Talk:Romansh language/Archive 1

Orthography

On the orthographic level, Heinrich Schmidt sought to avoid all 'odd-looking' spellings, in order to increase general acceptability of the new idiom and its spelling. Therefore, words with /c/ plus /e/ or /i/ have <tg> (tgirar) instead of <ch>. Words with /c/ followed by /a/, /o/, /u/ have <ch> (chalanda) as both speakers of Engadin (chalanda) and the Rhine territory (calanda) except a spelling with <c->.

This sentence complete confuses me on several levels. What is intended by /c/? Do you mean /C/ (real IPA /ç/), as German ich-laut? Or /tS/, as in English "charm"? Or something else? Moreover, how on earth is <tg> not an "odd-looking spelling" of anything other than /tg/ or /tk/?

At the same time, che and chi are - due to this rule, called "Leza Uffers Kompromiss" - pronounced /ke/ and /ki/. <k> on the other hand would be a grapheme deemed unfit for a Romance tongue such as Romansh.

Isn't this just the same as Italian orthography?

On the other hand, the fact that there is no <ü, ö> in Romansh may not only be due to the lack of /y/ and /2/ in most Romansh idioms, but also to the graphic form which is seen as non-Romance. This also shows that it is not always phonetics that leads to the adoption of a new grapheme, but sometimes also the lack of a grapheme that leads to a certain phonetic shape of the standard.

This does not make it at all clear that the lack of the letters is not due to the rarity in Rumantsch of the sounds they represent in German.

Very unclear explanations

I can only guess as to the real sounds behind this rather unorthodox transcription. Please clarify. --Anon

I believe those symbols within the slashes are SAMPA and those letters within the angle brackets are orthography. --Menchi 02:16, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Some [] are SAMPA, some are IPA.

[S] [Z] [tS] are SAMPA.

[ə] [ʃ] [ʒ] [ʧ] [ø] are IPA.

[c] [e] [i] [a] [o] [u] [y] are both SAMPA and IPA. — Monedula 05:40, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I hate SAMPA...a pronunciation guide that nobody is actually familiar with is completely worthless. Plus, it looks ridiculous. john k 02:34, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

All SAMPA should be deleted and replaced with correct IPA. Chameleon 22:59, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I've removed the SAMPA, and done away with the angle brackets. I've changed [c] to [tɕ] in accordance with Daniels and Bright The World's Writing Systems (OUP 1996). But some of the wording could still do with tidying up! rossb 18:53, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Assistance

The Romansh section of Romance copula needs some attention. If you can describe how the verb "to be" works, go to it! Chameleon 22:59, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

New intro

Pardon me if I do not adhere to the correct stylistic conventions for talk pages; I am a relative Wikipedia novice.

I have added a slightly less-specialist introduction to this page, giving some figures and context for the language both in the country, in Europe and relative to the other Rhaetian languages. This is my first significant addition to a linguistics page on WP; I am only an interested amateur in the field.

References & sources:

• http://www.romansh.ch/
• http://switzerland.isyours.com/e/guide/graubunden/romansh.html
• http://www.bartleby.com/65/rh/RhaetoRo.html

Liam Proven 00:25, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Single language ?!

"Romansh is not a single language but a group of closely-related dialects"

Anyone think of an organic language which ISN'T a group of closely-related dialects?

It's possible there are a few cases where the language-dialect distinction is meaningless because every speaker uses the same dialect, but Romansh is clearly not an example of this. I have changed this paragraph accordingly. Jsteph 06:16, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Sociolinguistics?

I have taken the liberty of renaming the chapter called "Sociolinguistics", as it obviously is rather on Dialects than on Sociolinguistics. --Unoffensive text or character 16:03, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Half the size

...about half the size of Switzerland's largest community of speakers of a non-official language, with some 111,000 speakers, quoth the article, but what is this "non-official language"? Jpatokal 12:00, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, well, it seems it fell victim to political correctness. It used to be Serbo-Croatian, but as today this has been replaced by a bundle of languages (Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian, and I expect we will soon see Montenegrinian), someone "corrected" the entry by deleting the word "Serbo-Croatian".Unoffensive text or character 16:32, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I've tried to add an acceptable description of which language - sorry, languages - are being talked about, because the previous situation was silly. It might make more sense to delete the sentence completely. --Dtcdthingy 19:27, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Romansh-speakers

Is it accurate to call the Romansh-speaking peoples of Switzerland and Italy "Romansh people" when designating their ethnic group, or would they better be considered Italian people, or something else? Static Sleepstorm 08:11, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Italians? Certainly not, if you do not want to offend them. I have heard the term "Bündnerromanen" used (i.e. Romanic people of Graubünden) and I suppose "Romansh people" would be a good English translation. Unoffensive text or character 08:32, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

What is the name for the letter "X"?

Under the "Letters" section, the Romansh alphabet is given. Below that are the names of the letters. Mein Gott/Mon dieu! The name for "X" has been X-ed out; or perhaps, in accordance with this Letter of Mystery, it has no name! Writtenright 04:04, 15 June 2007 (UTC)Writtenright

why portuguese?

Why does the chart comparing the Rhaeto-Romansch languages of Swizterland compare them to Portuguese? Why not one of the Romance languages spoken in the area like French, Italian, or Ladin? Arthurian Legend 18:02, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Official logo of the Confederation

The article says: "official logo of the Confederation features all four languages". What is that official logo? I don't see any languages on the Coat of arms of Switzerland. Is it some other logo? --Amir E. Aharoni 12:35, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I was wondering that too. Maybe it's referring to the text next to the coat of arms on http://www.admin.ch/index.html Angelastic (talk) 22:26, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Couldn't find a source. Removed the statement. Yours in friendliness, GeorgeLouis (talk) 19:18, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I guess the statement came from this article, but it's still not clear what it refers to (I guess it is their letterhead, and/or the thing on admin.ch that I mentioned before), so I think we should leave it out.--Angelastic (talk) 11:43, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Serbo-Croatian

That language does not exist... It is mentioned in the first paragraph.

Please sign your posts by striking the tilde key four times. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 19:02, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Romontsch

Is 'Romontsch' an alternative spelling for 'Romansh' or is it an other language ? Arno Lagrange ✉ 01:25, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

• Romontsch: Language and Literature, Douglas Bartlett Gregor, Oleander Press, 1982, ISBN: 978-0900891397

"Romontsch" is how Romansh is spelled in the Sursilvan variety. The book you refer to deals with Sursilvan. --Benne ['bɛnə] _(talk) 09:48, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

top name

The article title is "Romansh", but the top of the Language infobox says "Romansch" (and "Rumantsch" under that). Shouldn't the two top names be the same? —Steve Summit (talk) 02:27, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Fix it and see what happens. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 14:20, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Yugoslav languages

I am deleting the "fact" about the other languages because it lacks a source (requested since February 2008). Please reinstate, with a citation, if possible. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 17:28, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Romansch surname

some romansch, german-romansch and italian-romansch surname and name.¿?

Some first names: Andri, Bistgaun, Curdin, Dumeng, Flurin, Gieri, Linard, Murezi, Peider, Stiafen, Tumaisch...--151.51.60.165 (talk) 19:45, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Excuse me, is this the french wikipedia?

Why do You always refer to "Grisons"? The Romansh inhabitants call it Grischun, the Swiss-German citizens name it Graubünden and the neighboring Italians know it as Grigioni. So why does this article use a french term?

No, this is the English wikipedia, therefore it uses the English term which also happens to be Grisons--unless you want to call it "the Grey League". 22:34, 14 December 2008 (UTC)22:34, 14 December 2008 (UTC)22:34, 14 December 2008 (UTC)~

Language status

Has Romansh seen a precipitous decline in the last fifty years or more? Is it holding steady? Is it growing? I know it seems there is more government support for Romansh lately, but has this translated into more or fewer speakers or about the same percentage? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.227.210.207 (talk) 22:37, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

The ISO 639 language codes are rm and roh.

Codes for what? Several languages or dialects are mentioned just before this sentence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.140.57.113 (talk) 13:57, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Codes for Romansh, i.e. all the dialects spoken in Switzerland. Ladin (of Italy) and Friulian have separate codes. +Angr 13:43, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Move page

Is Romansch not the most common English spelling? —Wiki Wikardo 12:18, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I think Romansh and Romansch are about equally common in English. I certainly think Romansh makes more sense, since it's a uniquely English name for the language, so we might as well use the typically English spelling of the sound /ʃ/. By that I mean that Romansch (with the c) is neither the native spelling (which is Rumantsch with a u and a t) nor the German spelling (which is Romanisch with an i), so it's not as if we're borrowing some other language's spelling. So since we're using English's own spelling anyway, we might as well go all the way and spell /ʃ/ sh, as it's usually spelled in English, rather than use the sch spelling that might make people think that spelling is borrowed from some other language, which it isn't. Does that make sense? Anyway, as far as WP:COMMONNAMES is concerned, I don't think the spelling with the c is significantly more common in English than the spelling without it. +Angr 13:36, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

That makes sense to me too. Also the Google Ngram tends to confirm that there is no predominant spelling, so this article probably shouldn't be moved. mgeo talk 10:45, 8 January 2011 (UTC)