Rhaeto-Romance

Rhaeto-Romance languages are a Romance language sub-family which includes multiple languages spoken in North and North-Eastern Italy, and Switzerland. The name "Rhaeto-Romance" refers to the province of Rhaetia once in the Roman Empire.

Historical ladin areas. Light green shows the highest extention around 1000 A.D. according to linguist Isaia Ascoli

Varieties

The area where Rhaeto-Romance languages (also called Ladin languages) were spoken during the Middle Ages stretched from Switzerland to the Julian Alps (in modern-day western Slovenia).

Some of the varieties are:

• Friulian: Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, Italy
• Ladin: Dolomite mountains in Italy (in the regions of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol and Veneto)
• Romansh: Switzerland, parts of northern Italy and westernmost Austria. Romansh has status in Switzerland as a national language with three other national languages. Its dialects are:
  • Puter
  • Surmiran
  • Sursilvan
  • Sutsilvan
  • Vallader
  • Rumantsch Grischun is the standardized literary language, constructed by the Swiss linguist Heinrich Schmid in 1982.

The inclusion of the following two dialects in the Rhaeto-Romance languages is still debated (the so called: "Questione Ladina")

• Nones: Dolomite mountains in Italy (centered around the Val di Non (Non Valley) in the region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol)
• Solandro: Dolomite mountains in Italy (centered around the Val di Sole (Sun Valley or Valley of the Sun) in the region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol)

Related languages

The family is most closely related to its nearest neighbors: French, Franco-Provençal, Occitan, Gallo-Italian (Piedmontese, Ligurian, Lombard, Emiliano-Romagnolo, Venetian), and Istriote. A number of lexical items are shared with Ibero-Romance due to the similar date of latinization for both regions.

Origin

The Rhaeto-Romance languages originated as a dialect of the provincial Latin of the central Alps, which were incorporated into the Roman Empire during the reign of Augustus. Before the Roman conquest, this area was Celtic-speaking in the north and Rhaetian-speaking in the south. By the end of the Roman Empire, there was an unbroken region of distinctive Romance speech here, which was gradually fragmented into secluded areas in the high valleys by the encroachment of German from the north and of Italian from the south.

Features

Rhaeto-Romance is distinguished by a number of features which separate it from its neighbors.

• diphthongization of Vulgar Latin closed e into ei
  • pei "foot"
  • fieste "party, feast"

• occasional change of stressed a to e, particularly after a palatalized velar

• fronting of long u into ü (mainly Swiss)
  • Lad plü "more"

• fall of final vowels save -a, which often weakens into -e (in Friulian there is also a feminine plural in -is)
  • Lad sëra, Friul sere "evening"
  • Lad festa, Friul fieste "party"
  • Friul pie 'pia (pious, f.)' "press"

• general palatalization of the ca and ga groups
  • cjampanis "bells" [tʃampanis]

• conservation of cl-, pl-, fl-; conservation of Germanic w
  • SwRom clav/clev "key"
  • Friul plui "more"
  • SwRom flad, Lad fle, Friul flât "breath"
  • Lad vera, Friul vuere "war"

• voicing of intervocalic unvoiced consonants

• fall of intervocalic voiced consonants

• conservation of final -s, lead to single case based on acc (oblique); formerly a double case system
  • SwRom sunàis "to ring, 2ndp.sing.)"
  • SwRom culinis "hills"
  • SwRom bels ölgs "beautiful eyes"

Examples

See also

• Rhaetian language, an unrelated language spoke in ancient times around the area where Rhaeto-Romance is now spoken.

External links

• Ethnologue report for Rhaetian languages