Sursilvan
Sursilvan (; also ''romontsch sursilvan'' ; Sursilvan, Vallader, Surmiran, Sutsilvan, and Rumantsch Grischun: ''sursilvan''; Puter: ''sursilvaun'') is a group of dialects of the Romansh language spoken in the Swiss district of Surselva. It is t ...
Surmiran
Surmiran (Surmiran, Vallader, Sutsilvan, Rumantsch Grischun: ''surmiran''; Puter: ''surmiraun'') is a dialect of the Romansh language. It is spoken in Surmeir and in the Albula Valley in the Grisons Canton, in Switzerland
). Swiss law ...
Sutsilvan
Romansh (; sometimes also spelled Romansch and Rumantsch; Sursilvan: ; Vallader, Surmiran, and Rumantsch Grischun: ; Putèr: ; Sutsilvan: , , ; Jauer: ) is a Gallo-Romance language spoken predominantly in the Swiss canton of the Grison ...
: ') is a variety of the
Romansh language
Romansh (; sometimes also spelled Romansch and Rumantsch; Sursilvan: ; Vallader, Surmiran, and Rumantsch Grischun: ; Putèr: ; Sutsilvan: , , ; Jauer: ) is a Gallo-Romance language spoken predominantly in the Swiss canton of the Grison ...
spoken in the
Lower Engadine
The Engadin or Engadine ( rm, ;This is the name in the two Romansh idioms that are spoken in the Engadin, Vallader and Puter, as well as in Sursilvan and Rumantsch Grischun. In Surmiran, the name is ''Nagiadegna'', and in Sutsilvan, it is ''G ...
valley (''Engiadina Bassa'') of southeast
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
Zernez
Zernez is a village and a municipality in the Engiadina Bassa/Val Müstair Region in the Swiss canton of Graubünden. On 1 January 2015 the former municipalities of Lavin and Susch merged into the municipality of Zernez.
Zernez is a major node ...
. It is also used as a written language in the nearby community of
Val Müstair
Val Müstair (german: Münstertal) is a municipality in the Engiadina Bassa/Val Müstair Region in the Swiss canton of Graubünden. It was formed on 1 January 2009 through the merger of Tschierv, Fuldera, Lü, Valchava, Santa Maria Val Mü ...
, where Jauer is spoken. In 2008, schools in the Val Müstair switched from Vallader to Rumantsch Grischun as their written language, but switched back to Vallader in 2012, following a referendum.
The name of the dialect is derived from ''val'' 'valley'. It is the second most commonly spoken variety of Romansh, with 6,448 people in the Lower Engadine valley (79.2%) naming Romansh as a habitually spoken language in the census of 2000.
Romansh can be separated into two dialect groups: Rhine dialects (Sursilvan, Sutsilvan and Surmiran) and Engadine dialects (Vallader and Puter).
A variety of Vallader was also used in
Samnaun
Samnaun ( rm, Samignun) is a high Alpine village and a valley at the eastern end of Switzerland and a municipality in the Engiadina Bassa/Val Müstair Region in the Swiss canton of Graubünden.
History
The valley was first used as a seasonal ...
until the late 19th century, when speakers switched to Bavarian. The last speaker of the Romansh dialect of Samnaun, Augustin Heiß, died in 1935.
For a long period of time, the oldest written form Puter held much prestige with its name. It was used as the language of the aristocratic Engadine tourist region near St. Moritz (San Murezzan). It was used most widely in the 19th century. Vallader has since become more important.
The dialect Jauer, is actually a variety of Vallader spoken in Val Müstair. It is almost only spoken there, and is virtually never written.
Classification
Puter and Vallader are sometimes referred to as one specific variety known as Ladin, a term which can also refer to the closely related language in Italy's
Dolomite mountains
The Dolomites ( it, Dolomiti ; Ladin: ''Dolomites''; german: Dolomiten ; vec, Dołomiti : fur, Dolomitis), also known as the Dolomite Mountains, Dolomite Alps or Dolomitic Alps, are a mountain range located in northeastern Italy. They form par ...
also known as
Ladin
Ladin may refer to:
* Ladin language, a language in northern Italy, often classified as a Rhaeto-Romance language
*Ladin people, the inhabitants of the Dolomite Alps region of northern Italy
See also
*Laden (disambiguation)
* Ladino (disambigua ...
.
They are also considered Engadine dialects, since they are spoken in the area of the Engadines.
Vallader shares many traits with the Puter dialect spoken in the Upper Engadine. On the lexical level, the two varieties are similar enough to have a common dictionary. Puter and Vallader share the rounded front vowels and ¸ which are not found in other Romansh varieties. These sounds make written Ladin easily distinguishable through the numerous occurrences of the letters and .
Phonological differences
In Vallader, the
clitic
In morphology and syntax, a clitic (, backformed from Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a w ...
s are almost always well preserved, and there are no clustered forms that are known. On the other hand, Puter still preserves the clitic system completely.
Compared to Puter, Vallader spelling reflects the pronunciation more closely.
Another difference is that one class of verbs end in ''-ar'' in Vallader, whereas the ending in Puter is ''-er''. The differences in verb conjugation are more divergent however, as can be seen in the simple present of ''avair'' 'to have':
Impersonals
In Vallader, impersonals are formed using a third person singular reflexive verbal clitic. This is an important detail derived most likely from Italian. This is also possible in Puter.
Geographic distribution
Vallader, being one of the five dialects, is mainly used in the Val Müstair and Engadine regions. The name comes from the term "valley" so it's only right that it is found in these regions full of valleys.
As you can see on the map provided below, Vallader is used much more widely to the North East of Graubünden. This distinct difference in blue shades shows the areas of Upper and Lower Engadines. The Lower Engadin, as the chart suggests, speaks Vallader. In the Upper Engadin, Puter is spoken.
A larger issue at hand for the minority Vallader speakers is not only the use of Bavarian, High and Swiss German, but also the division of Romansh. This is especially evident for speakers of the Vallader dialect; since Puter is so closely related in both location and language, it makes the slight differences more cumbersome.
Dialects
While written Vallader is standardized, speakers employ local dialects in oral use. Differences in speech often allow people to pinpoint the home village of another speaker. For example, the word ''eu'' 'I' can be pronounced as [], [], [], [], [] and [], depending on the local dialect.
The dialect of the Val Müstair, Jauer, is distinguished through the ending ''-er'' instead of ''-ar'' for verbs of the first conjugation, and by the placement of stress on the penultimate syllable of these verbs. In addition, stressed /a/ is diphthongized in Jauer. All three traits can be seen in the verb 'to sing', which is ''chantà r'' in Vallader but ''chà unter'' in Jauer.
It is an important fact to keep in mind that Jauer is almost exclusively spoken. Vallader is not only the preferred written form, but it is also the most widely used one.
Official status
As stated earlier, in 2008, schools in the Val Müstair switched from Vallader to Rumantsch Grischun as their written language. When they switched back to Vallader in 2012 following a referendum, it showed that Vallader is in danger but is still without a doubt seen as a (if not the most) reliable language, especially for writing. Since Jauer is used almost solely for speech, this allows more room for Vallader to exist as more of an entity in the world of writing.
It is the second most widely used variety of Romansh, with 6,448 people in the Lower Engadine valley (79.2%) naming Romansh as a habitually spoken language in the census of 2000. This area is the main driving force behind keeping Vallader relevant.
Literature
The first written document in Vallader is the psalm book ''Vn cudesch da Psalms'' by Durich Chiampell from the year 1562.
Other important authors who have written in Vallader include
Peider Lansel
Peider Lansel (August 15, 1863 – December 8, 1943) was a Swiss Romansh lyric poet. He is most known for having revived Rhaeto-Romansh as a literary language. His family was from Sent, Switzerland, (although he was born in Pisa
Pisa ( , or ...
,
Men Rauch
A man is an adult male human. Prior to adulthood, a male human is referred to as a boy (a male child or adolescent). Like most other male mammals, a man's genome usually inherits an X chromosome from the mother and a Y chromos ...
,
Men Gaudenz
A man is an adult male human. Prior to adulthood, a male human is referred to as a boy (a male child or adolescent). Like most other male mammals, a man's genome usually inherits an X chromosome from the mother and a Y chromos ...
Oscar Peer
Oscar Peer (23 April 1928 – 22 December 2013) was a Swiss novelist, playwright and philologist. His works were written in Romansch and German, and comprised epic novels, short stories, and drama. He was also well known for his Ladin-German d ...
Rut Plouda-Stecher
Rut may refer to:
Common meanings
* Rut (mammalian reproduction), the period of time when certain ruminants mate
* Rut (roads), a depression or groove worn into a road or path
Other uses
* Rut (name)
* Rut, Kardzhali Province, a village in sou ...
.
The songwriter
Linard Bardill
Linard () is a former commune in the Creuse department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in central France. On 1 January 2019, it was merged into the new commune Linard-Malval.The Fox and the Crow by
Jean de La Fontaine
Jean de La Fontaine (, , ; 8 July 162113 April 1695) was a French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his ''Fables'', which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Euro ...
in Vallader, as well as a translation into
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
, the similar-looking but noticeably different-sounding dialect Puter, the Jauer dialect, and Rumantsch Grischun.
References
Literature
* Gion Tscharner: ''Dicziunari – Wörterbuch vallader-tudais-ch/deutsch-vallader'' Lehrmittelverlag Graubünden 2003. (Vallader-German dictionary)
* M. Schlatter: ''Ich lerne Romanisch.'' (Vallader), 9th edition 2003.
* G. P. Ganzoni: ''Grammatica ladina.'' Uniun dals Grischs und Lia Rumantscha 1983 (Vallader grammar written in French).
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Romansh dialectsLanguages of SwitzerlandVal MüstairValsotZernez