Romansh (also spelled Rumantsch, Romansch or Romanche) is one of the four national languages of Switzerland, along with German, Italian and French. It is a Romance language, believed to have descended from the vulgar Latin spoken by Roman era occupiers of the region, and, as such, somewhat resembles Italian and French. It is spoken by around 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. Graubünden or Grisons (German: Graubünden; Italian: Grigioni; Romansh: Grischun, French: Grisons) is the largest and easternmost canton of Switzerland. ... Current distribution of Human Language Families Most languages are known to belong to language families. ... The Indo-European languages are a group of languages several hundred languages and dialects (specifically 443 according to the SIL estimate), including most of the major language families of Europe, as well as many languages of Asia, which belong to a single superfamily. ... The Italic subfamily is a member of the Centum branch of the Indo-European language family. ... The Romance languages, also called Romanic languages or New Latin languages, are a subset of the Italic languages, specifically the descendants of the Latin dialects spoken by the common people in what is known as Latin Europe (Italian/Portuguese/Spanish Europa latina, Catalan Europa llatina, French Europe latine, Romanian Europa... Gallo-Romance languages Gallo-Italian languages Lombard Piedmontese Emilian-Romagnol Venetian Ligurian Gallo-Rhaetian languages Oïl languages(including French) Burgundian Champenois Franc-Comtois French Gallo Lorrain Norman Anglo-Norman Channel Island Norman Auregnais Dgèrnésiais Jèrriais Sercquiais Picard Poitevin-Saintongeais Walloon Rhaetian languages Friulian Ladin Romansh *Franco... The Gallo-Romance branch of Romance languages includes French, Oïl languages, Catalan, and Occitan, among other languages. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2:1998 Codes for the representation of names of languages — Part 2: Alpha-3 code Twenty-two of the languages have two three-letter codes: a code for bibliographic use (ISO 639-2/B) a code for terminological use (ISO 639-2/T). ... ISO 639-3 is in process of development as an international standard for language codes. ... The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system of phonetic notation devised by linguists to accurately and uniquely represent each of the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) used in spoken human language. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone = sound/voice) is the study of sounds (voice). ... Technical note: Due to technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ... The Romance languages, also called Romanic languages, are a subfamily of the Italic languages, specifically the descendants of the Vulgar Latin dialects spoken by the common people evolving in different areas after the break-up of the Roman Empire. ... Vulgar Latin, as in this political engraving at Pompeii, was the language of the ordinary people of the Roman Empire, distinct from the Classical Latin of literature. ... The Roman Era is a period in Western history, when ancient Rome was the center of power of the world around the Mediterranean Sea, where Latin was the lingua franca. ... Graubünden or Grisons (German: Graubünden; Italian: Grigioni; Romansh: Grischun, French: Grisons) is the largest and easternmost canton of Switzerland. ... Serbo-Croatian (srpskohrvatski or hrvatskosrpski) is a name for a language of the Western group of the South Slavic languages. ...

Sociolinguistics

Romansh is not a single language but a group of closely-related languages or dialects, all belonging to the family of the Rhaetian languages. The group of various Rhaetian languages spoken in Switzerland is termed Romansh; the other members of the group are from northern Italy: Friulian, spoken by around 500,000-600,000 people in the northeast, and Ladin, spoken by some 20,000 in the Dolomite mountains of the Italian Tyrol. A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος, dialektos) is a variety of a language used by people from a particular geographic area. ... This article or section should be merged with List of Rhaetian languages Rhaetian languages are a Romance language sub-family which includes a few languages spoken in Switzerland and North-Eastern Italy. ... Friulian (friulano in Italian, Furlan in Friulian) is a Romance language belonging to the Rhaetian languages family, spoken in the north-east of Italy (Friuli-Venezia Giulia province) by about 600,000 people. ... Ladin (Ladino in Italian, Ladin in Ladin, Ladinisch in German) is a Rhaetian language spoken in the Dolomite mountains in Italy, between the regions of Trentino-South Tyrol and Veneto. ...

The five largest languages in the Romansh family are Sursilvan, Sutsilvan, Surmiran, Puter and Vallader. Puter and Vallader are sometimes considered one language: Ladin. Ladin is sometimes associated with the language in Italy's Dolomite mountains also known as Ladin. The ISO 639 language codes are rm and roh. Ladin (Ladino in Italian, Ladin in Ladin, Ladinisch in German) is a Rhaetian language spoken in the Dolomite mountains in Italy, between the regions of Trentino-Alto Adige and Veneto. ... ISO 639 is one of several international standards that lists short codes for language names. ...

Standardisation

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 /tɕ/ followed by /a/, /o/, /u/ have <ch> (for example chalanda) as both speakers of Engadin (chalanda) and the Rhine territory (calanda) expect a spelling with <c>. However, <che> and <chi> are pronounced /ke/ and /ki/, <k> being a grapheme deemed unfit for a Romance language such as Romansh; therefore, words with /tɕ/ plus /e/ or /i/ have <tg> (for example tgirar) instead of <ch>. The use of <sch> for both /ʃ/ and /ʒ/, and of <tsch> for /tʃ/ is taken over from German, making Romansh spelling a compromise between Romance (Italian, French) and German spelling. 1982 (MCMLXXXII) is a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Location within Switzerland â–¶ (help· info) (German pronunciation IPA: ; in English often Zurich, without the umlaut) is the largest city in Switzerland (population: 366,145 in 2004; population of urban area: 1,091,732) and capital of the canton of Zürich. ... The orthography of a language is the set of symbols (glyphs and diacritics) used to write a language, as well as the set of rules describing how to write these glyphs correctly, including spelling, punctuation, and capitalization. ...

The Lia Rumantscha is the umbrella organization for all Romansh associations. Its web site provides further background information. An umbrella organization is an association of (often related, industry specific) institutions, who work together formally to coordinate activities or pool resources. ...

Literature

See Swiss literature#Romansch and Ladin branch

The emergence of Romansh as a literary language is generally dated to the mid-16th century. There is no such thing as a Swiss national vernacular literature properly speaking, this being explained by the diversity between the states of which it is composed, which has not favored any common intellectual life. ...

Phonology

Consonants

The consonant phonemes of Romansh (Rumantsch Grischun) are set out in the following chart: A consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ... In human language, a phoneme is a set of phones (speech sounds or sign elements) that are cognitively equivalent. ...

In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. ... In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lips and the upper teeth, or viceversa. ... In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lips and the upper teeth, or viceversa. ... Dentals are consonants such as t, d, n, and l articulated with either the lower or the upper teeth, or both, rather than with the gum ridge as in English. ... Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets) of the superior teeth. ... In phonetics, alveolo-palatal are consonants articulated with the tip of the tongue between the alveolar ridge and the palate, but closer to the palate than for postalveolar consonants. ... In phonetics, alveolo-palatal are consonants articulated with the tip of the tongue between the alveolar ridge and the palate, but closer to the palate than for postalveolar consonants. ... Postalveolar (or palato-alveolar) consonants are consonants articulated with the tip of the tongue between the alveolar ridge (the place of articulation for alveolar consonants) and the palate (the place of articulation for palatal consonants). ... Postalveolar (or palato-alveolar) consonants are consonants articulated with the tip of the tongue between the alveolar ridge (the place of articulation for alveolar consonants) and the palate (the place of articulation for palatal consonants). ... Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). ... Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum). ... A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ... Affricate consonants begin like stops (most often an alveolar, such as or ), but release as a fricative such as or (or, a couple languages, into a fricative trill) rather than directly into the following vowel. ... A nasal consonant is produced when the velum—that fleshy part of the palate near the back—is lowered, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. ... Fricatives (or spirants) are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. ... Approximants are speech sounds that could be regarded as intermediate between vowels and typical consonants. ... Laterals are L-like consonants pronounced with an occlusion made somewhere along the axis of the tongue, while air from the lungs escapes at one side or both sides of the tongue. ...

Vowels

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

Schwa /ə/ occurs only in unstressed syllables. Vowel length is predictable: A monophthong (in Greek μονόφθογγος = single note) is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation; compare diphthong. ... A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. ... A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. ... A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. ... A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. ... The open-mid vowels make a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages. ... An open vowel is a vowel sound of a type used in most spoken languages. ... In phonetics, a diphthong (Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds) is a vowel combination in a single syllable involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ... Vowels Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. ... In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis given to certain syllables in a word. ... This article discusses the unit of speech. ... In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. ...

• 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

Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ... In phonetics, a voiceless consonant is a consonant that does not have voicing. ...

Some common expressions

allegra - 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 - your welcome

gratulazions - congratulations

bun cletg - good luck

ils quants è oz? - what's the date today?

quants onns has ti? - how old are you?

External links

Romansh language edition of Wikipedia

• 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
• An Account of the Romansh Language originally published in the 1776 Philosophical Transactions
• Google Romantsch
• Google Directory - Romansh language

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Further information

• de:Heinrich Schmid: German Wikipedia on the linguist whose work on standardisation of the language resulted in Rumantsch Grischun.