Moldavia ( ro, Moldova), also called Western Moldavia or Romanian Moldavia, is the historic and geographical part of the former

Principality of Moldavia Moldavia ( ro, Moldova, or , literally "The Country of Moldavia"; in Romanian Cyrillic: or ; chu, Землѧ Молдавскаѧ; el, Ἡγεμονία τῆς Μολδαβίας) is a historical region and former principality in Centr ...

situated in eastern and north-eastern

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, a ...

. Until its union with Wallachia in 1859, the Principality of Moldavia also included, at various times in its history, the regions of

Bessarabia Bessarabia (; Gagauz: ''Besarabiya''; Romanian: ''Basarabia''; Ukrainian: ''Бессара́бія'') is a historical region in Eastern Europe, bounded by the Dniester river on the east and the Prut river on the west. About two thirds of ...

(with the Budjak), all of

Bukovina Bukovinagerman: Bukowina or ; hu, Bukovina; pl, Bukowina; ro, Bucovina; uk, Буковина, ; see also other languages. is a historical region, variously described as part of either Central or Eastern Europe (or both).Klaus Peter Berge ...

, and

Hertsa Hertsa or Hertza ( ; ro, Herța ) is a city located in Chernivtsi Raion, Chernivtsi Oblast in western Ukraine. It hosts the administration of Hertsa urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine, and has a population of The town is locate ...

; the larger part of the former is nowadays the independent state of

Moldova Moldova ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Moldova ( ro, Republica Moldova), is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The unrecognised state of Transnist ...

, while the rest of it, the northern part of Bukovina, and Hertsa form territories of

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian invas ...

. Romanian Moldavia consists of eight

counties A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

, spanning over 18% of Romania's territory. Six out of the 8 counties make up Romania's designated Nord-Est development region, while the two southern counties are included within Romania's Sud-Est development region.

History

Moldavian dialect

The delimitation of the Moldavian dialect, as with all other Romanian dialects, is made primarily by analyzing its phonetic features and only marginally by morphological, syntactical, and lexical characteristics. The Moldavian dialect is the representative of the northern grouping of Romanian dialects and has influenced the Romanian spoken over large areas of

Transylvania Transylvania ( ro, Ardeal or ; hu, Erdély; german: Siebenbürgen) is a historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and south its natural border is the Carpathian Mountains, and to the west the ...

. The Moldavian and the Wallachian dialects are the only two that have been consistently identified and recognized by linguists. They are clearly distinct in dialect classifications made by Heimann Tiktin,

Mozes Gaster Moses Gaster (17 September 1856 – 5 March 1939) was a Romanian, later British scholar, the ''Hakham'' of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish congregation, London, and a Hebrew and Romanian linguist. Moses Gaster was an active Zionist in Romania ...

, Gustav Weigand,

Sextil Pușcariu Sextil Iosif Pușcariu (4 January 1877 – 5 May 1948) was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian linguist and philologist, also known for his involvement in administrative and party politics. A native of Brașov educated in France and Germany, he was ...

, Sever Pop,

Emil Petrovici Emil Petrovici (; 1899–1968) was a Romanian linguist, dialectologist and Slavist. He studied both Romanian and Serbian languages. His studies included Romanian phonology, and Romanian, Serbian, and other Slavic dialectology. Petrovici, of Ser ...

, Romulus Todoran, Ion Coteanu, Alexandru Philippide, Iorgu Iordan, Emanuel Vasiliu, and others, whereas the other dialects have been considerably more controversial and difficult to classify. The Moldavian dialect is not synonymous with

Moldovan language Moldovan (Latin alphabet: ''limba moldovenească''; Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet: лимба молдовеняскэ), also known historically as Moldavian, is one of the two local names of the Romanian language in Moldova. "Moldovan" is declar ...

. The latter is another term for the

Romanian language Romanian (obsolete spellings: Rumanian or Roumanian; autonym: ''limba română'' , or ''românește'', ) is the official and main language of Romania and the Republic of Moldova. As a minority language it is spoken by stable communities in ...

as used in the

Republic of Moldova A republic () is a "state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy" and also a "government, or system of government, of such a state." Previously, especially in the 17th and 18th ...

. The border between Romania and the Republic of Moldova does not correspond to any significant

isogloss An isogloss, also called a heterogloss (see Etymology below), is the geographic boundary of a certain linguistic feature, such as the pronunciation of a vowel, the meaning of a word, or the use of some morphological or syntactic feature. Major ...

es to justify a dialectal division; phonetics and morphology (which define dialectal classifications) are identical across the border, whereas lexical differences are minimal. It is worth mentioning however that while on the Romanian side the vocabulary was updated with words attributed by the arrival of modern technologies of the late 20th century and merged with Wallachian and Transilvanian dialects, on the Moldavian side the language remained somehow archaic, preserving more regionalisms, becoming a "time capsule" of the way how people spoke before the annexation of the region by the Soviet Union in 1940 through the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.

Administrative divisions

The area of the region is and covers 8

( Romanian: '' judeţ''), in eastern and northeastern Romania: Bacău, Botoșani,

Galați Galați (, , ; also known by other alternative names) is the capital city of Galați County in the historical region of Western Moldavia, in eastern Romania. Galați is a port town on the Danube River. It has been the only port for the most pa ...

, Iași, Neamț,

Suceava Suceava () is the largest urban settlement and the seat town ( ro, oraș reședință de județ) of Suceava County, situated in the historical region of Bukovina, northeastern Romania, and at the crossroads of Central and Eastern Europe. Klaus Pet ...

, Vaslui, and Vrancea. Suceava County is also referred to as (the southern) part of

. The part of Moldavia where the Csángós live is called Csángó Land.

Population

According to Romanian Census (2011) data, the region has a total population of 4,178,694 inhabitants (20.7% of Romania's population), distributed among the ethnic groups as follows: *

Romanians The Romanians ( ro, români, ; dated exonym '' Vlachs'') are a Romance-speaking ethnic group. Sharing a common Romanian culture and ancestry, and speaking the Romanian language, they live primarily in Romania and Moldova. The 2011 Roman ...

(98%),

Roma Roma or ROMA may refer to: Places Australia * Roma, Queensland, a town ** Roma Airport ** Roma Courthouse ** Electoral district of Roma, defunct ** Town of Roma, defunct town, now part of the Maranoa Regional Council * Roma Street, Brisbane, a ...

(1.3%), others (0.7%); The most populous

cities A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

as of 2011 census ( metropolitan areas, as of 2014): * Iași - 290,422 (465,477 in metropolitan area) *

- 249,432 (323,563) * Bacău - 144,307 (223,239) * Botoșani - 106,847 (144,617) *

- 92,121 (144,100) *

Piatra Neamț Piatra Neamț (; german: Kreuzburg an der Bistritz; hu, Karácsonkő) is the capital city of Neamț County, in the historical region of Western Moldavia, in northeastern Romania. Because of its privileged location in the Eastern Carpathian mount ...

- 85,055 (131,334) * Focșani - 79,315 (125,699) * Bârlad - 55,837 (91,151) * Vaslui - 55,407 * Roman - 50,713 (98,378) File:Palatculturaiasi.jpg, Iași File:PalatulNavigatieiGalati.jpg, Galați File:Bacău (4263977420).jpg, Bacău File:Prefectura Veche Bt.jpg, Botoșani File:Palatul Administrativ din Suceava18.jpg, Suceava File:Piatra Neamt 1.cristibur.JPG, Piatra Neamț File:Focşani Teatrul, march 2001.jpg, Focșani File:Barlad liceul rosca codreanu.jpg, Bârlad File:Piata Civica Vaslui.JPG, Vaslui File:Muzeul de Istorie Roman.jpg, Roman File:Castelul Sturdza din Miclăușeni.jpg, Miclăușeni File:Palatul Ghica front view.jpg, Comănești

References

External links