Rhaeto-Romance Swisterland?

Okay, here it is. Odd idea. Swisterland supposedly have not only Swiss German and French as languages, but also some Italian, and a less know roman familly language called Romanche, of this Rhaeto-Romance branch, albeit this one is a very small minority nowaday, 3% of speakers maybe max.

I wonder if, as I like small guys fightin' and winnin', we can reverse history there. Can we make Romanche - or another related language - a MAJOR language around, at least regionaly? Maybe even, like national language of Swisterland?

I dunno, maybe like... rise of a swiss national idea earlier maybe, and the cantons need maybe an uniting common language, a lingua franca, who seems neutral. Romanche, being a local language, very swiss, may be choosen by the leaders... and become actually popular, national pride?

The Ubbergeek said:

Okay, here it is. Odd idea. Swisterland supposedly have not only Swiss German and French as languages, but also some Italian, and a less know roman familly language called Romanche, of this Rhaeto-Romance branch, albeit this one is a very small minority nowaday, 3% of speakers maybe max.

I wonder if, as I like small guys fightin' and winnin', we can reverse history there. Can we make Romanche - or another related language - a MAJOR language around, at least regionaly? Maybe even, like national language of Swisterland?

I dunno, maybe like... rise of a swiss national idea earlier maybe, and the cantons need maybe an uniting common language, a lingua franca, who seems neutral. Romanche, being a local language, very swiss, may be choosen by the leaders... and become actually popular, national pride?

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The only was to preserve the Ladin languages would be for the central-eastern Alps to coalesce in a national Ladinian state, which historically didnt happen. The counts of Gorizia and Tyrol (OTL extinct in 1500) are the most loikly candidates for a POD in that direction.

basileus said:

The only was to preserve the Ladin languages would be for the central-eastern Alps to coalesce in a national Ladinian state, which historically didnt happen. The counts of Gorizia and Tyrol (OTL extinct in 1500) are the most loikly candidates for a POD in that direction.

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So... like a 'Southern Swissterland' federation of the Alps?

Your unique ortography gave me a twisted idea...
"Schwesternland"... hmmm... what would it be? A Nunnery perhaps? Or, more interestingly, a nurse school?

The Ubbergeek said:

So... like a 'Southern Swissterland' federation of the Alps?

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No, not southern: eastern. And it may be different from the way Switzerland was formed. The Swiss as a people were born as mountain rebels, defending their autonomy with an efficient and cohesive infantry army capable of repelling the assaults of feudal cavalry. The Ladinians could still be a notable military power to reckon with, but int he case of the counts of Gorziai and Tyrol, they would be subjects of the same lord, only later, in Renaissance times, realizing their language(s) have a common root.
In order to allow a Ladinia to exist, however, you must a) ensure survival of the dynasts, or their appointed successors; b) weaken a bit both the Habsburgs and Venice; c) ensure effective international alliances (say, with France, or even the Turks). The territory of Ladinia would include lands historically Romance-speaking: from all of Friuli up to the Isonzo river to Cadore, the Dolomitic valleys, Belluno, Trento, Bozen, all of Tyrol (including Innsbruck and Lienz), Vorarlberg, Graubunden, Glaruns, St.Gallen, maybe even Valtellina. It could make of a quite solid state, if endowed with a sense of unity, a national literary language (probably based out of Friulian or Furlàn, the eastern variety)... and robust fortifications.

basileus said:

Your unique ortography gave me a twisted idea...
"Schwesternland"... hmmm... what would it be? A Nunnery perhaps? Or, more interestingly, a nurse school?

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Not everyone is a speaker of german, you know. Or native english speaker, for this matter...

Would the movements southward of germanic tribes help? But that probably would take a distant POD.... When did germanic people(s) setled modern Swisterland and around?

The Ubbergeek said:

Would the movements southward of germanic tribes help? But that probably would take a distant POD.... When did germanic people(s) setled modern Swisterland and around?

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The germanic Alamanni settled in the 6th to 8th century, assimilating the Gallo-Romans and the Raetians. If the Alamanni stay north of the Rhine, then it is likely that the majority of Switzerland's population continues to speak some kind of vulgar latin with a strong Celtic influence. They might even use a considerable amount of Raetian loanwords.

Voyager75 said:

The germanic Alamanni settled in the 6th to 8th century, assimilating the Gallo-Romans and the Raetians. If the Alamanni stay north of the Rhine, then it is likely that the majority of Switzerland's population continues to speak some kind of vulgar latin with a strong Celtic influence. They might even use a considerable amount of Raetian loanwords.

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It don't seems totally impossible... I don,t know the region much, but the terrains seems not very conductive to any invasion.

the monastic state of Aquilea could had done it but the question is how?

kasumigenx said:

the monastic state of Aquilea could had done it but the question is how?

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By getting somewhat coopted into the Lurngau (Gorizia-Tyrol) domains in some relation of mutual benefit, against both Venice and the Habsburgs. These were the players in the decisive phase (XIIIth c. onwards). I can only have here a hypothesis about a long nation-building spanning some four centuries, ending just in time for the OTL equivalent of the Peace of Westfalia. Just like Switzerland, but in a partly different context, under the authority of a dynast with different degrees of authority upon the various component territories (mediate or immediate, etc.)

Wow. just the name make it worthy of survival. x3

Romansch/Romanshe is spoken by only three percent of the Swiss population? More power to them as their language is on Swiss money.

Maybe we could reach a high percentage of Romansch speakers with a later POD where Switzerland wants a distinct national language. Catalan has made a comeback in Spain. Occitan has its advocates in France. Cajun French is being taught as a second language in a few schools in Louisiana and Texas.

Maybe the Swiss might decide they want their own distinct language.

Catmo said:

Romansch/Romanshe is spoken by only three percent of the Swiss population? More power to them as their language is on Swiss money.

Maybe we could reach a high percentage of Romansch speakers with a later POD where Switzerland wants a distinct national language. Catalan has made a comeback in Spain. Occitan has its advocates in France. Cajun French is being taught as a second language in a few schools in Louisiana and Texas.

Maybe the Swiss might decide they want their own distinct language.

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I would like Switzerland with Arpitan and Romansh as co-official languages, Arpitan and Romansh are both native in Switzerland.

Catmo said:

Romansch/Romanshe is spoken by only three percent of the Swiss population? More power to them as their language is on Swiss money.

Maybe we could reach a high percentage of Romansch speakers with a later POD where Switzerland wants a distinct national language. Catalan has made a comeback in Spain. Occitan has its advocates in France. Cajun French is being taught as a second language in a few schools in Louisiana and Texas.

Maybe the Swiss might decide they want their own distinct language.

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It's kinda what I suggest - a Romantic movement in Swisterland maybe want to use a common lingua franca who is totaly native swiss, and so, Romanche....

The Ubbergeek said:

It's kinda what I suggest - a Romantic movement in Swisterland maybe want to use a common lingua franca who is totaly native swiss, and so, Romanche....

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Exactly. Perhaps Swiss nationalism goes to a level not seen OTL and in order to assert its difference from any German state (plus Austria-Hungary), uses Romansh as the administrative language and the language instructed in school in order to unify the French, Italian, and German Swiss. The closest parallel I can think of is that when the Kingdom of Sardinia, it used the Tuscan dialect of Italian in its government and schooling and that's how we got "Standard Italian".

Kosta said:

Exactly. Perhaps Swiss nationalism goes to a level not seen OTL and in order to assert its difference from any German state (plus Austria-Hungary), uses Romansh as the administrative language and the language instructed in school in order to unify the French, Italian, and German Swiss. The closest parallel I can think of is that when the Kingdom of Sardinia, it used the Tuscan dialect of Italian in its government and schooling and that's how we got "Standard Italian".

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I think Arpitan and Romansh can be "blended" to form a Swiss National language but both Romansh and Arpitan/Romand associate themselves with Romans in their name, It can have a bearing on the identity of Switzerland.

I can see a desire of such 'neutral' lingua franca to come also from serious ethnical clashes. Didn't cantons fought each other a few times in history, along ethnico-linguistic (and later, religious) lines?

Between (mostly) germanophones and romands, I can see a desire of a neutral common language...

kasumigenx said:

I think Arpitan and Romansh can be "blended" to form a Swiss National language but both Romansh and Arpitan/Romand associate themselves with Romans in their name, It can have a bearing on the identity of Switzerland.

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Arpitan and the Romansh dialects are quite different and not easily mergeable, considering they do not even share a linguistic boundary, and they never did, as far as we know, due to the Alamannic expansion. For once, the common Romansh created in 1982 by a (German-speaker native) linguist still doesn't is in actual use, apart by Graubunden media; as for Arpitan, most of its theoretical speakers use standard French.

Is Arpitan one of it's 'dialects'? I had never heard that name before.