreed-upon in the real world, and it's ridiculous to pretend that you can solve things by imposing your concept of "truth" on others. Now, I'm sure we can all agree that "Moldovan is the official name of the official language of the Republic of Moldova". Is that an untrue statement? It doesn't seem so, and if you think it is, that will take some discussion before any progress could ever be made. Now, you may or may not believe that "Moldovan" is the "official name ... Romanian ... Moldova", but the bottom line is that many people don't, and it's not a universal truth, and the entire idea of whether or not Moldovan==Romanian is expounded upon in great detail later in the article.
Reference to "history of Moldovan (Romanian) in Moldova", vs. "linguistic history of Moldova". What on Earth is your issue here? The former is POV and passes judgment on the very issue described in the article, which is an absolute no-no! I would settle for "history of Moldovan in Moldova", without your little parenthetical, but "linguistic history of Moldova" strikes me as more NPOV because it avoids the issue altogether.

Now, what this seems to me is that you all want to seize every opportunity you can in the article to effectively say "HAY GUESS WOT MOLDOVAN===============ROMANIAN!!!! PASS IT ON!", a cheap shot because in those particular circumstances there is no discussion of the issue because they are references to the language/name/idea rather than complex analyses of the issue. If you guys still can't recognise that all of that is clearly inappropriate here, we've made much less progress over the past couple of months than I had previously thought. It should be clear to everyone involved by now that simple references should not pass judgement, and rather than referring to "Moldovan (Romanian)" or "Moldovan, which is separate from Romanian,..." we should say simply "Moldovan" or "languages/language/linguistic ... Moldova" which attempts to not pass judgment.

There is plenty of room for your information on whether or not Moldovan==Romanian in other sections of the article, most particularly the section titled controversy.--Node 11:11, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

And can the users stop taking cheap shots, telling me I'm not a Moldovan? Since when did that actually matter to this article? MarioF, from Romania, already seems to think he has more authority on the topic than Oleg, from Rep Moldova, so in fact it doesn't really even matter to him whether or not people are Moldovan, does it? I say I am Moldovan, you say I am not, either way, it does not matter here because we should be discussing this article, not our family tree. And besides, how does Anittas (who has rebranded himself as "Candide, or Optimism", seemingly in an attempt to divorce himself from the negative image which had become associated with his username through his own malicious actions, similar to how many US tobacco companies rebranded...) know that I'm not some unionist professor in Chisinau having a good laugh at his expense by pretending to be a Moldovenist? Only I know for sure who I am and who I am not, it is absolutely ridiculous that somebody whom I have never met presumes to know better than can I what my "true" nationality is. Anittas says I'm a Jew. Maybe I made that up (as Dpotop and Vasili claim, they also think I lied about being gay, now that would make me the first person to pretend to be gay in a really long time!), maybe I'm Eastern Orthodox, or a Muslim, or Bahá'í, or Lutheran, or Buddhist or Hindu, you'll never know will you? Maybe I'm American, maybe I'm Moldovan, maybe I'm Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Italian, Romanian, only I can really know in this Wikipedia, so don't tell me what I'm and what I'm not because that's not anything you can judge from your position. And FYI my parents are not any of those late-generation Russian Jewish immigrants in Chisinau, they are real Moldovan Jews who do exist, and if you believe the contrary you need to study the history of Judaïsm in Eastern Europe a bit more. --Node 11:23, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

You can be an early Jew, if it makes you feel any better - you're still not a Moldovan. --Candide, or Optimism 12:30, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Nice, Anittas. Nice. Apparently you didn't read any of what I just wrote. --Node 22:10, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Firstly, this article is not about you and whether you are Moldovan - it's about minor differences: link. I cannot see any major difference worth disputing, except maybe the location of {{Eastern Romance languages}} and Anittas's trollish edit summary. Has anyone considered using a language infobox? It won’t be anything new; the article on the Mandarin dialect of Chinese has one. That way, Node will be happy and we keep the text in Anittas's version (give and take). --Latinus (talk (el:)) 12:25, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Latinus, that was pretty much my point. People like Vasile, MarioF, and Anittas seem to think that who I am is somehow important to this article and every other Moldova-related article I have ever edited. It isn't. And even if it were, it's arrogant and strange that they think they know my ancestry better than I do. I'm not sure where you get the idea that I will be happy if we add the infobox. Neutrality is something you just can't make compromises about. Anittas' version is simply non-neutral -- it makes a judgment at the beginning of the article which is totally inappropriate and not "universal truth", and is unnecessary as well considering that it's discussed later in the article anyway. I would like the infobox added back, yes, but I think neutrality of words is more important than the layout. --Node 22:10, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

It becomes relevant when you claim to be Moldovan and you aren't Moldovan. That is when I have to set the record straight. --Candide, or Optimism 01:00, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Neutrality of articles is indeed more important, but in this case, both version seem identical to me. --Latinus (talk (el:)) 22:13, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

The difference is that Node_ue's version is misleading. Anyway, except for a few fruitcakes such as Stati, no one is disputing that "Moldovan" is just a name for "Romanian". According to all the notable linguists, according to the law of Moldova, even according to what the politicians say (see the Voronin quote for an example), Moldovan is just a name for Romanian. bogdan

By the way, who spells Judaism "Judaïsm"?!? Genuine spelling or linguistic creationism (makeup - eccentricism)? --Latinus (talk (el:)) 12:34, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if anybody else does, I was thinking along the lines of zoölogy. Because the "ai" in "Judaism" is ot pronounced like most other "ai"s in English. --Node 22:10, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

The French do, to make clear that "a" and "i" are in separate syllables. bogdan 12:54, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, they spell it "Judaïsme", note the ending "e". Nobody spells it "Judaïsm". :-) 12:56, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Guys, who cares if Node is Jewish or not. Let's stick to the article, not Node ue's religious background.

Having said that, I was soo happy that I have been singled out as a Romanian shovinist, capitalist and expantionist neo-nazi fascist-Romanian imperialist, shovnist pig who wants nothing more but to convince the whole world through my shovinist-imperialist Romanian conspiracy that the poor, defenceless little Moldovans are nothing more but Romanians. But alas, Node ue is back and he will defend Moldovans world-wide from Romanian imperialists and capitalists like me. He shall smithe the Romanian enemy wherever he may be. He will put this article in his favorite list and shall check it every 15 minutes, 24 hours/day, 7 days/week. He will revert any attempt by the Romanian conspiracy agency and he will, I repeat WILL, troll it endlessly until the whole world will know the truth that "Moldovans are nothing, not even close, not even a tiny itty, bitty similar to those Romanian bastards and shovinist-pigs.Constantzeanu 18:34, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Constantzeanu, yet again you try to make me seem unreasonable by acting as if I've said stuff I didn't say. I never called you a shovinist (or a chauvinist), I didn't call you a capitalist and I wouldn't because I'm a capitalist myself, I never called you an "expantionist neo-nazi fascist-ROmanian imperialist" or a "shovinist pig". I never accused you of being part of a conspiracy. Now, if you don't actually want to discuss the changes, that's fine, but that essentially means you're conceding that you have no objections to my version. You wanted me to discuss it on the talkpage, so I did, and I get some sarcastic reply from you which is about as far from constructive as one can get. Great. --Node 22:10, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Node, you did not have to say all that. It is clear from your message above that you think this way. I know you keep on saing how you don't hate all Romanians, just the nationalist ones. But you put a "nationalist" label on anyone who goes against your neo-Moldovenist theory. So then in fact, what it comes down to is that you end up being against 99% of the Romanian editors on wikipedia because 99% of them would support this version under its current form. Also, you would go against 95% of the people who have voted against your Moldovan wikipedia. Did you take a look lately at the vote? It's not just Romanians there. Alot of Moldovans have signed there too and none of them have voted for it. Not even Oleg Alexandrov. Constantzeanu 00:13, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

"clear... that you think this way"? Who the fuck are you to tell me what I think? Even if you're a mental health professional, which I strongly doubt you are, you can't know what I'm thinking unless you are me, or unless you have extrasensory perception which, as a skeptic, I do not believe in. I could have said the same things you said except with "I was soo happy that I have been singled out as a Russian shovinist, communist and expantionist stalinist soviet-Russian KGB agent, shovnist pig who wants nothing more but to convince the whole world through my shovinist-KGB Russian conspiracy that the poor, defenceless little Moldovans are anything but Romanians.", but I didn't, because although I can speculate, I do not know what you think. I keep my speculations to myself because they're entirely irrelevant here, as are yours. And until I meet these Moldovans who voted against mo.wiki, what's to prove they're not just sockpuppets of Bonaparte using anonymous proxies? Everybody knows he did that here, who is and isn't Bonaparte is still a mystery, there are a few users with only a few contribs who are probably him, I think the same would easily extend to the Moldovan Wikipedia. And before you request a sockcheck, be reminded that it is useless because Bonaparte has used anonymous proxies and that he was only caught because he forgot once and accidentally edited under a sockpuppet account from his own IP. --Node 08:42, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Temper, temper :) Or you might be in danger of sounding exactly like Bonie (and end up exactly like Bonie) Constantzeanu 13:57, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Hey Node, what do you think about this version?

Well, not only was it not constructive, it was also offensive and a personal attack, so I removed it. --Node 22:10, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I am going to reinstate that so people can actually see it and make their own opinions if this is indeed a personal attack or not. Bellow is a copy of what Node ue has removed. Constantzeanu 00:04, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, it mentioned me, I found it offensive, and many others would probably agree, thus it qualifies as a personal attack. My article User:Node ue/Moldova is written with the same sort of parodial tone, but it doesn't mention specific Wikipedians -- it doesn't mention you, nor Ronline, nor me, or perhaps most notably it doesn't mention Bonaparte (one of the main motivators behind the craziness at all Moldova-related articles. I have been accused of the same, but I don't run sock farms or call people names or insert huge swaths of copyright violations into articles and pretend I wrote them myself). Such a parody can make its point just as well without mentioning names. The part where I am likened to Stati and Stalin (who, by the way, never wrote any scholarly works about Moldovan or Romanian nor expressed any interest in, contrary to the great "evil language engineer" some make him out to have been) is especially insulting; I did not check authorship but if I am not allowed to remove it, I would like a voluntary retraction of this attack from whoever made it. --Node 08:42, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Fine, don't be such a crybaby. I am gonna take the "offensive" part off.

"Moldovan language" (parody)

Moldovan is the official name of the Republic of Moldova and in the territory of Transnistria^[10]. The Constitution of Moldova declares that the Moldovan language is the official language of the state. Moldovan is nothing like Romanian and anyone who tries to say otherwise should be shot.

Moldovan may be written only in the Cyrillic alphabet. If you don't believe this, you can always go to the Moldovan Wikipedia (in Cyrillic) and over there you will see that Moldovan is indeed written in Cyrillic. The language was assigned code mo in ISO 639-1 and code mol in ISO 639-2 and ISO/DIS 639-3.

History and politics

See main article: History of the Moldovan language

The History of the Moldovan language, goes a very long way back. First there was the Moldovan language, a language unlike Romanian from all points of view and so different from Romanian that Romanians needed about 3 to 4 translators just to understand a simple Moldovan sentence. In fact, Romanians didn't even speak a language. They were all mute, and used sign language to communicate. Then slowly, those sneaky Romanians gathered at night next to Moldovan villages and listened carefully to what the Moldovans were saying. They kept on doing this, night after night for about five years until slowly they learned the language. But even then they didn't quite master it properly and thus it was to be called Romanian.

Controversy

There is no controversy over the Moldovan language. Everyone knows that it is soo different from Romanian, that it can be clearly said that Moldovan is closer to Chinese then to Romanian. Anyone who dares to contradict this opinion which has been reflected in the works of universally known scholars such as Vasily Stati, Stati Vasily and V. Stati, shall be forever blocked from Wikipedia, and if you dare to show your face on the Moldovan wiki, then you shall be immediately banned from there FOR LIFE!

Orthography

The Moldovan ortograhpy is very different from the Romanian one. That is because the languages are so different. Moldovan is written only in Cyrillic. Romanian, unlike Moldovan, cause it is so different from it, is written in that horrible Latin alphabet, which no true Moldovans would ever use( cause it's so horrible). Moldovans and Romanians are very different people and cannot understand each other, partly because of this unreconciable orthography.

Notes

^ Stati 2003 - all the notes you ever need on the Moldovan language.

External links

you don't need any. What are you? Some kind of neo-Romanian capitalist imperialist pig? What? You don't belive what's written here in the article? You don't think it's NPOV? Isn't the evidence enough? What, you want external links? We're gonna show you external links!!!

Category:Moldova Category:Languages of Moldova Category:Romanian language

Node, you said this:

Bogdan, you can't just ignore the stuff I said and say there's consensus. Constantzeanu and Latinus replied, but only Latinus replied to the real issue (Constanteanu chose instead to heckle and PA me)

however, I actually replied to you: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AMoldovan_language&diff=38526056&oldid=38521212 bogdan 10:09, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Node, stop vandalizing the article. You just reverted it to some old version disregarding all changes (both bad and good, according to your position) that had been made. You had no reason to switch interlanguage links, to "restore" language into langage, and so on. — AdiJapan ☎ 11:10, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Differences

Node wants to make the following changes:

Add {{fact}} to the statement that most linguists consider Moldovan identical to standard Romanian. I think that's unnecessary - every source I've seen refers to the official language of Moldova as Romanian and I have yet to see an independent source speak of a Moldovan language. As there is at least one linguist (who is far from neutral) who considers Moldovan an independent language, he is obviously in the minority. This is illustrated by the fact that there are very few publications (in the English language at least, that refer to an independent Moldovan language). Even Ethnologue, who is usually very liberal in declaring dialects independent languages (such as Yue Chinese), mentions Moldovan in the dialects section of their entry on Romanian.
Use the phrase "back-and-forth territory grabs". This does not seem like encyclopaedic language to me.
Use a lot of HMTL notes saying the sources do not say that. Completely unnecessary. Comments like that are for the talk page.
Insert a fact template to the statement that the Academy of Sciences in Moldova consider it identical to Romanian - to be frank, I think that this is unnecessary as well. But, if a source can be cited, let it be cited. I am sure that a google search would find something.
Move the Eastern Romance Languages template. This is obviously a POV issue, which I am not going to comment on. Whatever it is, it is silly to edit war over.

Obviously a silly revert war, despite assurance by Node that this version is more NPOV (how?), but adding fact templates do not make an article NPOV. Not ignoring Wikipedia:Avoid self references, it is obvious that you have not marked all the unsourced statements, only the ones you disagree with. If there is a section you disagree with, try using {{dubious}}. --Latinus (talk (el:)) 11:30, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

No, Latinus, the main point was changing things like "romanian in moldova" to "language of moldova". A "fact" statement doesn't imply something is untrue, it means that sources need to be cited. "back-and-forth territory grabs" was to avoid the "occupiers" vs "liberators" problem. --Node 11:16, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, well if this is all the changes he wants to make, then why the revert war? Besides, these changes are unnecessary. Constantzeanu 14:02, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

That's your POV. --Khoikhoi 05:08, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Movies

This talk page is really fun, I don't have to go to the movies any more... Andreas 00:16, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

It is fun but at the same time I am worried about certain unsigned users who vandalize the article, instead of signing in, bringing sources and discussing changes here on the talk page. Constantzeanu 01:36, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Vot asupra viitorului Wikipediei asa-zisei moldovenesti

File:Votare.jpg

Votarea a început: 12 Ianuarie 2006. Se poate vota până la: 12 Februarie 2006.

Diferenţele între limba română şi limba moldovenească sunt practic mai mici decât cele între engleza britanică şi cea americană. Având în vedere ca în şcolile din Republica Moldova nu se predă limba moldovenească ci limba română (evident cu grafie latină), nu vedem sens în existenţa unei enciclopedii separate care dubleaza conţinutul din ro.wikipedia.org cheltuind resursele limitate ale Wikipediei. Acest vot are rolul de a găsi un consens între vorbitorii de moldovenească şi/sau română în legătură cu viitorul acestei wikipedii.

Condiţiile: Durata votului va fi de patru săptămâni. Toţi participanţii trebuie să fie cunoscători ai limbii moldoveneşti/române, ei fiind potenţialii contribuitori (fiecare utilizator va fi contactat în mod individual ca să-i fie verificată identitatea şi cunoaşterea limbii). Fiecare participant trebuie să aibă la activ minimum 25 editări pe mo.wikipedia.org sau ro.wikipedia.org.

Mai sunt 2 zile.

Linkul este:

http://mo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Alegeri

Pregati-va, fiti pe faza domnilor!

Chinese Wikipedia

Although I do not speak or understand moldovan/romanian, I would like to make a comment. In the Chinese Wikpedia, zh:Wikipedia:Main, there are three tabs on top of the page: 不转换, 简体, and 繁體

Clicking on each of these tabs shows exactly the same text but using different characters depending on the locale of the user (simplified, traditional). Sorry, I do not understand Chinese either). Mybe some smart programmer can do something similar for cyrillic moldovan? Andreas 18:44, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I have made a script, while not perfect, may be ok. However, the problem is that we haven't met one Moldovan contributor that wants a Cyrillic encyclopedia. :-) The main contributors of mo.wiki are User:Node_ue, an American who barely speaks Romanian, a Korean guy who can't speak it at all and a few occasional Russian guys. bogdan 18:51, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Bogdan has only been around for a few weeks now. Sadly for him, he didn't get to meet any of the folks who actually contributed, and he's only tried to hurt the project. Why can't he just leave it be? --Node 11:01, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Node, although I am certain that you have made valuable edits on various articles in diverse sectors of Wikipedia, I have to say that your participation in Romanian-related projects has frequently focused not on constructive improvements but on pushing a particular viewpoint which is not accepted by the majority of the members working on the articles. Although you may mock other users for trying to hurt the project, I cannot say that you yourself have greatly advanced Romanian-related projects (to which, surprisingly you have demonstrated an exceptional level of interest). Although the imput of all users is certainly welcome, you do not truly wish to accept the ideas of others or bow to reason, but for some obscure reasons are trying to push an archaic pseudo-scientific ideoology unto all articles related to Moldova or Romania. The greatest effect that your presence has had (and again I am solely referring to Romanian topics as I do not wish to commit the injustice of criticising your involvement on other projcets as I am not aquainted with it) has been to incite long battles between members and have only slowed down progress. TSO1D 02:49, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

POV

This article seems to just reflect the Romanian POV, which is that Moldovan = Romanian. I've added a POV tag. Also, what happened to the language template? --Khoikhoi 01:56, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

That's not just the "Romanian POV" Khookie, it is also the "POV" of the U.S. Government, and the "POV" of virtually all linguists across the globe. But bleeding heart losers are not expected to understand this. Alexander 007 01:59, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

They most certainly don't. ;) But seriously, it's still POV, and NPOV means taking everyone into account. This article obviously doesn't. Happy editing. --Khoikhoi 02:06, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#Undue weight. Alexander 007 02:08, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Ah, so the view of the Moldovans themselves is not significant? --Khoikhoi 02:13, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

The view of the Moldovans themselves differs. Most declared that they speak Romanian, unless I'm mistaken, so one shouldn't cry too much over them. I didn't say that other views should not be represented, but a POV tag may be too much in this case. Alexander 007 02:16, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Specifically, what exactly do you find to be POV? I will remove the tag unless you have a good answer. Alexander 007 02:19, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

The fact that it says at the beginning of the article that Moldovan = Romanian. I would prefer something closer to this. --Khoikhoi 02:22, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

"Official name of the state language" was identified as a redundant phrase. Alexander 007 02:25, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

But can't we have something more like that? And then in the next sentence say, "most linguists say that Moldovan = Romanian". It just makes the article sound a lot more neutral. --Khoikhoi 02:29, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Due to the undue weight policy, I cannot answer your question at this time. I'll leave your tag for now and see how other editors respond. Alexander 007 02:32, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

About that, 76% of Moldova's population is Moldovan. 40% of the population of Moldova said that they spoke Romanian, so that leaves 36% of Moldova's population that say they speak Moldovan. This is not a "tiny minority". --Khoikhoi 02:36, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps. You haven't mentioned a return of the Infobox yet, but that would clearly be problematic, since most declared Romanian. Only those who declared Moldovan should be counted as speakers, to be NPOV. Alexander 007 02:42, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok, how about this: the infobox doesn't return, but the definition changes. --Khoikhoi 02:45, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree that a good and correct compromise should not include an infobox, which is an aggresive affront to all those who didn't declare Moldovan. I'm not sure of a definition change however, because if we apply the undue weight policy per the linguists, the Moldovan language idea becomes an exceedingly insignificant minority. If we include those who declared Moldovan, it becomes a minority view not held by specialists (except maybe Stati who is a suspect individual). Alexander 007 02:49, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

An example: if in the future it is agreed by virtually all linguists that the Japanese language and the Korean language are part of the same original language family, but 40% of Koreans and/or Japanese in a census do not accept this conclusion — and one non-prominent linguist with suspicious motives does not accept this — should Wikipedia reflect this in its definition of the Japanese-Korean language family? Alexander 007 03:25, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Per the linguists?!? If we were doing things at Wikipedia "per the linguists" then we wouldn't have separate articles for the Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and ~~Macedonian~~ languages! This just reflects nationalism. I most definitely support a definition change. --Khoikhoi 04:07, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Wrong. The overwhelming majority of linguists fully recognize a Macedonian language (yes, they do) and I suspect the same for the other languages you mention. Alexander 007 04:11, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

See also the Ethnologue reports. Alexander 007 04:20, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Oops, I added that one by mistake. Take for example, both Serbian and Croatian are mutually intelligible. The only reason people consider them separate languages is because of nationalism. --Khoikhoi 04:23, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

While I don't agree with Alexander 007's choice of language, I do agree with his core point. This isn't a question of POV; the languages are identical. The fact that a small number of people are arguing against this is reflected in the article and is given appropriate weight, considering that their position is not supported by the facts or by the overwhelming majority of the linguistics community. I'd compare this to pseudoscience (addressed in NPOV 12.2) or to Holocaust deniers. In my opinion, the POV tag does not belong here, and should come down. Khoikhoi, since I singled out Alexander for the tone of his comments, I also should add that your sarcasm in the question Ah, so the view of the Moldovans themselves is not significant? was not helpful. | Klaw ¡digame! 04:27, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think anybody's realistically debating over this article about whether or not the languages are identical, or at least nearly so (there are words that can be used in written Moldovan that won't be understood by Romanians, mostly Russian loans for things like an iron, but they are falling out of use; whether or not Moldovan is syntactically different is a topic of debate, and the idea that it *is* syntactically different at least in some ways is not the view of just a few radicals). Now, I'd like some proof of the support for the currentversion from the "overwhelming majority of the linguistics community". And when you say that, are you including all linguists, whether or not they have ever had much experience with the subject, or only linguists who know something about it? To say that Masayoshi Shibatani (for example) considers Moldovan and Romanian to be identical is essentially as meaningless as saying Al Gore considers them to be identical -- Shibatani is indeed a linguist, but his specialty is in the languages of Japan, and I'm pretty sure he's not had experience with the Moldovan issue (though I may be wrong). On the other hand, to say that Donald Dyer, Valentina Iepuri, Vasile Stati, Nicolae Raevschi, Marcu Gabinschi, Silviu Berejan, Ion Barbuta, Elena Constantinovici, Teodor Cotelnic, Nicolae Corlateanu, Gheorghe Gogin, etc., considers them to be identical, or does not consider them to be identical, should hold considerably more weight. I know Gabinschi, for one, does not because back in 1997 he wrote a book titled "Reconvergence of Moldavian towards Romanian", and a convergence requires that they be separate in the first place. Also, as Khoikhoi said, the fact that over a third of Moldovans declared "Moldovan" to be their native language should count for something.

Why don't you log in? I won't hurt you :-) By linguists, I meant the relevant linguists, just as if I was speaking of "the majority of ornithologists agree" about the classification of a certain species of wren, I would be referring to the relevant ornithologists, not to an expert on flamingos who just nods his head at a convention. Alexander 007 02:48, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Of course you will. You didn't hesitate to imply that Khoikhoi, a well-respected Wikipedian linguist, is a "bleeding heart loser", so I have no doubt that you will not hesitate to attempt to impale me with similar insults. Now, who exactly are these "relevant linguists"? If you're talking about people who think that Romanian and Moldovan "are and have always been" identical, it clearly doesn't include many of the specialists in the Republic of Moldova. Check out this writing of Marcu Gabinschi (who, by the way, tends to write from a relatively anti-Russian perspective, which will hopefully make you like him more; emphasis is mine): "The few Romanian writers of Bessarabia with their few works, usually of mediocre value, could not change the state of affairs. The local intelligentsia, mostly of noble origin was educated in Russian (or French), while ordinary people, who were almost completely illiterate, spoke their home language, suitable only for home affairs, old-fashioned agriculture and handicraft, folk-lore, as well as prayers and sermons. Such people did not understand the thousands of new words coined in the 19th century Romanian after Western (mostly French) models, and used, if necessary, Russian words in those meanings. That was the language which an ordinary Russian Moldavian practically regarded as his own, rejecting the words which he did not know, but without which modern Romanian, even a hundred years ago, was already unimaginable." Now obviously he doesn't hold the "are and have always been" view. There are also undeniable imprints left by Soviet language planning, in Moldovan phrasing such as "anu ista" (this year), "terfălogul ista de Chişinău" (this map of Chisinau), "mesajul ista" (this message), "felul ista" (this way), "prostul cela", (that fool), "omătul acela" (that snow), "norodnic" (popular), "inrîurire" (influence), "indîobşte" (generally), "odecolon" (cologne), "comandirovca" (official trip), "prezidium" (praesidium), "a oforma" (arrange), "neprimejduire" (security), "necăţînd la" (despite), "rîmlean" (Roman), "ocere" (queue), "subotnic" (Sunday work), etc. What say you?

First, I will address some things that may be off topic to our readers, but relevant to us editors. In your early days Node (as late as December 2005 or so, if not later), you said many inconsiderate things about Wallachians, Romanians, the Romanian language, etc., which was only trolling and created an extremely hostile editing environment, and it in fact backfired in your face, as well as ruining your image to other editors. If you try to improve more (I noticed you have improved some lately, but I'm not sure), it will be better for everyone; I certainly will not provoke such an editor. About those examples, I think we can agree (because I recall you admitting this before) that you cannot make a case for Moldovan being a separate language based on linguistic evidence, because if Moldovans all come to agree they are speaking Romanian, then they are speaking Romanian. I do not like getting involved in this socio-political dispute, and I find it a disgusting shame brought on in very large part by Russian machinations in Moldova over the decades. BTW, Khoikhoi is a linguist? He mostly edits articles pertaining to ethnic groups. Khoikhoi pissed me off with his "Romanian POV" remark in his first post under this section; if he doesn't know what's going on here, he shouldn't have come on so agressive and snide; irritating me because I had to explain to him that it is not just "the Romanian POV". Alexander 007 22:30, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

First of all, I think it's funny that you automatically assume I'm node because my ip address. Did you know that there is another editor on ro and mo wikis with over 8000 edits who edits from the same place as node? Though that's sort of a moot point, because I am, in fact, Node. Again, though, you tend to assign all blame to me for the hostile editing environment. If I had really said anything inconsiderate, it would've been against the rules, and some administrative action would've been taken against me. On the other hand, Bonaparte, Anittas, and yourself did not hesitate to fling names at people such as idiot, loser, vandal, and try to insult people on the basis of ethnicity (you called people Russians, even when they weren't), religion (this was really only Anittas and Bonaparte, not you), sexual orientation, and age. I think it's quite interesting that virtually all outside observers have tended to see this as something where I have behaved in line, and you and your friends (especially Bonaparte and to a lesser degree Anittas) tried to turn it into an all-out insult war. The only people who seemed to want to paint me as the agressor were you and your buddies.

Now, back to the actual topic at hand -- if all Moldovans did agree they were speaking Romanian, that would be one thing, but they don't. You keep trying to make it sound as if all or even most Moldovans say that, but it's not true. About 40% of Moldova's population said they speak Romanian, compared to 36% claiming Moldovan (not including Transnistria). And the majority of Romance-language speakers in Ukraine, for one, claim their mother tongue is "Moldavian". And even if all Moldovans claimed their mother tongue was Romanian, which they do not, it would still be wrong to declare, as you want this article to, that the official languages of the two countries are "identical", because they aren't.

And why do you assume that you know so much about this topic compared to him? He wasn't agressive and snide. The tone he used was very cautious and he made sure to note that it only _seemed_ POV, not taht it _was_. And it's true, it *is* the Romanian POV, NOT the truth. Moldovan and Romanian are not identical. Now excuse me while I freshen up with odecolonul acela. --24.251.68.75 23:07, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

When you just learn a phrase, you have a tendency to want to use it :-) No, it is not just the Romanian POV, and whether it is true or not is not a simple answer, as in the positive sciences. No one person can stop Moldovan speech from being called the Moldovan language rather than Romanian; it is a social issue however, not linguistic. To outsiders, ethnic Montenegrins speak Serbian, but many of them may call it or wish to call it Montenegrin. Wow. European states are so petty and divisive. I'm glad I live in the United States, where I speak English from California to New York, not Californian in California and New Yorkian in New York. But it's okay, soon they will all be speaking English in Europe anyway. Alexander 007 02:20, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure how that's really relevant. What is relevant, is that you are claiming Moldovan and Romanian are "identical", which is obviously not the case since I've provided examples (as you and your ilk have so eagerly desired for so long) and you dodge them with logical fallacies and various irrelevant sundries. The current political situation in California, New York, Montenegro, Serbia, or Argentina is entirely irrelevant here. The biggest hugest difference between Montenegro and Moldova is that Montenegro is currently part of the same country as Serbia, and that they were united for much, much, much longer than Romania and Moldova ever were. In addition, before 1900 you will find no serious references to "crnogorski jezik", whereas you can find plenty to "limba moldoveneasca". Very few specialists seriously consider that Montenegrin, as a single monolithic entity, has significant differences from Serbian -- it's really more of a dialect continuum, and the "distinctive" features of Montenegrin aren't found in all of Montenegro. If you're talking about literary Montenegrin, assuming you're talking about the literary language used by most Montenegrins, I'd be surprised if there were any differences with literary Ijekavian Serbian -- having been part of the same political unit for so long has worn off all real differences in the literary languages that may have existed. Moldova, on the other hand, had the exact opposite -- after being part of the USSR, they're left with such still-used words as "odecolon" and "ocere", and the remnants of Soviet linguistic engineering such as "anu ista" or "prostul cela". The word frequency of words that were "forbidden" in MSSR is significantly lower in modern Moldovan corpuses than in their Romanian counterparts. As much as most Moldovans would like to discard Soviet influences entirely, that's really not possible to do except over a long period of cultural assimilation. And how many respected linguists who specialise in Montenegrin regard literary Montenegrin as *any* different at all from Serbian, compared with specialists in Moldovan? People who have researched the issue have all come up with the same answer pretty much, I provide again Gabinschi as a reference -- despite being quite obviously anti-Stalinistic and speaking with great contempt for the USSR and its linguistic policies, he reaches the rather obvious conclusion that there are quite a few significant differences between literary Romanian and literary Moldovan. --24.251.68.75 05:46, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, and despite all those magnificent things you cite, a very large number of Moldovans declared that they speak Romanian. And again, you cannot prove on linguistic grounds that they are not speaking Romanian. So, to these Moldovans, all of your vague rumblings and irrelevant gasps are side-effects of a prolonged process of masturbation on your part; while the other Moldovans who declared Moldovan, I suppose, will carry you (at least in your imagination) in their arms and yell "Hip Hip Hooray, Node is our Hero!" Lame f***s. Y'all should all speak English and shut the f*** up; find something else to bicker over. Alexander 007 05:54, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

A very large number, as in less than half? Now, with your statements like "...process of masturbation...", "Lame f***s", "shut the f*** up", I think you're just itching for someone to complain about you.

Half, a bit less than half, more than half, it doesn't matter, and that's not the point. Many Moldovans (Yes, Moldovans in the Republic) of their own free will declared that their language is Romanian. The Moldovan next door may have declared otherwise. This is because it is a social issue, not linguistic. It doesn't matter how many differences you can or cannot find (there are limits to this of course, which do not concern us in this case, but in the case of obviously distant or unrelated languages); dialects do not even have to be mutually intelligible, and they can still be dialects according to the nomenclature of the people. Your attempt to show that Moldovan is a language on linguistic grounds is retarded, and irrelevant (in effect, it dictates to the Moldovans who declared Romanian that they are "in fact" speaking Moldovan---according to who? according to what?). I'm sorry. Next issue please. Alexander 007 02:52, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[breaking Node's text for a moment---I don't remember calling people Russians who weren't Russian; if I did, my mistake; sort of like Node's mistake when he assumes that all Moldovans who disagree with him must be just Romanians---Alexander 007 02:44, 3 April 2006 (UTC)]

You, Anittas, and Bonaparte seemed particularly fond of referring to myself, Oleg, Serhio, Mikkalai, FrancisTyers, Irpen, and others as "the russians", although you generally said it in Romanian rather than English. The Russians did this, the Russians did that, look what the Russians did now, let's vote here or do this or that so we can "win" against the Russians. None of those people were Russians, not a single one, and before you tell me I'm wrong Mikkalai is Belarusan and Irpen is Ukrainian. --24.251.68.75 05:46, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Can you link an example of me engaging in this? Your memory is confounding things. Alexander 007 05:56, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Check the RoWpNb, various user talkpages. And if my memory is confounding things, you're the Main Monarch of confunction -- like all these times I supposedly made jabs against oh-so-evil Wallachians.

And then who would you be, O anonymous IP, the Secretary of Confunction (of course, not my secretary)? I await your links, which will only show Bonaparte and Anittas engaging in those "behaviors". Now, instead of boring the audience with your manifestos and your attempts to "prove" (?) that Moldovan is a language or not a language ("proving" this is not the issue nor is it our intent in Wikipedia), how about stating what article content you want to change, add, or remove? This is business, not email conversation. Alexander 007 02:09, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Back on topic though, what article content are you disputing, exactly? Alexander 007 02:36, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

In the Bosnian language article one may find the Ethnologue report where it is described that ethnologue has split Serbo-Croatian into differently named languages: Bosnian, Croatian, and so on. So Ethnologue recognizes Bosnian and Croatian and Serbian; but in Ethnologue's Languages of Moldova, no Moldovan language is mentioned. Explain. Alexander 007 04:32, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I apologize a bit for the "bleeding heart losers" phrase, but I was not brash enough to say that Khoikoi is a "bleeding heart". He may in fact be detached in the sense of a hobbyist, treating ethnicities and languages like stamps in a stamp collection; and a duplicate stamp is always less fun than a shiny new stamp :-) Alexander 007 04:51, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Just because Ethnologue says something, doesn't mean everyone has to believe it. See Ethnologue#Controversy. And Klaw, for my comment Ah, so the view of the Moldovans themselves is not significant? - I wasn't being sarcastic.

We'll see how things go on from here. I removed the POV tag, but perhaps there's more controversy yet to emerge on this talk page. Until then, I need to work on the Assyrian page. ;) --Khoikhoi 05:06, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I expect the POV question will arise again from time to time, but speaking just for my own opinion, until someone comes up with some evidence - such as factual evidence, or a citation from a non-involved linguistics expert - the article should continue to say that the languages are identical, with a small section on the controversy. | Klaw ¡digame! 05:18, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

The Anon IP and His Holy Mission

O Anon IP, can you please spare us the mystery, thrill, and suspense, and clarify what actual changes you wish to make to the article? We cannot (I assume none of us here has ESP to that degree) read your "mind". Thank you. Unless, your only desire is to spam talk pages with obscure manifestos. Alexander 007 02:25, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

All the parts that say that Moldovan == Romanian, full stop. Regardless of what anyone says they're speaking, it's undeniable that there are linguistic differences between Rep Moldova and Romania, which I went into in some detail above (there is more in the reference I gave from Marcu Gabinschi, and I don't doubt that much more works have been done on it). Also, the use of a reference I added for something that it doesn't actually say, seems rather unscrupulous -- the Kogan Page reference does NOT say that Moldovan and ROmanian "are identical", and I'm guessing I'm the only person here who looked at it at all, because I am the only one so far who seems to actually be interested in the topic at hand rather than just wanting to "make sure truth is upheld" (code for "make sure the page doesn't say anything I don't like"). There have been many purges of relevant information simply because this person or that person didn't like it, and constantly reverted (and got their friends to revert) when it was added back. The problem with the editing dynamic at this article is that it is very slanted. If I add something in which is Romanian nationalist, it will probably stay unless it is really very bad (like "Moldovans who answered they are speaking Moldovan are just pawns of the Soviets", I hope that wouldn't remain if someone added it). But if I add examples of colloquial Moldovan expressions, taken from a peer-reviewed article in an academic journal, they are inevitably removed.

That is also part of the reason I don't log in much anymore. You and your ilk began to WikiStalk me. Although it is considered harassment and I could complain, I never did because I admit I did the same thing with Bonaparte and to a much lesser extent Anittas. You reverted anything I added or changed in any article relating even remotely to Moldova or Romania, you voted "oppose" in all votes where I voted "support" and vice-versa, you commented on all of the talkpages I edited. You can try to defend WikiStalking but when it comes down to it, it's unacceptable. The proper method for ensuring neutrality is to track articles using your watchlist, and evaluate changes on their merit as changes rather than on the user who made them. --24.251.68.75 21:13, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

...*yawn* since I've happened to come across this piece of Node-ism after sneaking a mischievous look into Wikipedia again, I will respond to it; but please Node, try to refrain from addressing comments to me in the future; I no longer want to contribute to Wikipedia, even anonymously. And refrain from making vague charges. If you're going to make charges, assemble the evidence and start an RfC or something. I did indeed often click on a user's contributions (including vandal IPs) to see what they were up to, but that is not wiki-stalking; I would occasionally click on your contributions also, but don't fantasize that I did so especially often. Wikistalking to me entails actually editing articles/pages which you have recently edited, even though I had no seeming prior interest in an article/page. As far as I know, I did such a "wiki-stalk" only once, here; however, I only intervened because I did not feel that Bakharev deserved to be an admin. The rest of your charges seem like demented paranoia or malicious lies. It's funny that you accuse me of Wiki-stalking, after your recent, harassing anonymous ejaculations on my talk page, topped off by a post at WP:AN/I where you stated that you "loved me all the time" and you are "now in Japan". It's also funny that you refer to some other editors as "my ilk", as if they are the brood or spawn of Alexander 007. Unless they are my sockpuppets, no other editor is my "ilk", and I simply do not like being associated with any other Wikipedia editor, whether he/she is User:Jimbo Wales, User:Slim Shady, or User:Node ue or whoever. For your actual comments regarding the Moldovan language, I expect other editors to address your concerns. I'm bored of this stuff. I will only state that the "linguistic differences" you refer to don't amount to much if Moldovans consider their speech to be Romanian, as many do (by the way, why is it that no manly, musky, muscular, steel-ribbed Moldovan — with a five o'clock shadow, biceps and pectorals shaped by dark Russian rye bread and oiled by shots of straight vodka over the years perhaps — has appeared to join you in your Holy War here, Big Boy?) :-) My friend was at community service today and took some snapshots of a female prostitute getting fucked in a car near Highland & Fountain Ave, might b back later 69.224.119.38 23:09, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it is wikistalking. Clicking on somebody's contributions is one thing; clicking on them with the intent of undermining their position is quite another. I especially remembered the RfA of Bakharev because you explicitly mentioned how you arrived at that page. I'm sure you did the same elsewhere, just without mentioning it. Now, I have not edited your talkpage. "harassing anonymous ejaculations" are not from me. I may have done some stuff that is pretty weird as you perceive it, but I would not say I "loved you all the time", and I am most certainly not in Japan right now, nor have I ever been, and I don't intend to travel there anytime soon. That anonymous user is yanking your chain. Honestly, unless someone has the exact IP I am using right now, or unless they are willing to log in to prove they are me, they are probably an impostor. Ask this gushing ejaculating loving anon to log in, and I guarantee you they won't because they are not me. Now, can't you find pictures of people having sex on the internet? If you looked you could probably find pictures of women getting fucked in cars near Highland & Fountain. I know there are pictures of women getting fucked in cars near Van Buren (Phoenix's redlight district) available online. Maybe we should have some at Wikimedia COmmons... maybe I will take some and release them into the PD... I think i might need a Model RElease though --24.251.68.75 19:14, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Sunday, about 1:20 pm. I came across another anonymous post from Node ue. Response to Node: "clicking on them with the intent of undermining their position"---how do you know my intent? What is your position anyway, besides doggystyle? Unless User:Alex Bakharev is your sockpuppet (I suspect you have a number of socpuppets, but he's not one; sockpuppeting seems like such a Node thing to do), I don't see how a vote against Bakharev undermines your position. Yes, I explicitly stated how I arrived at that RfA page, because I don't conceal my actual "wiki-stalking", which as far as I know was limited to that incident. Node says: "I'm sure you did the same elsewhere"---provide links plz. I am not so sure, nor am I even sure that you are sure; you may be just lying again. That anonymous on my talk page was most likely you, I see no reason to go against Occam's razor and propose a magical, ludicrous impostor, who is probably green, three feet tall, and standing on your shoulder. Bonaparte tried the same gag, claiming those other editors were his "impostors". Sure kiddo. These links for me are enough to indicate it was you:[11] and [12], and you can say what you want, dear. I don't believe in martians. About those snapshots, I really don't care, I just mentioned it 'cause I was notified of the incident right before I came across your earlier message on this talk page, and the quantum nature of the universe told me it was a message meant for you; it also pointed to the male, heterosexual interests of Alexander 007, and might remind Node that not everyone is gay. About the Moldovan stuff---since I am determined to no longer edit Wikipedia soon, I am not concerned with this Wikipedia article. Now can you please direct your attentions to a Romanian editor who will fulfill your probable desire to have a Romanian enemy/catfight-lover, and who will find time to mud or oil wrestle with you. 69.224.119.38 20:47, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I think it's quite humourous that you could actually believe those messages were from me. Yes, I admit, I do have a sockpuppet at en.wp. I haven't used it for a few months, and I never (honestly, never) used it for Romania or Moldova-related issues. In fact, its use was mostly confined to humour, although I believe I used it twice or thrice in votes (yes, I know, it's bad, but at the time, I asked in the IRC chan, and most people admitted to having a secret sockpuppet). I have more sockpuppets at other Wikipedias, but I haven't used them recently. Rest assured I have none at mo.wp (although I probably should've, I figured it wasn't worth the trouble); I haven't used any others recently except one to gain adminship at a small Wikipedia so I could delete vandalism and tend to various other matters (committing interface translations from the outdated languagexx.php file, for example). Now, I will repeat, I do not love you, I am not in Japan, I have never been in Japan, and I am not the sort to harass/tease people about sexual or social orientation or preferences on Wikipedia or for that matter anywhere. If you are femme, or if you're butch, I honestly don't care. It has nothing to do with building an encyclopaedia. If you're a woman pretending to be a man, or if you're really a guy, or if you're intersexed, or whatever, I don't care, again, it's totally irrelevant. Now, you try to invoke Occam's Razor. Well, what say I use an open proxy and edit User talk:Mikkalai anonymously, with similar posts, professing to be you?? I could very easily do that. You erroneously assume that it's my style to do something so long as it is silly or illogical. Well, I will admit I have done some stuff that is or at least seems silly or illogical, but there is a pattern to it. I make fun of reality, I try to get people to look at things as they really are by distorting perspective using facts, I construct complex thought experiments whose goal is to enlighten but more often than not just end up confusing people. But I do not make up fantasies about my relationships with people. I do not joke about love. I do not joke about sexual orientation. I have seen up close and personal what it can do to people to struggle with their sexual orientation or gender identity. If you are honestly struggling with yours, I find nothing silly about that, it's quite serious and I would be happy to discuss it. But at the same time, if you're not questioning your sexual orientation or your gender identity, it is still quite a serious issue to me. I do not label people. If you want to identify as a woman, or as a man, that is your choice. I will not say you are a woman, unless you say it first. I believe that your identity is your own. If you want to be a horny womanizing heterosexual Romanian-American young adult male, I respect that. At the same time, if you want to be a relatively asexual shy bisexual Californian adult female, I respect that too. I do not joke about it. I do not make fun of it. I respect it, it is yours. That anon is not me. I do not act like that. And I resent your accusation. --Node 11:11, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

OK Node-ster, I withhdraw, since I have no need to accuse you anyway. I hope you are not User:Moldova in the moldovan wiki, cuz that guy is a jerk-off. Kinda good to see you are logged in again, because it was making me feel guilty, as if it was my fault. Now do whatever you want in this wiki-wiki playground. I'm outta here aside from sporadic edits. To you Moldovans out there who call the language Moldovan: it's all good, whatever. I was reppin' the other side of the coin. No hard feelings, don't be a square, etc. 69.228.53.144 04:50, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

If someone is proposing a return of the infobox, I for one have no problem (yes, I'm such an extremist; such an imperialist expansionist). Whether one is speaking Moldovan or Romanian depends on one's personal declaration; that is the only difference. Period. It is not up to the Moldovan government and its (current) declaration of an "official language named Moldovan"; it depends on the census results. Alexander 007 03:30, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

An infobox here would bring with it more problems than it would solve. You'd have a hard time filling it with unquestionable data. In fact, the only thing beyond doubt would be the ISO codes. Everything else (language family, number of speakers, regulating body, etc.) would need to have a comment specifying the meaning of the data. Then you end up having most of the information in explanatory notes. — AdiJapan ☎ 06:56, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Census was in 2004. Are the complete results printed yet? `'mikka (t) 18:37, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

No, of course the results have not been compiled yet. Only two years have passed since the census was carried out and since the government plans to have one for every decade, that still leaves them eight years to complete the process. You can see some preliminary information on http://www.statistica.md/. By the way please notice that among the languages offered they have ro, ru, and en, however no md and this is an official government site. TSO1D 00:24, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

So

A new beginning

Leading paragraph

The source of Jan Dlugosz

Opening paragraph

Daco-Romanian

Contents

See Also

A short history for the inocent visitors

a fresh start for a fresh year

Disputed statements

Suggested rewrite

Intro

History

Controversy

Orthography

Comparison

Comments on suggested rewrite

Infobox poll

What you guys thnk about moving the eastern romance languages template

Incorrect!

Congratulations

Official definition

Just a tag's behavior

Respecting each other

Intro

2/3

What is the purpose of an encyclopedic article?

Indonesian vs. Malay

What is a language?

Whats up with the IP's?

Reversion

Resistance to neutrality.

"Moldovan language" (parody)

History and politics

Controversy

Orthography

Notes

External links

Node, you said this:

Differences

Movies

Vot asupra viitorului Wikipediei asa-zisei moldovenesti

Chinese Wikipedia

POV

The Anon IP and His Holy Mission