Romanian Language Day will be celebrated together by the Romanian Academy and the Moldovan Academy of Sciences. The event will take place simultaneously in the Aula of the Romanian Academy in Bucharest and in the Azure Hall in Chisinau.
According to the program announced by the two academies, their members will come together for a joint scientific session in mixed format. The event will be opened by the presidents of the two academies, Ioan-Aurel Pop and Ion Tighineanu, respectively.
In the Aula of the Romanian Academy, Ioan-Aurel Pop will give a lecture titled “Old Romanian language as researched by Eugen Coşeriu”. This will be followed by a talk on the early philosophical vocabulary of Romanians from the vice president of the Academy Mircea Dumitru, who will also talk about Eminescu’s experience of reading Kant. And Gheorghe Chivu, president of the Philology and Literature Section of the Romanian Academy, will talk about the vitality of the Romanian language.
In Chisinau, Mihai Cimpoi, president of the Academy’s Advisory Council, will give a lecture titled “Romanian Language. The Abode of Our Being”. The famed surgeon Gheorghe Ghidirim will speak about the Romanian language as a unifying factor of identity. And Valeriu Matei, corresponding member of the Moldovan Academy, also honorary member of the Romanian Academy and general director of the Publishing House of the Romanian Academy, will discuss aspects of the “battle for the legalization of the Romanian language and the Latin alphabet in the Republic of Moldova”. Lectures will also be given by university professors Rodica Zafiu, Viorel Vizureanu and Liliana Ionescu-Ruxăndoiu.
The session dedicated to the Romanian Language Day will continue in Chisinau with the Twelfth Congress of Eminescu Scholars. A special session will also take place to celebrate Academician Eugen Simion, on which occasion Mihai Cimpoi will present a volume, and Eugen Simion’s “Texts about Bessarabia” will be launched.
Romanian Language Day was established in Romania on the same date as the similar celebration established in 1990 in the Republic of Moldova, under the name of “Our Language”, to convey the idea that the Romanian language is a language spoken not only within Romania’s borders. On August 31, 1989, the Moldovan Parliament voted to reinstate the Romanian language and the Latin script as the country’s official ones.
