[7][8] The breakaway region of Transnistria continues to recognize "Moldavian" as one of its official languages, alongside Russian and Ukrainian.

[10] On 16 November 2023, the Ministry of Education and Science of the Ukrainian government stated that it has initiated steps to abolish the Moldovan language and to replace it with Romanian.

[12] On 16 March 2023, the Moldovan Parliament approved a law on referring to the national language as Romanian in all legislative texts and the constitution.

It is closely tied to the region's political status, as during long periods of rule by Russia and the Soviet Union, officials emphasized the language's name as part of separating the Moldovans from those people who began to identify as Romanian in a different nation-building process.

Before 1918, during the period between the wars, and after the union of Bessarabia with Romania, scholars did not have consensus that Moldovans and the Romanians formed a single ethnic group.

It accompanied the raising of national awareness among Moldovans, with the Soviets emphasizing distinctions between Moldavians and Romanians.

[23] Major developments since the fall of the Soviet Union include resuming use of a Latin script rather than Cyrillic letters in 1989, and several changes in the statutory name of the official language used in Moldova.

[25][26] In 1989, the contemporary Romanian version of the Latin alphabet was adopted as the official script of the Moldavian SSR.

[citation needed] In 1996, the Moldovan president Mircea Snegur attempted to change the official name of the language back to Romanian; the Moldovan Parliament, dominated by the Democratic Agrarian Party and various far left forces, dismissed the proposal as promoting "Romanian expansionism".

In Moldova, the head of the Academy of Sciences' Institute of Linguistics, Ion Bărbuță, described the dictionary as "an absurdity, serving political purposes".

At that point, a group of Romanian linguists adopted a resolution stating that promotion of the notion of a distinct Moldovan language is an anti-scientific campaign.

[29] In 2003, the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova adopted a law defining Moldovan and Romanian as designations for the same language (glottonyms).

[6][7] By March 2017, the presidential website under Igor Dodon had changed the Romanian language option to Moldovan,[37] which was described to be "in accordance with the constitution" by said president.

[39] This happened again during a phone call between the two ministers on 12 April 2023, after Moldova had legally changed its official language to Romanian.

This change was supported by the ruling Party of Action and Solidarity and was strongly opposed by the Bloc of Communists and Socialists.

Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, claimed that "the Romanian language should be renamed to Moldovan, and not the opposite".

[46] Romanian foreign minister Aurescu replied to this by saying, "This so-called Moldovan language does not exist, it is an artificial construct, which was created by the Soviet Union and has later been used by Russia for disinformation purposes".

On the same day, during a meeting with Romanian journalists, Zelenskyy was asked if Ukraine would stop recognising the Moldovan language.

[55] On 18 October, Ukrainian authorities promised to "resolve the issue of artificial separation between the Romanian and "Moldovan" languages by implementing appropriate practical measures with due consideration of all legal aspects.

[58] According to an expert on Ukrainian affairs interviewed by the Romanian newspaper Libertatea, "Marcel Ciolacu's visit to Ukraine marked the end of a diplomatic effort by the Republic of Moldova and Romania in the face of Kyiv but, at the same time, it marks only the beginning of a difficult, lasting process within the Ukrainian state."

On 16 November, the Ministry of Education and Science of the Ukrainian government stated that it has initiated steps to abolish the Moldovan language and to replace it with Romanian.

The main edition of these textbooks was printed in the summer before the decision was made not to use the term "Moldovan language".

The 1989 Language Law of the Moldavian SSR, which is still in effect in Moldova, according to the Constitution,[63] asserts a "linguistic Moldo-Romanian identity".

[68] In the 2004 census, of the citizens living in Moldova, 60% identified Moldovan as their native language; 16.5% chose Romanian.

[30] Independent studies found a Moldovan linguistic identity asserted in particular by the rural population and post-Soviet political class.

[69] In a survey conducted in four villages near the border with Romania, when asked about their native language the interviewees identified the following: Moldovan 53%, Romanian 44%, and Russian 3%.

She said that the Moldovan language is referred to in the 1998 Cooperation Agreement between the EU and Moldova, and hence it is considered a part of the acquis, binding on all member states.

872 on the application of the revised spelling rules as adopted by the Moldovan Academy of Sciences, coming into force on the day of signing.