Sprachplurizentrismus in der Romania in Geschichte und Gegenwart: das Beispiel Rumänisch

The paper looks into the question of whether Romanian is a mono- or a pluricentric language and investigates its relation to so-called Moldovan. The first part outlines the formation of the Romanian Academy as a standardizing authority. It was founded in the second half of the 19 century when the territory of today’s Republic of Moldova did not belong to Romania but to Russia. The second part therefore casts an eye over the linguistic situation in this region which has gone through a varied history during the last 200 years. As a result, it appears that the efforts to establish Moldovan as a separate language were politically motivated. The question – if we have to deal with two languages (Romanian, Moldovan), one (Romanian) with two centres (Bucharest, Chişinău), or one language with only one centre (Bucharest) – is therefore also a political question which creates different answers depending on political constellations.