Moldovan or Romanian?

The Republic of Moldova is a country which can plausibly count Josef Stalin as its principal founding father. After all, it was the brutal Soviet dictator who forcibly annexed the Romanian territory of Bessarabia and made most of it into a soviet republic called Moldavia. After the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 the newly independent Moldova was forced to find its own identity. Since national identity is often associated with a unique language, some Moldovans have argued for the existence of a distinctly Moldovan language. Yet most linguists assert, with considerable evidence, that Moldovan is not a language in its own right but simply a minor variation of Romanian.

Thus far I have yet to hear anyone argue that there is a distinctive Canadian language, especially since we have two official languages here. However, a McMaster University sociologist has argued, much to everyone's surprise, that Canadians are an ethnic group.