“Language use is universally social and political,” the author of this interesting and useful monograph writes. “The two goals of this book are to describe the language situation in the post-Soviet Republic of Moldova and to explain this situation as the result of complex interaction between competing linguistic and social identities. Some of the variables are historical, social, psychological, and economic, but together they contribute to a sociolinguistic dynamic that is unique to the Moldovans” (p. 47). Even with the passage of time since the book was published, Ciscel is successful in achieving these goals, and the reader will come away with a much fuller comprehension of why things evolved as they did during the first two decades of post-Soviet Moldova.
Ciscel's first chapter surveys the tortuous history of what today is the Republic of Moldova, pointing out that Ottoman and Russian influences, though powerful, were never quite successful in...