
Switzerland's mysterious fourth language - MiriamWeiner
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180627-switzerlands-mysterious-fourth-language
======
oh_sigh
Fun fact: Wine is so important to the Romansch people, that you are legally
allowed to have it present in your passport photo

e.g.
[https://i.redditmedia.com/VEUcNGVHkNv6E03iKnczBLELoqL4prdSsw...](https://i.redditmedia.com/VEUcNGVHkNv6E03iKnczBLELoqL4prdSswzfhKOeMp4.jpg?w=677&s=d7f6d4dc0b851e3d321faefad570d29c)

~~~
samueloph
could you please give some sort of source? i could not find anything online

~~~
oh_sigh
Makes sense - I just made this up. I originally saw the image on reddit and
made up the backstory. I think the original origin is relating to this man
needing a passport for medical care and them only having on hand this image of
him.

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njarboe
What I found interesting is that there are 5 strong dialects of Romansh with
no single one dominating. In 1982 a unified version was produced and is used
in some administrative offices (and makes having "Romansh" an official
language of Switzerland less of a headache), but the people speaking the
different dialects don't want to change to the new version. Makes sense that
these small Alpine valley cultures want to speak the language their ancestors
have evolved over the millennia, not some newfangled mashup.

~~~
jnbiche
> Makes sense that these small Alpine valley cultures want to speak the
> language their ancestors have evolved over the millennia, not some
> newfangled mashup.

That sounds reasonable, except for the fact that many, if not most, of the
modern European national languages are in fact, newfangled mashups. National
language standards are by and large the invention of the past few hundred
years, where they either took a single regional language and called it the
language language (such as French) or they kind of "mashed up", artificial
standard (such as German). And yet somehow, these languages eventually took
hold.

If Romansch doesn't die out in the next century, it's highly likely that a
single standard will emerge.

~~~
canjobear
They took hold because of education standardization and active governmental
campaigns to suppress variant dialects.

~~~
pjmlp
Portugal did exactly the contrary.

We have put activities in place to try to save Mirandese.

In Spain likewise, after the civil war, regions got active to ensure their
local languages strive alongside Spanish.

In Germany some states have the option of children having after school
activities in the regional dialects.

~~~
m90
Which German state does offer "regional dialect" school activities? Is this
something that is done by public bodies?

~~~
pjmlp
Some info about learning Cologne dialect.

[https://www.sk-kultur.de/inhalte/themen/akademie-foer-uns-
ko...](https://www.sk-kultur.de/inhalte/themen/akademie-foer-uns-koelsche-
sproch/die-angebote-der-akademie-foer-uns-koelsche-sproch/)

An initiative to teach Bavarian in the schools

[http://m.spiegel.de/lebenundlernen/schule/bayerisch-
lehrer-i...](http://m.spiegel.de/lebenundlernen/schule/bayerisch-lehrer-in-
bayern-fordern-dialekt-in-der-schule-a-1001374.html)

There are similar initiatives for other dialects.

Sorry they are in German, just wanted to provide direct links, instead of
Google translate.

------
psuter
I speak Romansch (although poorly, by now), AMA. (Or even better, out yourself
as a fellow speaker!)

~~~
sweettea
Romansch music?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtMP7Nw0E3g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtMP7Nw0E3g)
is the only Romansh song I've ever encountered in my American existence.

~~~
shobith
This sounds very familiar. Do you know any other variants of this song?

~~~
roetlich
Here is the english version:
[https://youtu.be/-w2m-TeLi6I](https://youtu.be/-w2m-TeLi6I)

------
personlurking
Here's the hip-hop group referenced in the article:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRvM2KKDeGA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRvM2KKDeGA)

~~~
jcfrei
I never would have thought that one day I'd see a link to Liricas Analas on
HN.

------
ainar-g
Wikipedia link:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romansh_language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romansh_language).

Sample (from The Fox And The Crow):

    
    
      La vulp era puspè ina giada fomentada.
      Qua ha ella vis sin in pign in corv che
      tegneva in toc chaschiel en ses pichel.
      Quai ma gustass, ha ella pensà, ed ha clamà
      al corv: «Tge bel che ti es! Sche tes chant
      è uschè bel sco tia parita, lur es ti il
      pli bel utschè da tuts».

------
davidw
> Romansh is believed to have originated around 15BC when the Romans conquered
> Rhaetia, which is now Graubünden. Romansh is the result of the combination
> of the Vulgar Latin spoken by soldiers and colonists, and Rhaetian, the
> language of the native people.

Be interesting to hear more about that.

Similar languages exist in Italy, by the way:

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladin_language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladin_language)

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friulian_language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friulian_language)

And there are also Germanic dialects that are isolated within Italy:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Italy#Non-
Romance...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Italy#Non-
Romance_languages)

Fascinating stuff!

~~~
tigershark
And don’t forget in south Italy ancient Albanian
([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbëresh_language](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbëresh_language))
And Ancient Greek
([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calabrian_Greek](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calabrian_Greek))

------
virgil_disgr4ce
I was once standing in the tower on top of Castle Montebello in Bellinzona,
looking out at Castlegrande. There was a group of schoolchildren up there with
me. As I listened to them speak, I heard some speaking German and some
speaking Italian. After a bit I realized they were coming from the same kids,
and I surmised it might be Romansh. Always sad to think of unique cultures
disappearing into the ether of history.

~~~
postcynical
That's what some bilingual kids do when they talk to each other. They switch
between languages flawlessly and mid-sentence. Drives me nuts when I'm
listening to them. Similar effect you get when you live abroad for a while,
there's certain idioms you can easily express in another language/culture but
you won't find the words in your native language.

~~~
pjmlp
Not only that, sometimes we do forget how sonething used to be called, or we
only learned the expressions in the context of the foreign language.

So when speaking with others that share the same language knowledge, it is
just less effort to do so than pause while trying to remember.

------
1024core
> ... said Johannes Just, a member of Liricas Analas (Ass Lyrics)

Never change, rappers, never change...

------
moitoi
Announcements in the trains crossing Romansch areas are primary in Romansch.
It's nice to hear them.

You can use Google search in Romansch and they was a translation of Windows 7
and Office.

------
Kagerjay
Switzerland is an interesting country. Its a nicer version of all of its
neighboring countries except germany.

Western half speak french as a primary language and visiting cities there
reminds me of france, except there werent any ghetto train stations.
Northeastern parts speak german. Going down south the primary language was
italian. Once you move to the outskirts of italy the infrastructure looked
like it hadnt been maintained in ages.

~~~
kimi
I live in Tessin (the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland), and the
infrastructure _is_ maintained.

~~~
klez
I think they meant that once you cross to Italy the infrastructure was in
shambles. And they made this Italian laugh :)

------
kimi
There is a joke here that goes: Switzerland has four official languages; where
the three of them are German and German.

~~~
shafyy
Never heard that. You must be living in the Romandie ;-)

~~~
kimi
Tessin :-)

------
tlamponi
see also Ladin (not Latin):
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladin_language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladin_language)

Spoken by a few South Tyrolian friends of mine, either as mother or as second
tongue.

They can effectively learn 4 languages in the school:

* Ladin (elementary) * Italian (elementary) * German (elementary) (South Tyrol is ~60% German speaking autonomy in Italy) * English (when I went to school (started in 1999) it was introduced in middle school, nowadays it's late elementary AFAIK)

------
aschmid
Capuns looks tasty

~~~
Oletros
When I go to the little town of my wife's family in Italy (near Bergamo) they
have Capù. It is the same :)

------
ucaetano
Interesting facts:

\- More people speak Portugese in Switzerland than Romansch

\- More people speak Albanian in Switzerland than Romansch (there are 350k
Kosovars in Switzerland, almost 5% of the population)

[https://www.eda.admin.ch/aboutswitzerland/en/home/infografik...](https://www.eda.admin.ch/aboutswitzerland/en/home/infografiken/gesellschaft/sie-
machen-die-schweiz-groesser.html)

BTW, the Swiss government has several amazing infographics about the country,
extremely well designed an informative:

[https://www.eda.admin.ch/aboutswitzerland/en/home/infografik...](https://www.eda.admin.ch/aboutswitzerland/en/home/infografiken.html)

~~~
analog31
Amusingly, my family was on a vacation, and were on a hiking trail above
Zermatt. There was a hand written sign offering a fancy meal at a nearby
restaurant, in four languages:

German, French, English, and Japanese

~~~
3rdAccount
For tourists?

~~~
analog31
Yes. It was an area where tourists probably outnumbered locals. Probably the
most tourist-y town I've been in. We stayed in a town further down the valley,
which was substantially cheaper and more pleasant, but the hikes above Zermatt
are still spectacular.

------
rjtobin
Romansh, a mystery to everyone except Sean Connery.

------
sandworm101
>> When the world loses a language, as it does every two weeks, we
collectively lose the knowledge from past generations.

No. Google translate. I really disagree with this idea that the death of a
language somehow means we are cut off from the culture that used the language.
Nobody speaks ancient Egyptian but we can still translate their hieroglyphs.
Universally common language promotes communication, cultural exchange,
understanding and general world peace. I'd rather focus on the promotion of
wold languages than the maintenance of isolated regional dialects. I'd rather
learn Arabic than Welsh, Cantonese over Romansh.

Wow. "Romansh" is recognized by my spellchecker. But "Shia" of Shia Islam is
not. Makes one think.

~~~
baxtr
As a dual native speaker I can tell you: language is not as transactional as
you think. There are things that can’t be expressed in another language. Many
words have slightly different meanings than their literal counterparts. And
most importantly, language constructs a way of thinking, which can’t be
transferred by a literal translation. So, language is culture. That means
every time a language is lost a part of the world’s culture is lost.

~~~
dpq
While I totally agree with your pov and sentiment from my personal experience
(raised in a bilingual family, now speaking 4 languages), I don't see such
loss as a terrible tragedy. Cultures that have lost the evolutionary race, who
failed to instill competitive world comprehension in the carrier population,
are not really useful. Imagine a language that has no concept of future tense,
no understanding of planning. Do you really believe it ought to exist? Who are
the poor souls that you would sentence to having such a limited and
uncompetitive world view just for the sake of diversity, while you go on
thinking in in much more advanced concepts? Such a handicap is not something I
would knowingly impose on any fellow human being.

~~~
foldr
If you really mean tense, then there are plenty of languages without tense at
all. E.g. Chinese. They seem to be doing ok.

It is not necessary to have a grammatical future tense to talk or think about
the future. In fact, English does not have a future tense in the technical
grammatical sense of 'tense'.

More generally, there's no evidence for the existence of human languages with
the sort of lack of expressive power that you're talking about. All languages
appear to be more-or-less equivalent in their expressive power, although of
course that does not imply that exact translation is possible in all
instances.

