Switzerland’s Romansh, Struggling to Survive

Apart from German, French and Italian, Switzerland has another national language that many people across the globe have never heard of. This language, which originated from Latin, is called Romansh. Romansh is also known by these names: Romansch, Rumantsch, Romanche and Rhaeto-Romansch. In Switzerland, speakers of this unfamiliar language account for about less than 1% of the whole population of the country.

Accounts on how many actually speak Romansh vary. Some statistics indicate there are around 50,000 – 70,000 speakers while others peg the number of speakers to 30,000 plus. Another source says that in Switzerland, the language is understood by more than 100,000 people and that 75,000 speak it regularly while 40,000 refer to it as their main language. Majority of Romansh speakers live in eastern Switzerland, specifically in the canton of Graubünden/Grisons. Graubünden is a trilingual canton. German and Italian are the two other languages in use in the canton.