How Moldova calls its own language is her sovereign decision. This is how Moldovan Speaker Igor Grosu responded to Russian MFA spokesperson Maria Zakharova, who declared that “the Republic of Moldova is abandoning its mother tongue”. Igor Grosu says that the recent decision to replace the phrase “Moldovan language” with “Romanian language” across the national legislation was “belated but necessary”.

Grosu insists that the amendment that officially introduced the phrase “Romanian language” into the national legislation is “perfectly legal”.

“It is a belated but necessary change. Better late than never. The Romanian language is right where it belongs. How we call our language, history or country is an internal, sovereign matter of the Republic of Moldova. It makes me very sad when people who don’t speak Romanian, don’t understand it, have the nerve to give us lessons on how to call our language. For those with Big Brotheresque, imperialistic habits, who have spent their whole lives telling others how to talk, how to sleep and how to work, I ask them to refrain and leave us alone. It’s a scientifically accurate name, it’s proven that it’s called the Romanian language”, Igor Grosu said during a Radio Moldova talk show.

The Speaker described as hypocrisy the decision of the parliamentary opposition to hold protest rallies outside the Constitutional Court.

“The children of those protesting are educated in Romanian. Their hypocrisy is even greater because some of them take their children to private schools founded by Romanian citizens and with teachers from Romania. Four of the Socialist MPs have Romanian citizenship. A few days will pass, they will calm down and we will be back to normal. The Constitutional Court passed the interpretation that the Declaration of Independence is part of the Constitution and it is explicitly states that the language is called Romanian. All we did was replace the phrases ‘state language’ and ‘Moldovan language’ across the legislation. We made it uniform as it should have been all along”, said Grosu.

Last week the Moldovan Parliament approved an amendment in the first reading that replaced the phrases “Moldovan language”, “official language”, “state language” and “mother tongue” with “Romanian language” across the legislation.