- published: 15 Jul 2012
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Romansh (also spelled Romansch, Rumants(c)h, or Romanche; Romansh: rumantsch/rumauntsch/romontsch/rumàntsch; German: Rätoromanisch; Italian: Romancio) is one of the four national languages of Switzerland, along with German, Italian and French. It is one of the Rhaeto-Romance languages, descended from the Vulgar Latin spoken by Roman era occupiers of the region, and as such is closely related to French, Occitan, and Lombard, as well as the other Romance languages to a lesser extent.
In the 2000 Swiss Census, it was spoken by 35,095 people in Switzerland as the language of "best command", of which 27,038 resided in the canton of Grisons (Graubünden) and by 61,815 in the "best command" plus "regularly spoken" categories. Spoken by around 0.9% of Switzerland's 7.7 million inhabitants, it is Switzerland's least-used national language in terms of number of speakers and the tenth most spoken language in Switzerland overall.
Romansh is a Romance language descending from Vulgar Latin, the spoken language of the Roman Empire. Within the Romance languages, Romansh stands out through its peripheral location, which manifests itself through several archaic features. Another distinguishing feature is the centuries-long language contact with German, which is most noticeable in the vocabulary and to a lesser extent the syntax of Romansh. Romansh belongs to the Gallo-Romance branch of the Romance languages, which includes languages such as French, Occitan, and Lombard alongside Romansh. The main feature placing Romansh within the Gallo-Romance languages is the fronting of Latin /u/ to [y] or [i] as seen in Latin muru 'wall', which is mür (help·info) or mir (help·info) in Romansh. The main features distinguishing Romansh from the Gallo-Italic languages to the south are: