The border crossings between Moldova and Romania are frequented by Peace Corps Volunteers with relative ease, since most (but not all!) study the Romanian language during our Pre-Service Training. I say we are taught Romanian during training, specifically, because once we leave training, some volunteers find it necessary (or more desirous) to deviate their studies from clean-cut Romanian to "Moldovaneste." Discussing language can lead to a rather political argument, but we'll leave that for someone else to un-pack.
Put one way, it's village speak. Put another way, it is a dialect that makes it easy for Romanians at universities and tourist spots to pick out the Moldovans. Moldovaneste tends to include Russian nouns, 'b' sounds dropped for the grunting 'g' sound, and words for fruits and vegetables that you will not find in a Romanian nor Russian dictionary.
My host family and neighbors will sometimes ask me to speak Moldovaneste for sport, entertainment for the crew painting a fence, or as a sort of 'party trick' that gets new acquaintances laughing. But for the most part, I work and live in a place that is perfect for the Romanian I was taught and continue to study every.single.day.
Thus, traveling in Romania is appealing because it's a foreign culture that I neither live in, nor rely on English for during my visit. This trip was the longest consecutive stretch of time I've stayed in Romania, and as the days went by, so too did my confidence as a "Romanian" speaker.
Menus with foods I didn't recognize. Signs I couldn't fully understand. Words necessary for our ski trip that honestly, I've never had to encounter in Moldova (and being the over-confident one that I am, I didn't bring a dictionary).
Okay, I concede to being a bit over-the-top....and almost everyone we encountered was fascinated by our group of American, Romanian speaking volunteers, from Moldova. Once, we found a cabby that spoke our language. The minute we mention Moldova, he abandons 'b' sounds for 'g' sounds and proceeds to tell us everything he knows about Moldova (a whole other story!).
I probably could have added 40 words to my Romanian repertoire, if only I'd had a Romanian dictionary on that trip. But then again, would those new words have been any use to me on this side of the border? Therein lies the Romanian question.
Hello Melissa,
ReplyDeleteI think is very difficult for you. is a quite difficult for Romanians also to understand Moldavian way of speaking. even if the language is the same. how about i saw you visited Transilvany also. they also speak different of what you find in dictionary. i don't know if you already noticed. is all matter of accent.the language is the same. anyway in school we learn the same language (doesn't matter if they call it Romanian or Moldavian, we know is the same language and we are the same people even if we are living now in different countries.)but learning Romanian anybody will be able to understand you. and catching the Moldavian accent ... i think is exotic. like Ardeal's accent also.
all the best.