Romansh-speakers call for more government support

Eighty years ago, 92 percent of Swiss voters approved the recognition of Romansh as the country’s fourth official language. On the occasion of this anniversary, the language’s lobby association has called for a widening of its official territory. Speaking to media in Bern on Monday on the eve of the vote’s anniversary, Johannes Flury of the Lia Rumantscha association said that the whole of Switzerland should henceforth be recognised as the official territory of the language, rather than only in its home region in the east. The reason for the call is the language’s ongoing decline: while Romansh grows in reputation and popularity, it is dying out in reality. The canton Graubünden dialect is spoken by just 0.5 percent of the Swiss population, and has been classified as at risk by UNESCO. + More on the struggle for survival of Switzerland’s smallest language Fluri says that as one-third of the Romansh-speaking population now lives outside canton Graubünden – especially in ...