Accent moldovenesc

I'm being exposed more and more to the accent from the Moldova region in Romania. A recent example is the performance of Jaga Jaga I wrote about last time—a song originally sang in Hebrew remade in Romanian with a Moldovan accent.

I came across two other Jaga Jaga performances by different Romanian singers. The first one is sang with a standard Romanian pronunciation, which is based on the speech of Southeastern Romania, or more precisely, the Bucharest area. The second performance is one more great example of the Moldovan accent, from the Northeast, just like one described on my recent coverage of the original Romanian Jaga Jaga.

By listening to both recordings side by side, one can truly appreciate the differences between the Moldovan accent from the north, and the more standard accent based on southern speech:

#1. Claudia Ghitulescu from the South - Bucharest

#2. Acord-G - with a Northeastern, Moldovan accent

Some pronunciation notes highlighting the features in the Moldovan accent as heard in video #2, and the southeastern, standard accent as heard in video #1:

Standard Video #1	Moldovan Video #2	Observations
încearcă faci	înșearcă fași	ce ci > șe și, [ʧ] > [ʃ]
te vorbe de băiete	ti vorbi di băieti	unstressed e > i
degeaba	dejeaba	g > j, [ʤ] > [j]
ziua	zâua	i > â, ['ziwa] > ['zɨwa]
meu	nieu	[mew] > [nʲew]
fundu'	fondu'	ʊ > o
toată	tătâ	oa > ă, [o̯a] > [ə] ă > â, [ə] > [ɨ]

The most characteristic features of the Moldovan accent are the first two items on the previous list: [ʧ] > [ʃ] and unstressed [e] > [i].

The form nieu ([nʲew]) was of special interest to me. According to the DEX, the Latin MEU(S) originally resulted in the Romanian form mieu, which eventually lost the diphthong due to influence from mea (Latin MEA). As it's evident here, then, in some Romanian regions the form mieu persisted, like in Moldova. The m must have been pronounced heavily palatized at one point, ultimately resulting in what we hear today: [mjew] > [nʲew].

The following map shows a general distribution of the Romanian accents in the historical regions of Romania; the language continuum also includes the Republic of Moldova to the east of the Romanian region of Moldova:

The standard Romanian accent is based on the speech of the Southeast—
Bucharest is part of the Muntenesc group.
Source: Romanian Wikipedia

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My personal take on the Moldovan accent is a positive one: I like the accent. Most of the pronunciation features heard in the Moldova region in Romania are shared with the accents of the Republic of Moldova—a separate state politically, but linguistically, still Romanian. So becoming familiarized with the Moldovan accents is a step forward towards getting to know the speech of the Republic of Moldova itself.

I am especially fond of female vocalist's Moldovan accent heard above on video #2. There's something special about the way she says ziua, a word which just doesn't feel the same after hearing it pronounced zâua, the Moldovan way.