Romansh (also spelled Rumantsch, Romansch or Romanche) is one of the four national languages of Switzerland, along with German, Italian and French. It is one of the three Rhaeto-Romance languages, believed to have descended from the Vulgar Latin variety spoken by Roman era occupiers of the region, and, as such, somewhat resembles Italian, French and Catalan. It is spoken by about 50,000-70,000 people in the canton of Graubünden (Grisons), of which about 35,000 speak it as their first language. Spoken by fewer than 1% of Switzerland's 7.4 million inhabitants, it is the smallest of Switzerland's national languages in terms of number of speakers, about half the size of Switzerland's largest community of speakers of a non-official language, Serbo-Croatian with some 111,000 speakers.

Sociolinguistics

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Romansh is not a single language but a group of closely-related dialects, all belonging to the family of the Rhaeto-Romance languages. Romansh is specifically the group of similar Rheto-Romance dialects spoken in southern Switzerland. The other members of this language family are from northern Italy: Ladin, with which Romansh is more closely related, is spoken by some 20,000 in the Dolomite mountains of the Italian Tyrol, and Friulian is spoken by around 500,000-600,000 people in the northeast.

The five largest dialects in the Romansh family are:

• The Rhine Dialects
  • Sursilvan - in the Vorderrhein (Rain anteriur), including Lumnezia, Foppa, Cadi (Surselva)
  • Sutsilvan - in the Hinterrhein (Rain posteriur), including Plaun, Tumliasco, Schons (Sutselva)
  • Surmiran - in the Julier and Albula valleys, including Surses, Sutses (Surmeira)
• The Engadine or Ladin Dialects
  • Puter - the upper Engadine valley (Engiadin' Ota)
  • Vallader - the lower Engadine valley (Engiadina Bassa) and the Mustair valley (Val Mustair)

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As a reasonable Swiss citizen I am considering the option of subscribing to a weekly paper in Rhaeto-Romansh... ;-P
DavidFeng (David Feng (馮琰)) Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:22:33 -0000
As a reasonable Swiss citizen I am considering the option of subscribing to a weekly paper in Rhaeto-Romansh... ;-P

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