Moldova marks Day of the Romanian Language, President calls for unity
Moldova's president, Maia Sandu, has paid tribute to those who fought to restore the Romanian language to its rightful place in the country.
Speaking at the opening of The Great National Spelling Bee event in Chișinău, Sandu said that the Romanian language is now respected around the world.
"Today, after 34 years since hundreds of thousands of people demanded in the Great National Assembly Square the declaration of the Romanian language as the state language and the transition to the Latin alphabet, we have the joy of celebrating our language in a special way," Sandu said.
In her speech, the president recalled the Soviet era, when Moldovans were "deprived of the right to self-determination and the right to the Romanian language."
"A few hundred people will write today in Romanian freely, with respect for correct writing and with love for the language of our nation. But it was not always so. In the Soviet era, our people were deprived of the right to self-determination, but also of the right to the Romanian language, with the aim of depriving us of our national identity and mutilating our national consciousness," Sandu said.
You could be denigrated, threatened, dismissed from your job, or even have a criminal case for speaking your language. Until 1989, in the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, we wrote in the Cyrillic alphabet, and the use of the Latin alphabet was a violation of the law. Romanian literature was banned. Reading a poem in Romanian was a crime. However, students, writers, artists, mathematicians, and teachers had the courage to demand the right to language, to a future, and to national dignity. I would like to honor those who brought the Romanian language back to our land, poets, writers, composers, actors, singers, and teachers.
"Only a dictatorial regime can turn language into a weapon to divide a people. Those who told us with a gun to our heads that we speak Moldovan did so to subjugate us and to make us fight among ourselves. Moldovans want to live freely on their own land. The Romanian language must unite us in this desire," Sandu said.
Currently, the Romanian language has its rightful place among the world's languages, being one of the official languages of the European Union.
"In the European Union, where we want to take the Republic of Moldova, the Romanian language has a respected place and no one risks being punished for speaking their mother tongue. I trust the generations that are growing up now, you will transform Moldova into a European state, with pride in our traditions, culture, and language," Sandu said.
More than 600 people have signed up for The Great National Spelling Bee event, which was organized today in the Square of the Maria Bieșu Opera and Ballet Theater to mark the Day of the Romanian Language.
Translation by Iurie Tataru
