Since August 31st is National Trail Mix Day, and also National Language Day (in Moldova), we should all practice saying “mix de trasee,” which is “Trail Mix” in Romanian. Why Romanian? Well, Moldova has its own language (Moldovan, obviously), but on a closer look, it turns out that Moldovan and Romanian are identical — the language is just called “Moldovan” in Moldova and “Romanian” in…well, everywhere else.
This has been a subject of some interest in Moldova over the years. Their Declaration of Independence, in 1991, said that the official language was Romanian. But then the Constitution, enacted just three years later, pointed out that it was Moldovan, and went further to specify that it’s written in the Latin alphabet. It’s not clear why they added that last bit; Romanian (or Moldovan) is a Romance language not that different from Italian and French. It’s not related to Russian, and has never used the Cyrillic alphabet.
Anyway, the issue came up again in 2013 when the Constitutional Court ruled that the Declaration of Independence (which called the language Romanian) had precedence over the Constitution (which called the language Moldovan). But the important thing to remember here is that it’s the same language. There might be the kind of regional variations similar to what you find between, say, British and American versions of English — in some cases Romanian and Moldovan are identified as dialects — but it’s clearly not Russian, Gagauz, or Ukrainian, which are the next three most common languages in Moldova.
By the way, “trail mix” in Ukrainian is “слід суміш” (sounds like “slid sumish”), and in Russian it’s “смесь троп” (“smes trop”). Gagauz is a fairly obscure dialect of Turkish, and “trail mix” is probably something like “iz karışımı” (which sounds just like you’d expect; “iz karishima”). Gagauz is spoken in Gaugazia — technically the “Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gaugazia,” which was briefly independent after the breakup of the Soviet Union, but became part of Moldova in 1994. Sort of. Moldova granted Gaugazia the “right of external self-determination” and passed the “Law on the Special Legal Status of Gaugazia” — so it’s somewhere in between being its own country and being part of Moldova.
The only thing that’s clear is that the Guagazians are strongly in favor of Russia; in a referendum they voted to become independent (which I guess they could do, having the right of external self-determination and all) if Moldova joined the European Union. It’s a little bit odd, since Gaugazia doesn’t share a border with Russia, and the people identify themselves more as Turkish. But I guess they remembered August 31, 1991 when Kyrgyzstan declared independence from what was left of the USSR, on the same day in 1993 when Russian troops left Lithuania, and again on the same day in 1994 when Russian troops left Estonia.
The reactions in Guagazia might have resembled the famous painting “The Scream” by Edvard Munch. You know, the one that had been stolen in 2004, but was recovered on August 31, 2006 in Norway. And who knows, in addition to Language Day (and, of course, enjoying Trail Mix) on August 31, maybe they celebrate the birthday of Vladimir Orlov, the Russian author who wrote “Danilov the Violinist” in 1980. It’s a fantasy novel about Danilov, whose musical creativity stems from being part demon and part human. He can’t decide which he’s more of, though.
Danilov’s dilemma might be a bit like trying to decide whether you speak Romanian or Moldovan. It’s impossible to settle a question like that, you know. Better to just kick back and enjoy some trail mix.
