From: dleschin@FEDS66.PRIME.COM (Dmitri Leschiner)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.soviet
Subject: Re: Romanian language
Date: 8 Sep 92 22:11:08 GMT
Reply-To: "soc.culture.soviet via ListServ" <SCS-L@indycms.iupui.edu>

>Date:         Tue, 8 Sep 1992 13:51:03 PDT
>From: "Alex Allister Shvartsman, EMF,
>              LKG2-2/T2 08-Sep-1992 1641" <alex@TOOK.ENET.DEC.COM>

>Romanian language is a Romance language that developed on the basis of
>the "vulgar Latin" in use in the Roman Imperial province of Dacia during
>the II-IV Cent. AD. (Some claim it is the closest to Latin among the live
>Romance language.)

Yes, some claim it, though this statement probably makes little sense.
What is true, that the Romanian is _among_ the most conservative Romanian
languages - together with Italian and Sardinian.

>                   Although I am not that familiar with the existing
>historical records, if any attempt was made to write the early Romanian
>language, it would have probably been using the Latin alphabet and not
>Cyrillic -- certainly this would've been the case before Cyrillic was
>even invented.

Yea, Publius Ovidius Nason made such attempts, being in Romania...

>It seems that few in this forum care about Wallachia :-)

Of course, since it does not belong to area of flourishing of culture.soviet:-)

>The emerging Romanian language was the vernacular in Moldova and Wallachia
>until the early XIXth when Romanian also emerges as a literary language.

OK, here we enter into definition of "normalized" and "literary" languages.
Was Russian version of Church Slavonic one of those? From the modern
(secular/"scientific"/legalistic) point of view, probably, not. Still I'd
say it was pretty much normalized and literary. At least no one experinced
difficulties to express in it his tiniest feeling in writing:-).

I'm not very much familiar with the history of Romanian written tradition,
but from what I know, it seems to me that situation with Romanian language
in XV-XVII centuries was pretty much similar to it.

Of course, modern (XIX century) "enlighteners" were tending to disregard
Church literary traditions as non-existent. The same thing was done in
Russia by Peter I, and it took 200 years and more (not completed yet) for
people to return to their literary roots, which were cut once.

>This late arrival is due in part to the fact that Romania did not exist
>as an independent state. Prior to the XIXth cent, other languages were used
>as the official written and sacral languages (this is quite similar to the
>situation earlier in Poland, where Latin was the written language of
>"dignity", in Muscovy, where Old Church Slavonic was the written language
>until the Great Russian literary language was formalised, etc.)

>Another poster (D.L.) mentioned church records written in Cyrillic. In fact
>all early Romanian chronicles (XV-XVI cent.) were written not in Romanian,
>but in European languages that had an established written norm, e.g.,
>Old Church Slavonic, Polish, and even German! It is however true that
>Slavonic was the predominant written language -- largely due to the fact
>that Romanians are primarily Orthodox Christians.

Slavonic was used as written language, due to the mentioned fact, but there
also were Gospel and Service texts written in Romanian - not just "church
records" (of what kind?). I personally saw phototypies of these manuscripts.
I don't really know which language - Romanian or Slavonic - was prevailing
in Moldova church literary practice in XV-XVII ceturies, and to which extent.
May any of Romanian netters help with it?

>Romanian remains exclusively the spoken language of the "simple people" until
>the XIXth cent. I am sure people attempted to write in Romanian, but prior
>to the XIXth cent, Romanian was never formalised in ANY alphabet. Romanian
>literary language did not exist until 1800s.

See discussion of "literary" and "formalised" above.
Some may claim Russian remains exclusively the spoken language of the
"simple people" until Peter's reform. Certainly it's not true.
Just take, for instance, biography and letters of protopriest Avvakum,
which are written at the second half of XVII century in _brilliant_
modern Russian! And there are more examples of Russian literary texts,
even in earlier times, many of them. There was certain stylistic distinction
between Russian and Slavonic texts.

>                                             The first schools that formally
>taught Romanian as a native language were established early that century in
>Romania.

It might be true, and strangely doesn't contradict to existence of literary
language. There were no schools to teach language in medieval Russia either.
Still, people who needed it, were taught...

>Needless to say, Romanian culture does not
>flourish in Basarabia.

It seems to be true.

>After WWII the Soviet Moldovan Communist zealots attempt to
>Slavicise the "Moldovan" language and "prove" that it is distinct from
>Romanian. Most amazingly, their attempts are stopped by the Romance experts
>in Moscow for purely scientific reasons! They conclude that Romanian is
>indistinguishable from Moldovan. No further comparative studies of the "two"
>languages had ever been produced in xUSSR.

I wish it were true, but it's not quite so. Obviously, Romance experts in
Moscow were somewhat reluctant to recognise Moldovan as distinct language
from Romanian, since it's nonsence. But it wasn't only one nonsense, which
communists pursued in science. And the fact that Moldovan is the _same_
language as Romanian, was never loudly and openly admitted in Soviet "official"
science either. Texbooks kept talking of "Moldavian" language, but normally
tried to avoid comparative studies, since there were no official theory on this
matter. Certainly, to provide such a study was not a problem, since there are
slight dialectal differencies, but no official endorsements were given. I guess
this was due largely to the fact that local "initiative" was not supported by
Moscow ideologists (not scientists, which were not supporting it, of course,
too).

\D.