[comp.std.internat] Moldavian writing

wales@CS.UCLA.EDU (09/19/87)

In article <7187@reed.UUCP> eeyore@reed.UUCP (joshua samuel honig guenter ii) writes:

> I'm pretty sure that Romanian, which is written in the Latin alphabet
> in Romania, is written in the Cyrillic alphabet in the Moldavian
> S.S.R., which would give it a status similiar to Serbo-Croatian.
>
> Does anybody know the Cyrillic-Moldavian equivalents of Romanian?

Indeed.  In fact, just as with Serbo-Croatian, there is a running debate
(with largely political overtones) as to whether Moldavian is a separate
language or one with Romanian.

Be that as it may, Moldavian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, with a few
letters used differently than in Russian, and with one new letter -- a
"zhe" with a breve over it (same mark as on "i kratkoye"), symbolizing
the sound of "g" before "e" or "i" (as in English "general").

I have studied Romanian, but I haven't studied Moldavian as such.  I got
the following information from carefully examining some recent books
written in Moldavian in one of the UCLA libraries (and using my know-
ledge of Romanian, since -- as I said -- Moldavian and Romanian are for
all practical purposes a single language).  My apologies in advance if I
make any mistakes below in my discussion of the Cyrillic alphabet, since
I do not speak Russian.

Romanian A, B, D, F, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, V, and Z are represented
in Moldavian via the obvious Cyrillic equivalents.

E is written with Cyrillic "ye" (even though E in Romanian generally
does not have a Y-glide).  A-with-breve (sounds like English "uh") is
written with Cyrillic "e" (the one that looks like a curved, backwards
E).  EA is written as a "ya", even though some Romanians contend that
this diphthong doesn't sound *exactly* like IA would (it does for all
practical purposes!).

In those cases where initial E *does* have a Y-glide, it is still writ-
ten as "ye".  That is, the Moldavian convention with respect to this
letter is exactly as ambiguous as that of Romanian; you simply have to
know the word and its pronunciation.  (This exception, in any case, is
restricted to just a handful of common words, such as pronouns and the
various forms of the verb "to be".)

I-circumflex (and the now all-but-extinct A-circumflex) are written with
Cyrillic "yeri" -- which makes sense since this is how the Romanian let-
ter sounds anyway.  Note that the capital "yeri" -- theoretically never
seen in Russian -- is used all the time in Moldavian.  A-circumflex, by
the way, was completely abolished in Romania in the early 1950's -- then
later restored for "rom^an" (= Romanian) and related words.

C is written as "ka" or "che", depending on pronunciation.  CH is simply
a "ka", since the H in this case serves only to determine the pronuncia-
tion of the C.  Similarly, CE followed by a vowel is simply "che", since
the E is not pronounced:  "ceas" (= hour) is "che", "a", "es".

G is written either as "ge" or "zhe-with-breve" (see above), depending
on pronunciation.  GH is simply a "ge"; GE followed by a vowel is simply
a "zhe-with-breve" -- just as for C.

H is written as "kha" (even though the Romanian/Moldavian sound is not
raspy like the Russian sound).

"Full" I (initial, between consonants, stressed on the end of a word,
or written II at the end of a word) is written with Cyrillic "i".  When
part of a diphthong, it is written as "i-kratkoye".  The unstressed
"short I" at the end of words (which is hardly more than a "ee"-coloring
and devoicing of the release of the preceding consonant) is represented
by the Cyrillic "soft" sign.

The IU diphthong is written with Cyrillic "yu".  The IO diphthong is
very rare in Romanian; I don't know whether it is written with Cyrillic
"yo" ("ye" with diaresis) or as "i-kratkoye" plus "o".

J -- which in Romanian represents the sound of "z" as in "azure", or "s"
as in "pleasure" -- is written as "zhe".

S-with-comma (the "sh" sound) is written as "sha".  T-with-comma (the
"ts" sound) is written as "tse".

X is written as "ka" plus "es".

One advantage of the Moldavian writing system over that of Romanian is
the different ways of writing the letter I (see above).  In particular,
it is hard for a beginner to know for sure when a final I is "full" or
"short" -- since some words (especially fourth-conjugation infinitives)
end in a single, stressed I that is pronounced "full".

-- Rich Wales // UCLA Computer Science Department // +1 213-825-5683
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