Ioan-Aurel Pop on Romanian Language Day: Language remains our life as a nation

He added that "officially and diplomatically" they talk about the Republic of Moldova and the Moldovan people, but "the truth has come to light, including from an official and diplomatic point of view, and the official language of the two countries is called Romanian.", agerpres reports.

"Deep down we know that we are not two distinct nations, but two branches of the same nation forced by history to follow parallel and sometimes different paths. But these paths are getting closer. If we were distinct nations a great man born in Cogalnic would have not become the prime minister of Romania and the president of the Romanian Academy, and the Moldavian from Botosani, the one who grew up on the hills and forests of Ipotesti, would not have written that Romania is his country of glory, his country of longing. These two, like the chroniclers of the 17th century, like Dimitrie Cantemir, Creanga, Sadoveanu, like Vieru, always felt part of the Romanian nation and bathed always in the purifying water called the Romanian language. Today, we are separated by the Prut river, but let's not forget that the Milcov also separated the Romanians' Wallachian branch from the Moldavian branch for centuries and that the locks were finally broken," said Pop.

He added that our way of reporting to the world through language "kept us alive as a nation."

"You can't be Romanian if you don't speak Romanian, but you can speak, write and read Romanian beautifully without being Romanian. The language remains our life as a nation, and there is no people in this world that does not value, care for and preserve its language, and the great languages all have a neat and standardised form, called the literary language," said Pop.

He added that nowadays it is easier than in the past to "immerse yourself" in another language, which you call "language of communication."

"Obviously, these new languages spoken by the Romanians scattered around the world will never be like the language that comes from their mother, and from their grandmother, from their ancestors. We, who still stick to the place, we have cultivated our language, standardised it, established a grammar for it and put it out into the world, because the main task of the Romanian Academy, since its foundation, has been to standardise and protect the Romanian language," Pop also said.

He went on to say that Romanian linguists of the academy created, "in more than a century", the Dictionary of the Romanian language. "It is a monument designed to defeat time, published in dozens of volumes with almost 200,000 words, commented and defined according to the rules of science."

He added that dialects and variants "make the richness and beauty of a language and the Romanian literary language has fed from dialects and variants, at least from Deacon Coresi onwards."

"I like to say that the most important spiritual creation of the Romanian people is the Romanian language. Warm congratulations to all Romanians on Romanian Languages Day and a lot of progress with preserving, cultivating, defending and honouring the Romanian language," Pop said in concluding his speech.

Ion Tighineanu, chairman of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova, said that Romanian Language Day is celebrated in a "special festive meeting organised by two sister academies."

"Today's meeting, August 31, 2023, is deeply symbolic and emblematic. As a result of the action plan approved on April 4, at a meeting of the presidium of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova and the office of the presidium of the Romanian Academy, it was decided to jointly organise several activities, but, in my opinion, the most important and successful achievement is the joint festive meeting of the Romanian Academy and the Academy of Sciences of Moldova dedicated to the national celebration of the Romanian Language, as well as the opening of the 12th edition of the World Congress of Eminescologists," said Tighineanu.

He added, citing from poet Vasile Alecsandri, that "the language is the most precious treasure that children inherit from their parents, the most sacred deposit left by past generations that deserves to be preserved with sanctity by the generations that get it."

Romanian Language Day was celebrated simultaneously at the Auditorium of the Romanian Academy in Bucharest and in the Azure Hall in Chisinau.

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Romanian Language Day is celebrated every year on August 31 as a result of a 2011 legislative initiative approved by the Romanian Parliament under Law 53/2013.

Romanian Language Day was established to coincide with the similar celebration created in 1990 in Moldova - Our Language Day - to convey the message that the Romanian language is a language spoken not only within the national borders, but also beyond them.

On August 31, 1989, the Moldovan Parliament voted a law that provided for Moldova reversing to the Romanian language and Latin script.