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Romansh language

Romansh (also spelled Romansch, Rumants(c)h, or Romanche) is one of the four official languages of Switzerland, along with German, Italian and French. It is one of the Rhaeto-Romance languages, believed to have descended from the Vulgar Latin variety spoken by Roman era occupiers of the region, and, as such, is closely related to French, Occitan and North Italian, as well as other Romance languages to a lesser extent. As of the 2000 Swiss Census, it is spoken by 35,095 residents of the canton of Graubünden (Grisons) as the language of "best command", and 60,815 in the "best command" plus "most spoken" categories. Spoken now by around 0.9% of Switzerland's 7.5 million inhabitants, it is Switzerland's least-used national language in terms of number of speakers.

Dialects

Romansh is an umbrella term covering a group of closely-related dialects, spoken in southern Switzerland and all belonging to the Rhaeto-Romance language family. The other members of this language family are from northern Italy: Ladin, with which Romansh is more closely related, is spoken by some 22,550 in the Dolomite mountains of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, and Friulian is spoken by around 550,000–595,000 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 Julia 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 Müstair)

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.

Romansh 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 Romansh. This is cited as one possible explanation of the origin of the modern term "Kauderwelsch" meaning gibberish. However, most of Grisons, including Chur and even its cross-river suburb of Wälschdorfli ("little foreign-language-speaking village"), now speak German; Romansh survives only in the upper valleys of the Rhine and the Inn.

Standardisation

Romansh was nationally standardised in 1982 by Zürich-based linguist Heinrich Schmid. The standardised language, called Rumantsch Grischun, has been slowly accepted. 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 /tɕ/ followed by /a/, /o/, /u/ have (for example chalanda) as both speakers of Engadin (chalanda) and the Rhine territory (calanda) expect a spelling with . However, and are pronounced /ke/ and /ki/, being a grapheme deemed unfit for a Romance language such as Romansh; therefore, words with /tɕ/ plus /e/ or /i/ have (for example tgirar) instead of . The use of for both /ʃ/ and /ʒ/, and of for /tʃ/ 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.

Official status in Switzerland

Romansh has been recognised as one of four "national languages" by the Swiss Federal Constitution since 1938. It was also declared an "official language" of the Confederation in 1996, meaning that Romansh speakers may use their Romansh idiom for correspondence with the federal government and expect to receive a Romansh response – in Rumantsch Grischun, because the federal authorities use the standardised idiom exclusively. However, the Constitution specifies that only native Romansh speakers can claim this privilege.

In what the Federal Culture Office itself admits is "more a placatory and symbolic use of Romansh, the federal authorities occasionally translate some official texts into Romansh. In general, though, demand for Romansh-language services is low, because according to the Federal Culture Office, Romansh speakers may either dislike the official Rumantsch Grischun idiom or prefer to use German in the first place, as most are perfectly bilingual.

On the cantonal level, Romansh is an official language only in the trilingual canton of Graubünden, where the municipalities in turn are free to specify their own official languages.

Literature

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.

The first verse of three verse poem by Peider Lansel (1863-1943), translated by M.E. Maxfield:

MASSA BOD ! (TOO SOON ! )

O sblacha fluoretta, (O, pale little flow'ret,)

tu vainsch massa bod ! (Too soon thou art here !)

amo be suletta (Alone in the wildwood)

at dervasch nil god. (And full of vague fear.)

First Printed Romanscha Bible

by Jacobo N. Gadina, translated by Jacobo M. Wilhelm Rauch

La Sacra Biblia, quai ais tuot la Sonchia Scrittura:

dal Velg et Nouf Testamaint: cun l'agiunta dall' : Apocrifa

Vertida e stampada avant temp in Lingua Romanscha

d'Engadina Bassa tras comun cuost e` lavur da Jacobo :

Antonio Vulpio ...

...et Jacobo Dorta a´ Vulpera ...

...La II. editiun ...

''...cun bleras novas declaranzas sur amaduos Testamaints,

una nova Prefatiun & un Register ...

...da Nott Da Porta,

published and printed in Scuol in Engadina Bassa (Lower Engadine),

Alta Rhaetia, 1743.

Phonology

Consonants

The consonant phonemes of Romansh (Rumantsch Grischun) are set out in the following chart:

	Bilabial	Labio- dental	Dental and alveolar	Alveolo- palatal	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Stop	p b		t d				k g
Affricate			ts	tɕ dʑ	tʃ
Nasal	m		n			ɲ	ŋ
Fricative		f v	s z		ʃ ʒ
Approximant			r			j
Lateral approximant			l			ʎ

Vowels

The vowel phonemes of Romansh are shown in the table below:

Monophthongs	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Mid	ə
Open-mid	ɛ	ɔ
Open	a

Diphthongs	Closer component is front	Closer component is back
Closing	ai	au
Opening	ie

Schwa /ə/ 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 /r/
:short elsewhere
Stressed vowels in open syllables are:
:short before voiceless consonants
:long elsewhere

Lexis

Examples of Common Vocabulary:

English	Surselvisch	Sutselvisch	Surmeirisch	Puter	Vallader	Rumantsch Grischun	Latin	Romanian
gold	aur	or	or	or	or,aur,ar	aur	aurum	aur
hard	dir	dir	deir	dür	dür	dir	dūrus	dur
eye	egl	îl	îgl	ögl	ögl	egl	oculus	ochi
light, easy	lev	leav	lev	liger	leiv	lev	levis	leger
three	treis	tres	treis	trais	trais	trais	trēs	trei
snow	neiv	nev	neiv	naiv	naiv	naiv	nive-	nea
wheel	roda	roda	roda	rouda	rouda	roda	rota	roată
cheese	caschiel	caschiel	caschiel	chaschöl	chaschöl	chaschiel	caseolus	caş
house	casa	tgeasa	tgesa	chesa	chasa	chasa	casa	casă
dog	tgaun	tgàn	tgang	chaun	chan	chaun	canis	câine
leg	comba	tgomba	tgomma	chamma	chomma	chomma	camba	picior, gambă
hen	gaglina	gagliegna	gagligna	gillina	giallina	giaglina	gallīna	găină
cat	gat	giat	giat	giat	giat	giat	cattus	pisică
all	tut	tut	tot	tuot	tuot	tut	tōtus	tot
shape	fuorma	furma	furma	fuorma	fuorma	furma	fōrma	formă
I	jeu	jou	ja	eau	eu	jau	ego	eu

Writing system

Romansh alphabet

L'alfabet rumantsch

Majuscule Forms (also called uppercase or capital letters)
A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	L	M	N	O	P	Q	R	S	T	U	V	X	Z
Minuscule Forms (also called lowercase or small letters)
a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	j	l	m	n	o	p	q	r	s	t	u	v	x	z
Names
a	be	tse	de	e	ef	ghe	ha	i	jot/i lung	el	em	en	o	pe	ku	er	es	te	u	ve	iks	tset

The letters k (ka), w (ve dubel), and y (ipsilon or i grec) are used only in words borrowed from foreign languages — for example: kilogram, ski, kino, kiosc, kilo, kilowat, Washington, western, stewardess, whisky, hockey, happy end.

Because most Romansh-speaking people are familiar with German spelling, Romansh orthography borrows from that language, rather than Italian: The "sh" sound, for example, is written in the Germanic fashion, "sch" (see "rumantsch"), not "sc" as in Italian, and one will find ä, ö and ü in Romansh words. This practice, however, does not work in all cases, so other forms are used; for example, tsega,