Modern Romanian
[7] Personalities such as Ion Neculce, Miron Costin, Dimitrie Cantemir, and Constantin Cantacuzino, influenced by Humanism, promoted the use of Romanian instead of the regular literary language, Old Church Slavonic.
[3] However, the Church language continued its influence in the field of religious writings, but writers, such as Archbishops Vaarlam and Dosoftei, were reserved in introducing the needed neologism from it.
[8] These efforts were supported by a rich publishing activity, out of which the printing of the book Elementa linguae daco-romanae sive valachicae, written by Gheorghe Șincai and Samuil Micu-Klein was recognized as the marking point between the old and the modern periods of the language.
However, the growing influence of French as a prestige language was felt at the conversational level in this educated environment, opening access to the West for Romanian.
[11] The main contribution to the beginning of modern Romania was taken by the Transylvanian School, a current developed within the Romanian Greek Catholic Church community from the Hapsburg territory.
[12] "The Coryphaei" of this cultural movement, Micu-Klein, Gheorghe Șincai, Petru Maior and Ion Budai-Deleanu, took up the cause of representing Romanian political rights and appealed to the Latin origin of the people and language as the main argument.
Rădulescu, an adept at introducing neologisms into the language, especially from Italian which he saw as a more modern cultural model than the Latin model designed by the Transylvanian School,[18] managed to break the monopoly on public press held by the authorities and published in 1829 Curierul Românesc with contributions from Heliade himself, Grigore Alexandrescu, Costache Negruzzi, Dimitrie Bolintineanu, Ioan Catina, Vasile Cârlova, and Iancu Văcărescu.
[19][20] A sample of text showcasing the etymologizing writing used by Rădulescu:[21] Primi audi-vor quel sutteranu resunetuȘi primi salta-vor afara din grôpaSacri Poeți que prea ușôrâ țêrinâiCopere, și quâror puțin d'uman picioarele împlumbâ.In Moldavia a similar endeavour was taken by Gheorghe Asachi, a friendly figure of the Transylvanian School, an opponent of the Phanariote regime, and an admirer of Petrarch and Moldavian chroniclers.
[23] His political orientation towards Russia allowed him to be involved in the creation of the Moldavian Regulamentul Organic, a constitutional-like set of laws during the Russian protectorate, and the publishing of the Romanian language magazine Albina Românească, the first of its kind in Moldavia.
[3] Although the modernizing current was initially led by the aristocratic and educated personalities of the Danubian Principalities, the profound changes of the early 19th century allowed the middle-class, the bourgeoisie, to participate more actively in the cultural life.
[32] Educated at the schools and colleges of the older generation (Heliade's Saint Sava Academy or Asachi's Academia Mihăileană), they embraced the period's growing influence of French language and culture.
Rădulescu proposed a list of 29 letters: А, Б, В, Д, Г, Ԑ, Ж, Є, Ӡ, Ї, К, Л, М, И, О, П, Р, С, Т, Ꙋ, Ф, Ц, Х, Ч, Ш, Щ, Ъ, Џ, Ѱ, Ѵ, which he identified during his pedagogic activity as the more useful for his students.
[46] Elsewhere, in 1840 the first page of Iordache Golescu's Băgări de seamă asupra canoanelor gramăticești had no less than 4 alphabets represented, and within the text the Cyrillic and Latin letters alternated.
Those looking for higher education had to study abroad, mainly in France where hundreds of the so-called Pașoptist generation intellectuals did or in major university centres of Central Europe such as Vienna or Kraków, closer to home.
[3] Several scholars are credited with the idea or the continuous support for the creation of the single forum among them Gheorghe Asachi, the leading figure of early Moldavian education, and Ion Heliade Rădulescu, a recurring personality in the development of Modern Romanian.
[54] The use of Modern Romanian in these institutions, with the literary forms and neologisms, created an "intellectual style", adapted to the material and cultural reality of its time.
