The letters
? and
? are phonetically and functionally identical. The reason for using both of them is historical, denoting the language's
Latin origin, although statistically only few of the words written today with
? actually derive from Latin words having an
a in the corresponding position. In 1953, during the
communist regime, the
Romanian Academy eliminated the letter
?, replacing it with
? everywhere, including until 1964 the name of the country, which was spelled
Rom?nia. The first stipulation coincided with the official designation of the country as a
People's Republic, which meant that its full title was
Republica Populară Rom?nă, whereas the
Socialist Republic proclaimed in 1965 is associated with the spelling
Republica Socialistă Rom?nia.
After the fall of the
Ceauşescu regime, the
Romanian Academy decided to reintroduce
? from 1993 onward, in accordance to the 1904 spelling reform, thus cancelling the effects of the 1953 spelling reform. The choice between
? and
? is thus based on a simple rule: the letter is always spelled as
?, except at the beginning and the end of words, where
? is used instead. Exceptions include
proper nouns where the usage of the letters is frozen, whichever it may be, and compound words, whose components are each separately subjected to the rule above, not the resulting word itself (e.g.
ne+
?ndem?natic →
ne?ndem?natic, not *
ne?ndem?natic). Quite a number of people and institutions (including major newspapers such as
Evenimentul Zilei,
Cotidianul, and, since April 2008,
Jurnalul Naţional)[
citation needed] prefer the 1964 norms. Generally, usage of either the 1964 or 1993 norms is regarded as correct in most situations.
