Mastodawn

A Very Big Fight Over a Very Small Language

"Among the surviving Romansh idioms, Sursilvan reigns in the upper Rhine Valley; Sutsilvan in the posterior Rhine Valley; Surmiran in the Albula Valley and Oberhalbstein; and Puter and Vallader in the Engadine."

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/12/08/a-very-big-fight-over-a-very-small-language?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_120325&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&utm_term=tny_daily_digest&bxid=5bd66fd02ddf9c6194389d0a&cndid=22300418&hasha=268e3cc9cd4f93e81125ff99bc15edb0&hashb=f8df4272800edcc1fe2e8ce7e5c53aa6c2b79fe9&hashc=5906abdd2530ce567de22e52d1c561df763a24583893148a04c39e9a87bfced3&esrc=AUTO_OTHER

Via #MarginalRevolution

#Switzerland #languages
#NewYorker

A Very Big Fight Over a Very Small Language

Romansh, a Swiss language spoken by a tiny fraction of the population, comes in five major versions. Simon Akam reports from Switzerland about the verbal avalanche that ensued when reformers tried to entrench the tongue by standardizing it.

The New Yorker