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AGNIESZKA STĘPKOWSKA
POZNAŃ COLLEGE OF MODERN LANGUAGES
Language shift in the Raeto-Romansh community
ABSTRACT. The sociolinguistic environment of the Raeto-Romansh community is not
stable. In fact, there are signs of concern on the part of the federal authorities about the future
of Romansh. Also, the Swiss public in general, including many linguists, seems to be
conscious of the dramatic decline in the number of Romansh speakers. An in-depth
understanding of the reasons for this decline helps detect the main weaknesses of the present
predicament of the Romansh community. One of the most far-flung measures undertaken so
far to avert further dialect fragmentation of Romansh, was the introduction of an
experimental form of a common language named Rumantsch Grischun.
This article attempts to analyse and assess the viability of the Romansh language in
Switzerland. In order to carry out such an analysis, I shall make use of the “cycle of language
shift” proposed by Einar Haugen (1980), which served as the prime inspiration to write this
article. For anyone wishing to see Romansh live on, its standardised form is now to be
observed with a cautious optimism. Interestingly, no stage of change involved in Haugen’s
cycle is inevitable, and it can be stopped or even reversed, provided that countermeasures
have been initiated in due time.
KEYWORDS. Bilingualism, diglossia, language contact, language shift, linguistic identity,
sociolinguistics.
1. Romansh in the Grisons
Out of 26 Swiss cantons only four are not officially monolingual. Out of
these, the further three (Bern, Fribourg and Valais) are split into either Germanor
French-speaking areas. The last one, the Grisons (German Graubünden), is
the only trilingual Swiss canton. Language issues in Switzerland have always
been engaging due to its official multilingualism, the number of languages and
the actual autonomy of cantonal authorities, which adds to linguistic complexity.
However, the language situation in the Grisons is even more complex than
that viewed from a nationwide perspective. The situation of diglossia exists not
only in the German part (Schwyzertütsch vs. Hoch- or Schriftdeutsch), but also
in the Italian parts (dialetto vs. lingua italiana) of the canton. On top of that the
Romansh part has five dialects, all of which are spoken and written. Among the
examples of minority language situations presented by John Edwards (2004),
Romansh classifies as a unique minority language, as it is unique to one state
only, being an endemic language similarly to Swiss German.
When, on the eve of World War II in 1938, Romansh was elevated to the
rank of a national language, Article 116 of the Federal Constitution incorpo-
LANGUAGES IN CONTACT 2011