Romansh

About Romansh


:''Not to be confused with Romand which is one of the names for the Franco-Provençal language.
'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 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 Spanish. As of the 2000 Swiss Census, it is spoken by 35,096 residents of the canton of Graubünden (Grisons) as the language of "best command", and 60,815 in the "best command" plus "most spoken" categories[2]. 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, and half as popular as Switzerland's most-used non-official language (Serbo-Croatian, with some 101,450 speakers).

Contents
Dialects
Standardisation
Official status in Switzerland
Literature
Orthography and Phonology
Romansh alphabet (l'alfabet rumantsch)
Consonants
Vowels
Lexis
Some common expressions
See also
External links
Footnotes

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. Chur, and even its cross-river suburb of ''Wälschdorfli'' ("foreign 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 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.

Official status in Switzerland


Romansh has been recognized 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 standardized idiom exclusively. However, the Constitution specifies that only native Romansh speakers can claim this privilege.[3]
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 and the official logo of the Confederation features all four languages. 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.
Distribution of Romansh in canton Graubünden (2000), with Romansh areas shown in magenta.

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.

Orthography and Phonology


Romansh alphabet (l'alfabet rumantsch)

'A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, X, Z'

'a, be, tse, de, e, ef, ge, 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 only used in foreign loanwords. For example: kilogram, ski, kino, kiosc, kilo, kilowat, washington, western, stewardess, whisky, hockey, happy end.
Consonants

The consonant phonemes of Romansh (Rumantsch Grischun) are set out in the following chart:
 BilabialLabio-
dental		Dental and
alveolar		Alveolo-
palatal		Post-
alveolar		PalatalVelar
'Stop'        
'Affricate'        
'Nasal'      
'Fricative'        
'Approximant'          
'Lateral approximant'          

Vowels

The vowel phonemes of Romansh are shown in the table below:
Monophthongs Front Back
'Close'
'Mid'
'Open-mid'
'Open'

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 elsewhere

Lexis


Examples of Common Vocabulary
English Surselvisch Sutselvisch Surmeirisch Puter Vallader Rumantsch Grischun Latin
gold aur or or or or,aur,ar aur aurum
hard dir dir deir dür dür dir dūrus
eye egl îl îgl ögl ögl egl oculus
light, easy lev leav lev liger leiv lev levis
three treis tres treis trais trais trais trēs
snow neiv nev neiv naiv naiv naiv nive-
wheel roda roda roda rouda rouda roda rota
cheese caschiel caschiel caschiel chaschöl chaschöl chaschiel caseus
house casa tgeasa tgesa chesa chasa chasa casa
dog tgaun tgàn tgang chaun chan chaun canis
leg comba tgomba tgomma chamma chomma chomma camba
chicken gaglina gagliegna gagligna gillina giallina giaglina gallus
cat gat giat giat giat giat giat cattus
all tut tut tot tuot tuot tut tōtus
shape fuorma furma furma fuorma fuorma furma fōrma
I jeu jou ja eau eu jau ego

Some common expressions



★ ''Allegra.'' - Hello or welcome

★ ''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?

★ ''Viva!'' - Cheers!

See also



★ German Wikipedia entry on , the linguist whose work on standardization of the language resulted in Rumantsch Grischun.

External links



★ Romansh language, alphabet and pronunciation

★ Grammatica d'instrunziun dal rumantsch grischun

★ 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

★ Series of articles about Romansh from swissinfo

Footnotes


1. Swiss federal census 2000
2. http://www.liarumantscha.ch/Linguistic_geography.352.0.html?&L=2
3. See art. 4 and 70 of the 1999 Swiss Federal Constitution. On the legal status of Romansh generally, see Official Romansh still has some way to go


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