45 Facts About Romansh language

Romansh is a Gallo-Romance language spoken predominantly in the Swiss canton of the Grisons .

Romansh language has been strongly influenced by German in vocabulary and morphosyntax.

The Romansh language gradually retreated to its current area over the centuries, being replaced in other areas by Alemannic and Bavarian dialects.

Romansh is a Romance language descending from Vulgar Latin, the spoken language of the Roman Empire.

Whether or not Romansh language, Friulan, and Ladin should compose a separate "Rhaeto-Romance" subgroup within Gallo-Romance is an unresolved issue, known as the Questione Ladina.

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The speakers of Romansh have always identified as speaking a language distinct from both Italian and other Romance varieties.

Furthermore, unlike Friulian, Ladin, or Lombard, Romansh is located north of the German-Italian linguistic border, and German has influenced the language much more than Italian has.

Additionally, a small number of pre-Latin words have survived in Romansh language, mainly concerning animals, plants, and geological features unique to the Alps, such as camutsch 'chamois' and grava 'scree'.

At the time, Romansh language was spoken over a much wider area, stretching north into the present-day cantons of Glarus and St Gallen, to the Walensee in the northwest, and Ruthi and the Alpine Rhine Valley in the northeast.

The Walser sometimes expanded into Romansh language-speaking areas from their original settlements, which then often became German-speaking, such as Davos, Schanfigg, the Prattigau, Schams, and Valendas, which became German-speaking by the 14th century.

In rare cases, these Walser settlements were eventually assimilated by their Romansh language-speaking neighbors; for instance, Oberhalbstein, Medel, and Tujetsch in the Surselva region.

Romansh language is an immense advantage in learning so much more rapidly the languages derived from Latin of France, Italy, Spain etc, as can be seen with the Romansh youth, which travels to these countries and learns their language with ease.

Additionally, Romansh was introduced as a subject in teacher's college in 1860 and was recognized as an official language by the canton in 1880.

For Sursilvan, a first attempt to standardize the written Romansh language was the Ortografia gienerala, speculativa ramontscha by Baseli Carigiet, published in 1858, followed by a Sursilvan-German dictionary in 1882, and the Normas ortografias by Giachen Caspar Muoth in 1888.

Around 1880, the entire Romansh language-speaking area still formed a continuous geographical unit.

In other areas, such as the Engadine and the Surselva, where the pressure of German was equally strong, Romansh was maintained much better and remained a commonly spoken language.

Likewise, in the Upper Engadine, where factors such as increased mobility and immigration by German speakers were even stronger, Romansh was more firmly established as a language of education and administration, so that the language was maintained to a much greater extent.

Early attempts to create a unified written language for Romansh include the Romonsch fusionau of Gion Antoni Buhler in 1867 and the Interrumantsch by Leza Uffer in 1958.

In 1984, the assembly of delegates of the head organization Lia Rumantscha decided to use the new standard language when addressing all Romansh-speaking areas of the Grisons.

Major change in policy came in 2003, when the cantonal government proposed a number of spending cuts, including a proposal according to which new Romansh teaching materials would not be published except in Rumantsch Grischun from 2006 onwards, the logical result of which would be to abolish the regional varieties as languages of instruction.

The signatories of "Pro Rumantsch" stress that Romansh language needs both the idioms and Rumantsch Grischun if it is to improve its chances in today's communication society.

Romansh is an official language at the federal level, one of the three official languages of the Canton of the Grisons, and is a working language in various districts and numerous municipalities within the canton.

The Romansh language movement led by the Lia Rumantscha was mostly satisfied with the status as a national but not official language.

The official languages are declared to be German, French, and Italian, and Romansh is an official language for correspondence with Romansh-speaking people.

Attempts were made to form four entirely Romansh language-speaking companies, but these efforts were abandoned in 1992 due to a lack of sufficient Romansh language-speaking non-commissioned officers.

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In 2003, Romansh was the sole official language in 56 municipalities of the Grisons, and 19 were bilingual in their administrative business.

Outside of the traditional Romansh language-speaking areas, the capital of the Grisons, Chur, runs a bilingual Romansh language-German elementary school.

Whereas Romansh was spoken as far north as Lake Constance in the early Middle Ages, the language area of Romansh is today limited to parts of the canton of the Grisons; the last areas outside the canton to speak Romansh, the Vinschgau in South Tyrol, became German-speaking in the 17th century.

The villages of Samnaun, Sils im Domleschg, Masein, and Urmein, which were still Romansh language-speaking in the 17th century, had lost their Romansh language majority by 1860, and are not included in this definition.

Whereas monolingual Romansh language were still common at the beginning of the twentieth century, they are now only found among pre-school children.

Whereas in some areas Romansh language is used by virtually the entire population, in others the only speakers are people who have moved there from elsewhere.

Romansh is still acquired by most children in the Cadi and Gruob even in villages where Romansh speakers are in the minority, since it is usually the language of instruction in primary education there.

In most cases, this is not because of a will to preserve the language, but because of other reasons such as Romansh having been their own childhood language or a belief that their children will later find it easier to learn additional languages.

Romansh language is often a sign of being one of the locals, and used to distinguish oneself from tourists or temporary residents, so that outsiders will sometimes acquire Romansh language in order to fit in.

Romansh language concludes however, that there are still enough speakers to ensure that Romansh will survive in the long term at least in certain regions.

Romansh language considers the Romansh-language school system to be the single most crucial factor in this.

Romansh language is written in the Latin alphabet, and mostly follows a phonemic orthography, with a high correspondence between letters and sounds.

Particularity of Romansh language is the so-called "collective plural" to refer to a mass of things as a whole:.

Since very little is known about the Celtic Romansh language once spoken in Grisons, and almost nothing about Raetic, words or placenames thought to come from them are usually simply referred to as "pre-Roman".

Romansh language speakers have been in close contact with speakers of German dialects such as Alemannic and Bavarian for centuries, as well as speakers of various Italian dialects and Standard German more recently.

The Romansh language influence is much stronger in the German dialects of Grisons.

Romansh language had a rich oral tradition before the appearance of Romansh language writing, but apart from songs such as the Canzun da Sontga Margriata, virtually none of it survives.

Romansh language is used to varying extents in newspapers, the radio, and television.

Radio and television broadcasts in Romansh language are produced by the Radiotelevisiun Svizra Rumantscha, which is part of the Swiss public broadcasting company SRG SSR.

Romansh language newspapers used to be heavily fragmented by regions and dialects.

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