Language Policy and Linguistic Trends in Soviet Moldavia

Abstract

The emphasis of this paper will fall on the titular nation of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic since it is to the Moldavians alone amongst the inhabitants of the territory that the Soviet government has attempted through language policy to give a distinct identity. Indeed, my own use here of the term ‘Moldavian’ implies that I am a party to the obfuscation perpetrated by the Soviet authorities of the ethnicity of the Romanians in the Moldavian SSR. For the sake of simplicity I shall refer to these Soviet Romanians as Moldavians and I shall employ the same appellation to denote their native tongue, but in doing so I wish to make it clear that the Moldavians share a common ancestry, language, and, for the most part, history with the Romanian people.KeywordsLanguage PolicyCommunist PartyMother TongueRussian LanguageRomance LanguageThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.