The official language of Romania is Romanian. In 1999 the Romanian Language Institute was established as a specialised institution with the object of promoting the Romanian language, culture and civilisation overseas. The programmes managed by the Romanian Language Institute are:
- Romanian language lectureships in universities abroad;
- The project regarding the teaching of the Romanian language, culture and civilisation course in educational establishments in member states of the European Union;
- Certification of Romanian language skills.
In an attempt to support the correct use of Romanian language, the Parliament adopted a Law on the use of Romanian in public places, relations and institutions (Law no. 500/2004). The correct use of Romanian language in radio and TV programmes is the subject of a series of monitoring reports and analyses carried out by the National Institute of Linguistics “Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti”, which highlight errors in orthography, grammar, syntax as well as, inter alia, incorrect usage of certain borrowed words or expressions. These reports are also used by the National Audiovisual Council. Various broadcasters are scheduling programmes dedicated to the correct use of Romanian language, focusing on the most frequent mistakes and errors.
The main issue regarding language in Romania is the protection of the languages of the 20 minority ethnic groups. Protective principles can be found in the Local Public Administration Law no. 286/2006, including the right to use one’s mother tongue within administrative procedures (Article 17),or the systematic translation of geographical names and indicators in all the spoken languages of a given area (Article 10 to 13). In October 2007, Romania adopted Law no. 282 in order to ratify the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, signed at Strasbourg on 5 November 1992.
Comments are closed.