It has not been the official language of Moldova since 2013, and today it is a regional variant of Romanian. However, some linguists are of the opinion that Romanian is a variant of Moldovan. This would be evidenced by the fact that Romanian literary developed based on the Moldovan dialect and by the fact that the Moldovan language is more archaic than Romanian. It is spoken by about 10 million people worldwide, including Moldova and Transnistria, as well as Romania, Ukraine and Russia, where a Moldovan minority lives.
