Romansh, also spelled Romansch or Rumantsch, is an indo-european language primmarily spoken in Switzerland. Romansh is an italic romance language (Wikipedia, Romansh language 2020). Its language code is roh and its ISO code is ISO 639-3. The glotto code is roma1326 (Glottolog, Romansh).

This language is one of the national languages of Switzerland, especially in the Canton or region of Graubunden/Grisons.

Map of Languages in Switzerland

(Wikipedia, Romansh language 2020)

Dialects and History

There are several different dialects of Romansh, including Sursilvian, Vallader, Surmiran, etc. (Omniglot, Romansh (rumantsch)). Romansh Has been influenced by French, Italian, and German (Anderson, 2016), but originated from Latin spoken by Roman soldiers during the Roman Empire. "Up until around 400 AD, the Roman province of “Raetia“ (which covered the territory between the Alps and the River Danube) underwent intensive Romanisation. Vulgar Latin, as spoken by Roman soldiers, officials and merchants fused with the region’s former languages to become Vulgar Latin with a Rhaetian imprint (this applies only to the areas which were definitely Rhaetic, i.e. Grisons and part of the Dolomites). (Gross, 2017)"

In 1982, a linguist from Zurich created a standardized written language for Romansh called "Romansh Grishun", although people who speak Romansh dialects tend to use their own forms of writing instead (Bishop, 2017).

In the past, Romansh has had trouble being recognized as its own language instead of a dialect of Italian. As stated in The Romansh Language in Education in Switzerland, "Romansh is a language in its own right, recognised by linguistics back in the middle of the 19th century. Despite that, there have always been individual voices and whole tendencies ready to dispute Romansh’s position as a separate language. The first massive attack against a separate Romansh language came in the middle of the First World War from groups of Italian language researchers. Their thesis that Swiss Romansh ought to be regarded as an Italian dialect belonging to the “Alpine Lombard” type was rejected as one-sided and tendentious by Swiss linguists. (Gross, 2017)"

Since then, not only have there been organizations set up to help revive the language, but it has been recognized as an official language of Graubunden, and a national language of Switzerland. "In 1919, the “Lia Rumantscha” was set up as an umbrella organisation for all associations dealing with Romansh language and culture. The Swiss electorate recognised Romansh as the fourth national language in 1938 and it became a semiofficial language at federal level in 1996" (Gross, 2017).

A video of a Romansh family talking about their lives.