Romansh
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, with some 111,000 speakers.
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 northeastern Italy.
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)
Puter and
Vallader are sometimes referred to as one specific variety known as
ladin, as they have retained this word to mean "Romansh". However,
ladin is primarily associated with the closely related language in Italy's Dolomite mountains also known as
Ladin. The
ISO 639 language codes are
rm and
roh.
Romansch is spoken in the Swiss canton of
Grisons or
Graubünden, "the Grey League", which preserves the name of the self-defense organization of Romance speakers set up in the 15th century. It became part of Switzerland in 1803. Germans once called this language
Chur-Wälsch, "foreign speech of Chur", for Chur was once the center of Romansch. Chur, even its cross-river suburb
Wälschdorfli "foreign village", now speaks German: Romansch survives only in the upper valleys of the Rhine and the Inn.
Romansh was standardised in
1982 by
Zürich-based linguist
Heinrich Schmid. The standardised language, called
Rumantsch Grischun, has not been very well accepted, and speakers of the different dialects tend to address one another in
German. This is leading to an acceleration of the decline of the language. On the
orthographic level, Schmid sought to avoid all "odd-looking" spellings, in order to increase general acceptability of the new idiom and its spelling. Therefore, words with followed by , , have
(for example chalanda) as both speakers of Engadin (chalanda) and the Rhine territory (calanda) expect a spelling with . However, and are pronounced and , being a grapheme deemed unfit for a Romance language such as Romansh; therefore, words with plus or have (for example tgirar) instead of . The use of for both and , and of for is taken over from German, making Romansh spelling a compromise between Romance (Italian, French) and German spelling.
The Lia Rumantscha is the umbrella organization for all Romansh associations. Its web site provides further background information.See Swiss literature#Romansch and Ladin branch
The emergence of Romansh as a literary language is generally dated to the mid-16th century. The Engadine dialect was first printed as early as 1552 in Jacob Bifrun's Christiauna fuorma'', a catechism; a translation of the New Testament followed in 1560.Consonants
The consonant phonemes of Romansh (Rumantsch Grischun) are set out in the following chart:Vowels
The vowel phonemes of Romansh are shown in the table below:| Diphthongs | Closer component
is front! Closer component
is back | | Closing | | |
| Opening | | |
Schwa occurs only in unstressed syllables. Vowel length is predictable:
*Unstressed vowels are short.
*Stressed vowels in closed syllables (those with a coda) are:
*:long before
*:short elsewhere
*Stressed vowels in open syllables are:
*:short before voiceless consonants
*:long elsewhereallegra - hello
co vai? - how are you?
fa plaschair - pleased to meet you
bun di - good morning
buna saira - good evening
buna notg - good night
a revair - goodbye
a pli tard - see you later
perstgisai - I beg your pardon
i ma displascha - I'm sorry
perdunai - excuse me
per plaschair - please
grazia fitg - thank you very much
anzi - you're welcome
gratulazions - congratulations
bun cletg - good luck
ils quants è oz? - what's the date today?
quants onns has ti? - how old are you?
*Radio Televisiun Rumantscha
*Information about the Romansh language
*Ethnologue report for Romansch
*Website of the Lia Rumantscha organization
*Romansch - English Dictionary
*Romansch - English Dictionary, different Romansch dialects
*Official Romansch-German/German-Romansh Dictionary
*An Account of the Romansh Language by Joseph Planta FRS, originally published in the 1776 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
*Google Romantsch
*Google Directory - Romansh language* :de:Heinrich Schmid: German Wikipedia on the linguist whose work on standardisation of the language resulted in Rumantsch Grischun.
