Moldovan is the official language of Moldova. Moldovan is widely considered to be little more than the Romanian language renamed for political purposes. Moldovan is spoken by about 3.5 million in Moldova and is estimated to the maternal language of about 3 million of these speakers. Up until the 1940s, when Moldova was part of Romania, there was not a language known as Moldovan, rather the spoken language was called Romanian. Later, it was renamed Moldovan in an effort to sever all ties with Romania after the Soviet Union took control and used the language issue to justify the occupation on nationalistic grounds. The Latin alphabet was even changed to Cyrillic. After Moldova achieved independence in 1991, Moldovan rapidly became the new nation's official language. An attempt in 1996 by Moldova's president to change the name of the language back to Romanian was blocked by the national Parliament.