Moldova’s Parliament adopts law changing name of country’s official language from ‘Moldovan’ to ‘Romanian’

The Parliament of Moldova has adopted a law formally renaming the country’s only official language from “Moldovan” to “Romanian”, as per broadcast on the Parliament’s website.

“A bill on implementing certain resolutions of the Constitutional Court has been adopted in the second reading, backed by 58 MPs,” TASS cites Igor Grosu, the Parliament’s Speaker.

There are a total of 101 voting members in the Parliament, but a simple majority of votes was enough to adopt the bill.

The amendment implies that mentions of “the Moldovan language” would be replaced by “the Romanian language” in all legal acts. When those mentions refer to Moldova, collocations such as “the state language”, “the official language”, and “the home language” will also be replaced by “the Romanian language”.

The amendments were introduced by the Party of Action and Solidarity, while the opposition bloc of communists and socialists voted against the initiative. Discussions of the bill caused brawls in the Moldovan Parliament.

The formal name of the language used in the country has been subject to heated debate for decades, with the Moldovan Declaration of Independence referring to the language as “Romanian” and the country’s Constitution mentioning “the Moldovan language” alone. Attitudes of Moldovans towards these two endonyms (used to refer to the same language) differ, mostly based on their political preferences.