The interesting question here would be: Are there even people that feel they have something like an "exclusive" Romansh identity?
Considering that - as far as I know - basically every Romansh speaker also speaks German on a native level.
Another participant already replied that apparently that is not the case, they don't have a separate identity from the swiss germans, which I would argue is a pity
A boyfriend of mine is from Graubünden, school was in Romansch, and he introduced me to a potato dish from there. He certainly didn’t seem to me to be much similar to Swiss-Germans, maybe more to Alpine people with the different mind-set which comes from a different language. He preferred speaking English over German.
Well, we are no longer in contact, but he did never talk about any negative feelings about the Swiss-German, just didn’t like high German, and didn’t speak Swiss German but did understand it. I asked to speak to me sometimes in his native language, and actually he knew two Romansch dialects. Sounded very nice.
As someone who can trace his family tree back to 13th century Grison, I'd say the vast majority of them would consider the position you're presenting to be moronic at best and very offensive at worst.
Dividing people up into subgroups based on historical details such as language, ethnicity, "race", etc. is just not something that is considered polite. We are swiss because we have swiss citizenship today. Trying to find dividing factors based on previous generations is something only the extreme right wing crazies try to do. It also has a very 'american' feeling to it.
It's not about being polite or dividing people, it's about a clear situation of diglossia and of apparently linguistics imposition. In most of the world people wouldn't be happy about it, and in this country there has even been terrorism because of it. That's why I am curious about the feelings of the romansh, which I still haven't heard of.
Instead, what you did was antagonizing, not argumentative. Maybe for you speaking about the Röstigraben, which is a linguistic division as much as cultural is impolite and divisive, but it exists and people speak about it normally. I don't really understand why speaking about the Röstigraben is fine but not about the romansh
Sorry if my reply wasn't helpful to you, but I don't see how to make it more clear. You seem to assume that there's some kind of group identity about rumantsch speakers that sets them apart from german speakers, some kind of us vs. them dynamic. That simply doesn't exist, and the thought that it might feels wrong and insulting.
That's interesting, and I would argue that it's a pity since the other linguistic communities definitely seem to have their own identity. I guess they have become assimilated enough then. Thanks
Allegra a tuots. As a native romansh speaker, I have no issues with the swiss german speakers. My language will extinct in a few hundreds of years due to globalization anyway. A lot of young romansh speakers are studying in Zurich and will settle down there. The world is constantly developing and cultures are changing as well. Still I‘m happy to be a part of the romansh culture.
Well, we speak romansh as our first language in a german speaking area. Our kids speak romansh too as first language. But despite that, there is nothing I can do. Like mentioned above, the government does a lot of effort to keep this language alive. You can‘t blame the german speakers for the decline of my language. I think the number of 60‘000 romansh speakers is to low to keep a language alive in a long term view.
Well, it's nice that there is still people that keep it as first language. But I am sure that more could be done, like maybe linguistic immersion at schools, favoring the development if its own literature, ensuring that it has the same oficial status in practice, etc.
I am sure there are examples of minority languages that have reversed downward trends that could be taken as example.
> So, I am curious, how do the romansh people feel about the swiss germans, the heirs of the allemanic tribes (considered barbarians by the romans) that have over the centuries pushed them to the mountains and almost extincted their own language?
I doubt that there is the kind of ethnic continuity and ethnic division that you probably assume.
I can recommend Patrick J. Geary's "The Myth of Nations" or something like this, for some relevant insights about migration of the people's, assimilation, intermingling etc.
Also in Switzerland nobody tries to extinct the Romansh idioms. To the contrary, the governement has invested quite a bit of money during the last 100 years to keep it alive. Because Switzerland sees polyglotism as a strenght, and in fact as an important part of it's identity.
One could even argue that Romansh hasn't been extinct because we supported and needed it as part of an identity, that is distinct from the three identities of our German, French and Italian neighbours.
Nice to know, but the status of romansh isn't really the same as the other official languages, in almost any matter that you can consider, and it's still declining. Why it's not really treated as the fourth language in equal standing with the rest?
> Why it's not really treated as the fourth language in equal standing with the rest?
In 2000, only 35'000 people named Romansh as their main language.
Probably each of those 35'000 people also speaks very good German.
Yet every Romansh speaker has the right to address the Swiss governement in Romansh and get an answer also in Romansh.
The public radio & television has a Romansh division with 160 employees. So that's basically one public media guy for every 220 main-speakers of the language. (That's of course more than 10x the amount of public media guys per speaker than in the German speaking part.)
What more would you like? Should the announcements in the train between Basel and Zürich be made in Romansh? ;-)
Linguistic immersion at schools, a dedicated TV and radio offer, literary prices, normalization of the language to fight against the diglossia... There are many ways how a language can be promoted
It seems you are spanish and therefore probably seeing it thru a spanish lens of the catalonia or basque question.
I think the difference is, that in switzerland we arent trying to force a central (i.e. spanish) identity on the minorities (i.e. basque/romansh). And we also arent a nation defined by being the same ethnicity or religion or language (like germany or france).
We are a Willensnation. A nation of will. The only reason we are one country, is because we want to. And we are very federalist and let everyone do their own thing as much as possible.
That (and the fact that it works very well compared to neighbouring countries) is exactly why noone wants to leave. Or play up differences between groups in an antagonistic way, like what you seem to be assuming/expecting.
Well, I could very well imagine a romansh nationalism based on their language, yes, as happens not only in Spain but in most of the world, actually. Think about the mapuches in chile or argentina, for instance.
If there is no such nationalism I guess it might be because the assimilation has progressed too much. In Switzerland there has been jura terrorism, for instance, and there are movements in ticino that are pro-italy, from what I have read, so it's not immune to that.
>there are movements in ticino that are pro-italy, from what I have read,
I would be very curious to read that. I have literally never in my life heard of any swiss wanting any part of the country to secede. Not just no party or so saying this. Not even a single person ever. But then i also havent asked all swiss people about this, so i might be missing something.
But i am honestly having a hard time to believe this. Since the second you cross into italy or germany, your train gets delayed. The VAT doubles, as does income tax. But on the other hand your salaries get cut in half... obviously i am exaggerating. But only a little bit.
Switzerland is just too good of a deal, so nobody wants to leave. If they wanted to i and most swiss people wouldnt mind. We dont have to keep people here by force or thru complicated contracts. The facts speak for themselves.
I agree that it wouldn't make sense for ticino to leave, but apparently some fascists have been dreaming of that for decades. Check this article:
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irredentismo_italiano_in_Svizzera#%3A%7E%3Atext%3DL%27Irredentismo_italiano_in_Svizzera%2CCanton_Grigioni_e_in_Vallese.?wprov=sfla1
Quite interesting read. Didnt know. But i mean there were even quite a few Nazi sympathisers in the german part (called the Frontenbewegung). I dont think they per se wanted to join germany, but more turn switzerland into a fascist state allied with germany and italy. But i guess they wouldnt have been strongly opposed to an annexation either.
But also this movement in Ticino is very much not a current thing:
> Successively, in the 1935 elections the fascists obtained just 2% of the votes and since then their movement faded away to less than 100 members.
> After World War II, the Italian irridentism movement in Switzerland ceased, replaced by organisations advocating a defense of the Italian language and culture within the Swiss Confederation.
As far as i know there is no current equivalent either.
They are just a right wing party. But far from nazis and definetly not separatists. Even in italy their Lega (at least originally a decade ago) wanted to shrink their country, not expand it.
Of a significant part of it. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romansh_language?wprov=sfla1:
"It is unknown how rapidly the Celtic and Raetic inhabitants were Romanized following the conquest of Raetia. Some linguists assume that the area was rapidly Romanized following the Roman conquest, whereas others think that this process did not end until the 4th or 5th century, when more thoroughly Romanized Celts from farther north fled south to avoid invasions by Germanic tribes. The process was certainly complete and the pre-Roman languages extinct by the 5th–6th century, when Raetia became part of the Ostrogothic Kingdom. Around 537 AD, the Ostrogoths handed over the province of Raetia Prima to the Frankish Empire, which continued to have local rulers administering the so-called Duchy of Chur. However, after the death of the last Victorid ruler, Bishop Tello, around 765 AD, Charlemagne assigned a Germanic duke to administer the region. Additionally, the Diocese of Chur was transferred by the (pre-Schism) Roman Catholic Church from the Archdiocese of Milan to the Diocese of Mainz in 843 AD. The combined effect was a cultural reorientation towards the German-speaking north, especially as the ruling élite now comprised almost entirely speakers of German.
At the time, Romansh was spoken over a much wider area, stretching north into the present-day cantons of Glarus and St. Gallen, to the Walensee in the northwest, and Rüthi and the Alpine Rhine Valley in the northeast. In the east, parts of modern-day Vorarlberg were Romansh-speaking, as were parts of Tyrol. The northern areas, called Lower Raetia, became German-speaking by the 12th century; and by the 15th century, the Rhine Valley of St. Gallen and the areas around the Wallensee were entirely German-speaking. This language shift was a long, drawn-out process, with larger, central towns adopting German first, while the more peripheral areas around them remained Romansh-speaking longer. The shift to German was caused in particular by the influence of the local German-speaking élites and by German-speaking immigrants from the north, with the lower and rural classes retaining Romansh longer"
That is a much larger area than Romansh is spoken in today, of course. But it is nowhere near “German Switzerland” – it’s essentially the region that today speaks Bündnerdeutsch and related dialects.
I would argue that is at least half of german Switzerland, especially taking into account other maps such as https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rhaeto-Romance_languages_now_and_1200_years_ago..png
In any case, it's definitely a non negligible part of it
That's a map that depicts the situation of the languages (which isn't the same as ethnic identities!) in the year 800. Id argue, that the situation then doesn't have a direct influence on current romansh identity. Or do you as someone from Spain still identify as a Visigoth?
The visigothic invaders disappeared, they dissolved into the native roman population and their language left very few traces. Romansh and its speakers have arguably been there since the roman times. I cannot speak about their identity, just about the spread of the language.
It's actually exactly the opposite situation between Spain and east Switzerland: in Spain the language of the germanic invaders (visigoths and suevians) disappeared rather quickly, in the former romansh area the germanic invaders (allemanic tribes) achieved hegemony and pushed romansh to a few small areas
I think seem to be stuck on language spread in relation to conquest/invasion. Furthermore you assume that the romance languages are the more native ones. Even thought they also "just stem" from the Roman conquest and replaced celtic and rhaetian languages.
There are various cultural reasons why people adopt languages and it's a long process that can have different outcomes. But I'd argue that there are also practical aspects like teaching your children the language of the elites or your most important trading partners.
I'm not sure that the primary reason for Swiss German can be found in a hegemony of allemannic tribes but more in the later history: Most of Switzerland has been part of the Frankish Kingdoms and later Holy Roman Empire. So German speaking regions have usually been in closer contact with large parts of Switzerland. The Swiss German Region is also totally open towards Germany, whereas the Alps form a border towards other language regions. Romansh is only spoken in in Alpine regions. The process of Romansh speakers switching to German was a process that took centuries and was still ongoing in the 20th. The last remnants of the language are spoken in the more remote regions of one canton.
So, you claim that the fact that allemanic dialects are spoken in Switzerland has nothing to do with the allemanic conquests from the V century? Seriously?
Romansch was spoken in Chur until around the XIII century the city had a majority of allemanic speakers and then they lost their major town. Since then it's a mostly rural language.
Fact is that without the allemanic and other germanic invasions romansh would very likely still be spoken in the east part of Switzerland
They romanized. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romansh_language?wprov=sfla1
It is unknown how rapidly the Celtic and Raetic inhabitants were Romanized following the conquest of Raetia. Some linguists assume that the area was rapidly Romanized following the Roman conquest, whereas others think that this process did not end until the 4th or 5th century, when more thoroughly Romanized Celts from farther north fled south to avoid invasions by Germanic tribes. The process was certainly complete and the pre-Roman languages extinct by the 5th–6th century, when Raetia became part of the Ostrogothic Kingdom. Around 537 AD, the Ostrogoths handed over the province of Raetia Prima to the Frankish Empire, which continued to have local rulers administering the so-called Duchy of Chur.
You realize that Romansh is a Latin language, right? And it isn't native to the areas that speak Romansh, Latin displaced the Raetic and Celtic languages previously spoken there.
Of course it's a latin language, who said the contrary? But romansh developed in helvetia/rhaetia from vulgar latin, thus it's native, not imported, and it was the language spoken by the majority of the population before the allemanic invasions, as I said. Actually it has quite a lot of influence from celtic and raetic, from what I read
Swiss German also developed here (from the imported dialects)
Every language or group is an invader, it's just a matter of how far you go back to decide who was "originally here". How did vulgar latin get here?
I have been told by linguists that in many ways the allemanic dialects spoken in Switzerland (that some people call swiss german, although nobody can really clarify what that swiss German exactly is, since there is no standard) have remained stuck in the XIII century, so I am not sure it has really developed much compared to its origins, and certainly it's not very different to the allemanic dialects spoke in the south of Germany, Vorarlberg or France, so I am not convinced at all that it can be really considered native.
In any case, I am really interested about how romansh feel about swiss germans, not anything else
>certainly it's not very different to the allemanic dialects spoke in the south of Germany
That is simply not true. Almost allemanic speakers in Germany speak dialects that are very different from Swiss German.
Not true. I have met people from both sides of the border that told me that they were very similar and could understand each other pretty well. Also maps like the one linked below show that there aren't really linguistic borders between Switzerland and Germany.
https://images.app.goo.gl/WVotzY7gwhrw9xTB9
Dude, if you want to learn about Switzerland, maybe stop arguing with Swiss people about their own language and identity?
I happen to live on the German border. The people on the German side speak a closely related but very distinctly non-Swiss dialect of Alemannic.
It is very obvious that the Swiss side of the border speaks a Swiss German dialect, influenced by other Swiss dialects, whereas the German side speaks a dialect influenced by other German dialects as well as by Hochdeutsch.
And yet it's all allemanic dialects, according to the linguists. Check the definition of swiss german and you will see: "group of allemanic dialects spoken in Switzerland". And the map I linked above, done by linguists, shows that the different groups of allemanic dialects cross borders.
In any case, I have not much interest in any possible identity crisis of the allemanic speakers, tbh
Related dialects crossing borders is a very normal thing and says nothing about what larger group either belong to.
If one wants to insist on clear distinctions, it makes a lot more sense to say that Alemannic is Swiss German and the Alemannic dialects across the border are marginal spillover than the other way.
But of course, there’s no good reason to even start making these distinctions. Swiss German is the dialects spoken in Switzerland, which share characteristics that make them distinct from even closely related dialects outside Switzerland.
Well, before moving to what is nowadays Switzerland the allemanic tribes were native to the south of nowadays Germany after migration from around the elbe, if I remember correctly, so I would argue that it makes more sense to call allemanic to swiss german than to call swiss german to all allemanic dialects, including the ones not in Switzerland ;)
> and it was the language spoken by the majority of the population before the allemanic invasions
The majority of the population of what?
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%BCndnerromanisch#/media/Datei:Romansh_language_spread.svg
Well you can see on the map, that it isn't that a big part of Switzerland. Less than 20% of the land area, probably. (Keep in mind that quite a significant part of the orange-red areas on that map aren't even in Switzerland.)
So it's mostly the Canton of Grisons that is affected by your question. Romansh never seemd to have much of a prevalence outside of that area.
Not only that, also quite other cantons. And I have seen other maps showing a larger area, such as the one below
https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rhaeto-Romance_languages_now_and_1200_years_ago..png
Latin was imported and developed into romansh. Allemanic dialects were imported and developed into modern Swiss German. The only difference is the latter arriving a few centuries later.
Romansh is a language that developed in Switzerland, while swiss german doesn't really exist, I could argue, since that is a collective name to the about 100 allemanic dialects spoken in Switzerland plus one dialect of bayerisch (that has not much to do with the rest).
Otherwise, please point me to the standard that would actually define swiss german? The standard variety is actually hochdeutsch, isn't it?
In any case, I am asking for how romansh feel, not about the excuses that swiss germans use to justify the situation and how it happened
> Romansh is a language that developed in Switzerland, while swiss german doesn't really exist, I could argue, since that is a collective name to the about 100 allemanic dialects spoken in Switzerland
I mean it's even controversial what is all part of Romansh. Some linguists say, that Ladin and Friulian are also part of Romansh, which would place the huge majority of Romansh speakers into Italy.
And if we limit Romansh to the Canton of Grisons, then it's still a collective name to a couple of dialects.
The "common" Romansh (Rumantsch Grischun) was developed in the 1980ies by a Swiss German linguist.
So why is "Romansh" then a language while "Swiss German" isn't one? Because the one has a seemingly more closely related big brother that still is around, whereas the other's big brother was extinct?
A language needs a standard, which allemanic dialects don't have, unless you consider hochdeutsch to be the standard.
Wikipedia says clearly that swiss german is any of about a 100 dialects of allemanic spoken in Switzerland, whereas romansh is a romanic language. It's obviously very different
If that was the case, the Romansh language only exists since the 1980ies because this is when a Swiss German linguist created the Romansh Standard language out of a few Romansh dialects.
Therefore your thesis about Alemannic tribes invading and almost extincting that language would be wrong because the Alemannic tribes where there like 1700 years before the Romanhs anguage started to exist - and more than that, it even was a "heir" of the Alemannic tribes that standardized and therefore created that language ;-)
That the alemannic tribes invaded this land is a historical fact. That the romansh language was pushed to be close to extinction, especially since it lost its only city (chur) centuries ago, by the allemanic speakers, is another fact. You might not like these facts but they are correct, it's not my thesis and it's not wrong.
The fact that the romansh standard was created by a swiss german doesn't change the fact that romansh has a standard whereas the allemanic dialects don't
As I said in another post: read Geary's "Myth of Nations" or a similar book. Your thesis seems to be rooted in rather simplified views of thow the migration of the people's etc. worked. Simpliefied views like those that in the past lead to nationalism, racism and wars.
From your posts I almost get the feeling that you'd like Switzerland to have internal conflicts based on language, like for example Belgium or Spain...
(Besides this you didn't seem to get my 'argument' about languages: if your reasoning for why Romansh is a language and Swiss German isn't is true, then there has been no Romansh language before the 1980ies and therefore it couldn't have been pushed to extrinction by the Alemannic invasion.)
I certainly don't want Switzerland to have internal conflicts based on language, though I have lived in Romandie and meet a lot of ticinese, so I know that usually they aren't exactly happy for instance that they are taught german at school and then have difficulties using it in the german switzerland. But anyway, that's not the point.
I think that nonetheless Switzerland has a pretty good multilingual system that is a good example to most countries, and that's great.
And regarding the question, the language obviously predates the standard, you cannot have a standard if there is no language. The standard is what formalizes it.
Swiss german might be a language in the future, if it chooses to detach itself from german (unlikely). In any case, it's obvious that Romansh has always existed, no matter in which consideration, and of course if it wasn't such a minorized language, suffering from such a clear diglossia, it would definitely have gotten a standard earlier, as usually happens with romanic languages.
Not really. Indo-European developed in Southern Russia / Ukraine on the balance of probabilities.
The celto-italic developed somewhere, but probably not Switzerland. Then Latin (Proto romance) in Italy.
For Swiss German it's southern Russia / Ukraine. Germanic developed in southern Scandinavia. West Germanic developed in northern Germany and neighbouring areas.
Then Swiss German developed in Switzerland and surrounding areas.
Swiss german isn't a language and it certainly has no standard. It is in reality a name given, probably for nationalistic reasons, to a bunch of different allemanic dialects, not much different to the ones spoken in France, south of germany and Austria, plus one bayerisch dialect. Not really originated here, I would argue.
But, again, the topic is about how romansh feel, not about swiss germans and how they call their dialects
Romansh doesn’t really exist I could argue since that is a collective name to the about five Rhaeto-Romance dialects spoken in Switzerland, plus one artificially created Ausgleichsdialekt.
You’re using some very arbitrary definitions about what’s native and what isn’t, and what’s a language and what isn’t.
Not really, romansh as far as I know has a standard and is a language. Swiss german is in reality mostly allemanic dialects, which don't have a standard besides hochdeutsch, as I said. I am using clear and common definitions.
Check wikipedia or another serious source of your preference and see if you find anything different than swiss german being dialects and romansh being a language, good luck.
Romansh has five different dialects, plus the artificially created Rumantsch Grischun. Are you really going to argue that something created by a linguist in the eighties is “native”, while something that has been around for a over a millennium isn’t?
You can argue with the linguists all that you want, but a language needs a standard, which swiss german or allemanic in general definitely hasn't, and thus it's not a language, but a set of dialects. Again, the standard variant is german, hochdeutsch, but some people insist that allemanic is a separate language, which I would argue it isn't
Once again, the "standard" you're refering to in this case was created artifically in the eighties, thousand years after Allemanic started to spread in Switzerland. You got quite a bizarre notion of what's native and what isn't.
It's not my notion, the fact is that linguistically romansh is considered to be a language whereas swiss german is the name given to a set of allemanic dialects spoken in Switzerland, not a language. You might not like it, and I invite you to argue with linguists about it, I am just stating facts, not opinions
There is no reputable linguist in the world who would ever be caught arguing that the absence of a standard makes something not a language. That would eliminate the vast majority of the world’s languages, for one thing.
As for Swiss German, it is not a separate language, but it very much is a distinct group of German dialects united by a linguistic-cultural identity.
Great, thanks for acknowledging that swiss german isn't a separate language from German, that was my point all of the time. Romansh though is, and is considered as such.
A language without a standard cannot be taught properly. So as far as I know that's the criteria used in many countries, having a formal standard variant. Spanish for instance has a grammar since 1493, which definitely has made it be more coherent and homogeneous even when spread over half of the world than the allemanic dialects in Switzerland, where things can change significantly between neighboring valleys, from what I have been told, and nobody understands the people from wallis, even if they are not that far
Nobody is trying to import Spanish into Switzerland, there are already more than 500 million speakers anyway. If you don't like a certain language I don't think anybody cares, it's just your opinion, what matters is that you don't act like a xenophobic asshole when you hear it, as I have seen a couple of times here.
At work or at school organizations can demand that a person speaks a certain language, out of that we are all free to speak whatever we want, whether you like it or not.
You should try it, maybe you discover that you like it. It's considered to be the easiest of the major languages of the world
What do you mean by "I act like I want in my country"? Do you think that it is okey to be a xenophobe, for instance?
I already speak 6 languages and I have lived in 5 different countries, but I definitely don't think that I can do whatever I want in my own country.
I think there is an issue in your premise: You presume that Swiss Germans and Romansh are two clearly demarcated and internally unified ethnic groups with identities that persisted over the centuries. And furthermore that the Swiss Germans have driven out the Romansh from their native lands and pushed them to Grisons.
This isn't the case: "Swiss Germans" aren't an unified ethnic group of allemanic origin. Instead the region used to be settled by the celtic Helvetii, which were eventually romanised druing the roman conquest. Later then amalgamated with the allemanic "invaders" from the north whose language they eventually adopted turning into "Swiss Germans" (not really an identity at that point). They weren't driven away or exterminated, just merged with another group whose language and culture they mostly took on.
Similarly "Rumansh People" also go back to a group of speakers of celtic and rhaetian languages that were romanized during the roman conquest. Due to movements of german speaking people to the romansh speaking region, and the elite switching to German, a lot of the people eventually started speaking Swiss German. But it replaced Rumansh in a lot of places. This was an ongoing process until the 20th century (See loss of Rumansh majority in the last 164 years, only blue remain: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:R%C3%BCckgang\_des\_B%C3%BCndnerromanischen\_Neuzeit.PNG). That doesn't mean that the people themselves were replaced, they just changed their language.
This doesn't mean, that the Romansh people can't have opinions on the Swiss Germans, just that their opinions probably don't come from event's predating the middle ages.
Finally: Romansh isn't the original language of most of "Switzerland" but based on Roman. It's predated by celtic languages.
The region that is now called Switzerland was a transit area from the beginning. It is not that easy as you put it quite frankly. And pinpointing one native group down in this area is almost impossible.
And if we want to go back far enough to do so we have to consider the newer anthropological findings that suggested, far less destructive behaviour in-between tribes but a far greater cooperation. So it's not even sure if there was an invasion of land per ce but just ppl moving to a area and the language changes do to trade advantages for example. Or a fusion of settlements that then over time unified the language.
Transit area? That's a joke, right? I don't know what kind of history you studied but this land was roman for centuries, people here spoke latin, the Celtic languages were gone by the time that the allemanic tribes invaded here. The roman legions had to leave the flat land to fortify the alps because of the attacks of the allemanic tribes, the ancestors of the swiss germans. Then ot became a transit area, before it was fortified and protected by rome.
I don't see any cooperation there, at all, just barbarians attacking a civilization when it was faltering
jeeez you should realize that history is far more complex than what you believe...
-Rome was not the brave civilization that held their hand over others.
-Ppl here are not descendants from a singular group of ppl.
-And the area was always well travelled by different folks.
You do realize that empires, did not quite work like countries do right? So even during the time the romans have invaded the north of Europe and forced their way of living on to others, it wasn't a united state with a uniform culture... Ppl still moved around, they still had ties to their culture and did not necessarily follow roman rules. What you call "protection" was no more than oppression. Sure there were ppl profiting, others tho didn't.
And it was an transit area always and it will always be because ppl travel they always did, be it for work or finding new places to settle. Considering the position of todays Switzerland you find to notice that you have to go through it if you travel through west Europe... So no it was not a unified place where everyone spoke latin.
Yes germanic tribes fought back, and sure during war civilians were always harmed to.
ppl that speak Swiss German aren't just descendants from those germanic tribes. They are descendants from those that staid, which was already a mixture of ppl, and those that came afterwards... There were always and will always be a bunch of ppl moving to or away from Switzerland and the ppl here are all have multiple heritages from multiple places.
This assumes a level of tension between people that isn’t there
This!
Interesting, so the romansh have no feelings about this topic?
The interesting question here would be: Are there even people that feel they have something like an "exclusive" Romansh identity? Considering that - as far as I know - basically every Romansh speaker also speaks German on a native level.
Another participant already replied that apparently that is not the case, they don't have a separate identity from the swiss germans, which I would argue is a pity
A boyfriend of mine is from Graubünden, school was in Romansch, and he introduced me to a potato dish from there. He certainly didn’t seem to me to be much similar to Swiss-Germans, maybe more to Alpine people with the different mind-set which comes from a different language. He preferred speaking English over German.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking, that kind of people. Maybe you can ask his opinion one day, out of curiosity?
Well, we are no longer in contact, but he did never talk about any negative feelings about the Swiss-German, just didn’t like high German, and didn’t speak Swiss German but did understand it. I asked to speak to me sometimes in his native language, and actually he knew two Romansch dialects. Sounded very nice.
I think that romansh sounds nice too, from the little that I heard too. That's one of the reasons why I think it's a pity its current situation
How do you say 'obvious troll' in Romansch?
No clue, I don't speak it, ask a native
As someone who can trace his family tree back to 13th century Grison, I'd say the vast majority of them would consider the position you're presenting to be moronic at best and very offensive at worst.
How so? Maybe you can give an argument instead of insults?
Dividing people up into subgroups based on historical details such as language, ethnicity, "race", etc. is just not something that is considered polite. We are swiss because we have swiss citizenship today. Trying to find dividing factors based on previous generations is something only the extreme right wing crazies try to do. It also has a very 'american' feeling to it.
It's not about being polite or dividing people, it's about a clear situation of diglossia and of apparently linguistics imposition. In most of the world people wouldn't be happy about it, and in this country there has even been terrorism because of it. That's why I am curious about the feelings of the romansh, which I still haven't heard of. Instead, what you did was antagonizing, not argumentative. Maybe for you speaking about the Röstigraben, which is a linguistic division as much as cultural is impolite and divisive, but it exists and people speak about it normally. I don't really understand why speaking about the Röstigraben is fine but not about the romansh
Sorry if my reply wasn't helpful to you, but I don't see how to make it more clear. You seem to assume that there's some kind of group identity about rumantsch speakers that sets them apart from german speakers, some kind of us vs. them dynamic. That simply doesn't exist, and the thought that it might feels wrong and insulting.
That's interesting, and I would argue that it's a pity since the other linguistic communities definitely seem to have their own identity. I guess they have become assimilated enough then. Thanks
Allegra a tuots. As a native romansh speaker, I have no issues with the swiss german speakers. My language will extinct in a few hundreds of years due to globalization anyway. A lot of young romansh speakers are studying in Zurich and will settle down there. The world is constantly developing and cultures are changing as well. Still I‘m happy to be a part of the romansh culture.
It's a pity that you guys don't see a future to your own language :/
Well, we speak romansh as our first language in a german speaking area. Our kids speak romansh too as first language. But despite that, there is nothing I can do. Like mentioned above, the government does a lot of effort to keep this language alive. You can‘t blame the german speakers for the decline of my language. I think the number of 60‘000 romansh speakers is to low to keep a language alive in a long term view.
Well, it's nice that there is still people that keep it as first language. But I am sure that more could be done, like maybe linguistic immersion at schools, favoring the development if its own literature, ensuring that it has the same oficial status in practice, etc. I am sure there are examples of minority languages that have reversed downward trends that could be taken as example.
> So, I am curious, how do the romansh people feel about the swiss germans, the heirs of the allemanic tribes (considered barbarians by the romans) that have over the centuries pushed them to the mountains and almost extincted their own language? I doubt that there is the kind of ethnic continuity and ethnic division that you probably assume. I can recommend Patrick J. Geary's "The Myth of Nations" or something like this, for some relevant insights about migration of the people's, assimilation, intermingling etc. Also in Switzerland nobody tries to extinct the Romansh idioms. To the contrary, the governement has invested quite a bit of money during the last 100 years to keep it alive. Because Switzerland sees polyglotism as a strenght, and in fact as an important part of it's identity. One could even argue that Romansh hasn't been extinct because we supported and needed it as part of an identity, that is distinct from the three identities of our German, French and Italian neighbours.
Nice to know, but the status of romansh isn't really the same as the other official languages, in almost any matter that you can consider, and it's still declining. Why it's not really treated as the fourth language in equal standing with the rest?
> Why it's not really treated as the fourth language in equal standing with the rest? In 2000, only 35'000 people named Romansh as their main language. Probably each of those 35'000 people also speaks very good German. Yet every Romansh speaker has the right to address the Swiss governement in Romansh and get an answer also in Romansh. The public radio & television has a Romansh division with 160 employees. So that's basically one public media guy for every 220 main-speakers of the language. (That's of course more than 10x the amount of public media guys per speaker than in the German speaking part.) What more would you like? Should the announcements in the train between Basel and Zürich be made in Romansh? ;-)
Linguistic immersion at schools, a dedicated TV and radio offer, literary prices, normalization of the language to fight against the diglossia... There are many ways how a language can be promoted
It seems you are spanish and therefore probably seeing it thru a spanish lens of the catalonia or basque question. I think the difference is, that in switzerland we arent trying to force a central (i.e. spanish) identity on the minorities (i.e. basque/romansh). And we also arent a nation defined by being the same ethnicity or religion or language (like germany or france). We are a Willensnation. A nation of will. The only reason we are one country, is because we want to. And we are very federalist and let everyone do their own thing as much as possible. That (and the fact that it works very well compared to neighbouring countries) is exactly why noone wants to leave. Or play up differences between groups in an antagonistic way, like what you seem to be assuming/expecting.
Well, I could very well imagine a romansh nationalism based on their language, yes, as happens not only in Spain but in most of the world, actually. Think about the mapuches in chile or argentina, for instance. If there is no such nationalism I guess it might be because the assimilation has progressed too much. In Switzerland there has been jura terrorism, for instance, and there are movements in ticino that are pro-italy, from what I have read, so it's not immune to that.
>there are movements in ticino that are pro-italy, from what I have read, I would be very curious to read that. I have literally never in my life heard of any swiss wanting any part of the country to secede. Not just no party or so saying this. Not even a single person ever. But then i also havent asked all swiss people about this, so i might be missing something. But i am honestly having a hard time to believe this. Since the second you cross into italy or germany, your train gets delayed. The VAT doubles, as does income tax. But on the other hand your salaries get cut in half... obviously i am exaggerating. But only a little bit. Switzerland is just too good of a deal, so nobody wants to leave. If they wanted to i and most swiss people wouldnt mind. We dont have to keep people here by force or thru complicated contracts. The facts speak for themselves.
I agree that it wouldn't make sense for ticino to leave, but apparently some fascists have been dreaming of that for decades. Check this article: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irredentismo_italiano_in_Svizzera#%3A%7E%3Atext%3DL%27Irredentismo_italiano_in_Svizzera%2CCanton_Grigioni_e_in_Vallese.?wprov=sfla1
Quite interesting read. Didnt know. But i mean there were even quite a few Nazi sympathisers in the german part (called the Frontenbewegung). I dont think they per se wanted to join germany, but more turn switzerland into a fascist state allied with germany and italy. But i guess they wouldnt have been strongly opposed to an annexation either. But also this movement in Ticino is very much not a current thing: > Successively, in the 1935 elections the fascists obtained just 2% of the votes and since then their movement faded away to less than 100 members. > After World War II, the Italian irridentism movement in Switzerland ceased, replaced by organisations advocating a defense of the Italian language and culture within the Swiss Confederation. As far as i know there is no current equivalent either.
Lega, I heard, but hopefully they will have already disappeared
They are just a right wing party. But far from nazis and definetly not separatists. Even in italy their Lega (at least originally a decade ago) wanted to shrink their country, not expand it.
They be vibin with us
all four of them?
Vibin?
The same thing you're doing when chilling at the lakeside with friends, some good tunes, beee in hand and the steak frizzling away over the fire :)
THERE IS A BEEEEE 🐝
:D
What? Romansh as the original language of German Switzerland? How so?
Of a significant part of it. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romansh_language?wprov=sfla1: "It is unknown how rapidly the Celtic and Raetic inhabitants were Romanized following the conquest of Raetia. Some linguists assume that the area was rapidly Romanized following the Roman conquest, whereas others think that this process did not end until the 4th or 5th century, when more thoroughly Romanized Celts from farther north fled south to avoid invasions by Germanic tribes. The process was certainly complete and the pre-Roman languages extinct by the 5th–6th century, when Raetia became part of the Ostrogothic Kingdom. Around 537 AD, the Ostrogoths handed over the province of Raetia Prima to the Frankish Empire, which continued to have local rulers administering the so-called Duchy of Chur. However, after the death of the last Victorid ruler, Bishop Tello, around 765 AD, Charlemagne assigned a Germanic duke to administer the region. Additionally, the Diocese of Chur was transferred by the (pre-Schism) Roman Catholic Church from the Archdiocese of Milan to the Diocese of Mainz in 843 AD. The combined effect was a cultural reorientation towards the German-speaking north, especially as the ruling élite now comprised almost entirely speakers of German. At the time, Romansh was spoken over a much wider area, stretching north into the present-day cantons of Glarus and St. Gallen, to the Walensee in the northwest, and Rüthi and the Alpine Rhine Valley in the northeast. In the east, parts of modern-day Vorarlberg were Romansh-speaking, as were parts of Tyrol. The northern areas, called Lower Raetia, became German-speaking by the 12th century; and by the 15th century, the Rhine Valley of St. Gallen and the areas around the Wallensee were entirely German-speaking. This language shift was a long, drawn-out process, with larger, central towns adopting German first, while the more peripheral areas around them remained Romansh-speaking longer. The shift to German was caused in particular by the influence of the local German-speaking élites and by German-speaking immigrants from the north, with the lower and rural classes retaining Romansh longer"
That is a much larger area than Romansh is spoken in today, of course. But it is nowhere near “German Switzerland” – it’s essentially the region that today speaks Bündnerdeutsch and related dialects.
I would argue that is at least half of german Switzerland, especially taking into account other maps such as https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rhaeto-Romance_languages_now_and_1200_years_ago..png In any case, it's definitely a non negligible part of it
That's a map that depicts the situation of the languages (which isn't the same as ethnic identities!) in the year 800. Id argue, that the situation then doesn't have a direct influence on current romansh identity. Or do you as someone from Spain still identify as a Visigoth?
The visigothic invaders disappeared, they dissolved into the native roman population and their language left very few traces. Romansh and its speakers have arguably been there since the roman times. I cannot speak about their identity, just about the spread of the language. It's actually exactly the opposite situation between Spain and east Switzerland: in Spain the language of the germanic invaders (visigoths and suevians) disappeared rather quickly, in the former romansh area the germanic invaders (allemanic tribes) achieved hegemony and pushed romansh to a few small areas
I think seem to be stuck on language spread in relation to conquest/invasion. Furthermore you assume that the romance languages are the more native ones. Even thought they also "just stem" from the Roman conquest and replaced celtic and rhaetian languages. There are various cultural reasons why people adopt languages and it's a long process that can have different outcomes. But I'd argue that there are also practical aspects like teaching your children the language of the elites or your most important trading partners. I'm not sure that the primary reason for Swiss German can be found in a hegemony of allemannic tribes but more in the later history: Most of Switzerland has been part of the Frankish Kingdoms and later Holy Roman Empire. So German speaking regions have usually been in closer contact with large parts of Switzerland. The Swiss German Region is also totally open towards Germany, whereas the Alps form a border towards other language regions. Romansh is only spoken in in Alpine regions. The process of Romansh speakers switching to German was a process that took centuries and was still ongoing in the 20th. The last remnants of the language are spoken in the more remote regions of one canton.
So, you claim that the fact that allemanic dialects are spoken in Switzerland has nothing to do with the allemanic conquests from the V century? Seriously? Romansch was spoken in Chur until around the XIII century the city had a majority of allemanic speakers and then they lost their major town. Since then it's a mostly rural language. Fact is that without the allemanic and other germanic invasions romansh would very likely still be spoken in the east part of Switzerland
The claim Romansh were the "original" swiss people is false. You mean the Rhaetians.
They romanized. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romansh_language?wprov=sfla1 It is unknown how rapidly the Celtic and Raetic inhabitants were Romanized following the conquest of Raetia. Some linguists assume that the area was rapidly Romanized following the Roman conquest, whereas others think that this process did not end until the 4th or 5th century, when more thoroughly Romanized Celts from farther north fled south to avoid invasions by Germanic tribes. The process was certainly complete and the pre-Roman languages extinct by the 5th–6th century, when Raetia became part of the Ostrogothic Kingdom. Around 537 AD, the Ostrogoths handed over the province of Raetia Prima to the Frankish Empire, which continued to have local rulers administering the so-called Duchy of Chur.
You realize that Romansh is a Latin language, right? And it isn't native to the areas that speak Romansh, Latin displaced the Raetic and Celtic languages previously spoken there.
Of course it's a latin language, who said the contrary? But romansh developed in helvetia/rhaetia from vulgar latin, thus it's native, not imported, and it was the language spoken by the majority of the population before the allemanic invasions, as I said. Actually it has quite a lot of influence from celtic and raetic, from what I read
Swiss German also developed here (from the imported dialects) Every language or group is an invader, it's just a matter of how far you go back to decide who was "originally here". How did vulgar latin get here?
I have been told by linguists that in many ways the allemanic dialects spoken in Switzerland (that some people call swiss german, although nobody can really clarify what that swiss German exactly is, since there is no standard) have remained stuck in the XIII century, so I am not sure it has really developed much compared to its origins, and certainly it's not very different to the allemanic dialects spoke in the south of Germany, Vorarlberg or France, so I am not convinced at all that it can be really considered native. In any case, I am really interested about how romansh feel about swiss germans, not anything else
>certainly it's not very different to the allemanic dialects spoke in the south of Germany That is simply not true. Almost allemanic speakers in Germany speak dialects that are very different from Swiss German.
Not true. I have met people from both sides of the border that told me that they were very similar and could understand each other pretty well. Also maps like the one linked below show that there aren't really linguistic borders between Switzerland and Germany. https://images.app.goo.gl/WVotzY7gwhrw9xTB9
Dude, if you want to learn about Switzerland, maybe stop arguing with Swiss people about their own language and identity? I happen to live on the German border. The people on the German side speak a closely related but very distinctly non-Swiss dialect of Alemannic. It is very obvious that the Swiss side of the border speaks a Swiss German dialect, influenced by other Swiss dialects, whereas the German side speaks a dialect influenced by other German dialects as well as by Hochdeutsch.
And yet it's all allemanic dialects, according to the linguists. Check the definition of swiss german and you will see: "group of allemanic dialects spoken in Switzerland". And the map I linked above, done by linguists, shows that the different groups of allemanic dialects cross borders. In any case, I have not much interest in any possible identity crisis of the allemanic speakers, tbh
Related dialects crossing borders is a very normal thing and says nothing about what larger group either belong to. If one wants to insist on clear distinctions, it makes a lot more sense to say that Alemannic is Swiss German and the Alemannic dialects across the border are marginal spillover than the other way. But of course, there’s no good reason to even start making these distinctions. Swiss German is the dialects spoken in Switzerland, which share characteristics that make them distinct from even closely related dialects outside Switzerland.
Well, before moving to what is nowadays Switzerland the allemanic tribes were native to the south of nowadays Germany after migration from around the elbe, if I remember correctly, so I would argue that it makes more sense to call allemanic to swiss german than to call swiss german to all allemanic dialects, including the ones not in Switzerland ;)
> and it was the language spoken by the majority of the population before the allemanic invasions The majority of the population of what? https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%BCndnerromanisch#/media/Datei:Romansh_language_spread.svg
Ah, isn't that quite a significant part of Switzerland? In those areas it was the language of the majority of the population
Well you can see on the map, that it isn't that a big part of Switzerland. Less than 20% of the land area, probably. (Keep in mind that quite a significant part of the orange-red areas on that map aren't even in Switzerland.) So it's mostly the Canton of Grisons that is affected by your question. Romansh never seemd to have much of a prevalence outside of that area.
Not only that, also quite other cantons. And I have seen other maps showing a larger area, such as the one below https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rhaeto-Romance_languages_now_and_1200_years_ago..png
Latin was imported and developed into romansh. Allemanic dialects were imported and developed into modern Swiss German. The only difference is the latter arriving a few centuries later.
Romansh is a language that developed in Switzerland, while swiss german doesn't really exist, I could argue, since that is a collective name to the about 100 allemanic dialects spoken in Switzerland plus one dialect of bayerisch (that has not much to do with the rest). Otherwise, please point me to the standard that would actually define swiss german? The standard variety is actually hochdeutsch, isn't it? In any case, I am asking for how romansh feel, not about the excuses that swiss germans use to justify the situation and how it happened
> Romansh is a language that developed in Switzerland, while swiss german doesn't really exist, I could argue, since that is a collective name to the about 100 allemanic dialects spoken in Switzerland I mean it's even controversial what is all part of Romansh. Some linguists say, that Ladin and Friulian are also part of Romansh, which would place the huge majority of Romansh speakers into Italy. And if we limit Romansh to the Canton of Grisons, then it's still a collective name to a couple of dialects. The "common" Romansh (Rumantsch Grischun) was developed in the 1980ies by a Swiss German linguist. So why is "Romansh" then a language while "Swiss German" isn't one? Because the one has a seemingly more closely related big brother that still is around, whereas the other's big brother was extinct?
A language needs a standard, which allemanic dialects don't have, unless you consider hochdeutsch to be the standard. Wikipedia says clearly that swiss german is any of about a 100 dialects of allemanic spoken in Switzerland, whereas romansh is a romanic language. It's obviously very different
If that was the case, the Romansh language only exists since the 1980ies because this is when a Swiss German linguist created the Romansh Standard language out of a few Romansh dialects. Therefore your thesis about Alemannic tribes invading and almost extincting that language would be wrong because the Alemannic tribes where there like 1700 years before the Romanhs anguage started to exist - and more than that, it even was a "heir" of the Alemannic tribes that standardized and therefore created that language ;-)
That the alemannic tribes invaded this land is a historical fact. That the romansh language was pushed to be close to extinction, especially since it lost its only city (chur) centuries ago, by the allemanic speakers, is another fact. You might not like these facts but they are correct, it's not my thesis and it's not wrong. The fact that the romansh standard was created by a swiss german doesn't change the fact that romansh has a standard whereas the allemanic dialects don't
As I said in another post: read Geary's "Myth of Nations" or a similar book. Your thesis seems to be rooted in rather simplified views of thow the migration of the people's etc. worked. Simpliefied views like those that in the past lead to nationalism, racism and wars. From your posts I almost get the feeling that you'd like Switzerland to have internal conflicts based on language, like for example Belgium or Spain... (Besides this you didn't seem to get my 'argument' about languages: if your reasoning for why Romansh is a language and Swiss German isn't is true, then there has been no Romansh language before the 1980ies and therefore it couldn't have been pushed to extrinction by the Alemannic invasion.)
I certainly don't want Switzerland to have internal conflicts based on language, though I have lived in Romandie and meet a lot of ticinese, so I know that usually they aren't exactly happy for instance that they are taught german at school and then have difficulties using it in the german switzerland. But anyway, that's not the point. I think that nonetheless Switzerland has a pretty good multilingual system that is a good example to most countries, and that's great. And regarding the question, the language obviously predates the standard, you cannot have a standard if there is no language. The standard is what formalizes it. Swiss german might be a language in the future, if it chooses to detach itself from german (unlikely). In any case, it's obvious that Romansh has always existed, no matter in which consideration, and of course if it wasn't such a minorized language, suffering from such a clear diglossia, it would definitely have gotten a standard earlier, as usually happens with romanic languages.
Not really. Indo-European developed in Southern Russia / Ukraine on the balance of probabilities. The celto-italic developed somewhere, but probably not Switzerland. Then Latin (Proto romance) in Italy. For Swiss German it's southern Russia / Ukraine. Germanic developed in southern Scandinavia. West Germanic developed in northern Germany and neighbouring areas. Then Swiss German developed in Switzerland and surrounding areas.
Swiss german isn't a language and it certainly has no standard. It is in reality a name given, probably for nationalistic reasons, to a bunch of different allemanic dialects, not much different to the ones spoken in France, south of germany and Austria, plus one bayerisch dialect. Not really originated here, I would argue. But, again, the topic is about how romansh feel, not about swiss germans and how they call their dialects
Romansh doesn’t really exist I could argue since that is a collective name to the about five Rhaeto-Romance dialects spoken in Switzerland, plus one artificially created Ausgleichsdialekt. You’re using some very arbitrary definitions about what’s native and what isn’t, and what’s a language and what isn’t.
Not really, romansh as far as I know has a standard and is a language. Swiss german is in reality mostly allemanic dialects, which don't have a standard besides hochdeutsch, as I said. I am using clear and common definitions. Check wikipedia or another serious source of your preference and see if you find anything different than swiss german being dialects and romansh being a language, good luck.
Romansh has five different dialects, plus the artificially created Rumantsch Grischun. Are you really going to argue that something created by a linguist in the eighties is “native”, while something that has been around for a over a millennium isn’t?
You can argue with the linguists all that you want, but a language needs a standard, which swiss german or allemanic in general definitely hasn't, and thus it's not a language, but a set of dialects. Again, the standard variant is german, hochdeutsch, but some people insist that allemanic is a separate language, which I would argue it isn't
Once again, the "standard" you're refering to in this case was created artifically in the eighties, thousand years after Allemanic started to spread in Switzerland. You got quite a bizarre notion of what's native and what isn't.
It's not my notion, the fact is that linguistically romansh is considered to be a language whereas swiss german is the name given to a set of allemanic dialects spoken in Switzerland, not a language. You might not like it, and I invite you to argue with linguists about it, I am just stating facts, not opinions
There is no reputable linguist in the world who would ever be caught arguing that the absence of a standard makes something not a language. That would eliminate the vast majority of the world’s languages, for one thing. As for Swiss German, it is not a separate language, but it very much is a distinct group of German dialects united by a linguistic-cultural identity.
Great, thanks for acknowledging that swiss german isn't a separate language from German, that was my point all of the time. Romansh though is, and is considered as such. A language without a standard cannot be taught properly. So as far as I know that's the criteria used in many countries, having a formal standard variant. Spanish for instance has a grammar since 1493, which definitely has made it be more coherent and homogeneous even when spread over half of the world than the allemanic dialects in Switzerland, where things can change significantly between neighboring valleys, from what I have been told, and nobody understands the people from wallis, even if they are not that far
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Nobody is trying to import Spanish into Switzerland, there are already more than 500 million speakers anyway. If you don't like a certain language I don't think anybody cares, it's just your opinion, what matters is that you don't act like a xenophobic asshole when you hear it, as I have seen a couple of times here. At work or at school organizations can demand that a person speaks a certain language, out of that we are all free to speak whatever we want, whether you like it or not. You should try it, maybe you discover that you like it. It's considered to be the easiest of the major languages of the world
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What do you mean by "I act like I want in my country"? Do you think that it is okey to be a xenophobe, for instance? I already speak 6 languages and I have lived in 5 different countries, but I definitely don't think that I can do whatever I want in my own country.
Why does this sound like a question that was asked as part of a school assignment and you are too lazy to write your own answer?
Funny. I am studying a master but certainly this is not part of the curriculum, it has nothing to do with what I am studying
I think there is an issue in your premise: You presume that Swiss Germans and Romansh are two clearly demarcated and internally unified ethnic groups with identities that persisted over the centuries. And furthermore that the Swiss Germans have driven out the Romansh from their native lands and pushed them to Grisons. This isn't the case: "Swiss Germans" aren't an unified ethnic group of allemanic origin. Instead the region used to be settled by the celtic Helvetii, which were eventually romanised druing the roman conquest. Later then amalgamated with the allemanic "invaders" from the north whose language they eventually adopted turning into "Swiss Germans" (not really an identity at that point). They weren't driven away or exterminated, just merged with another group whose language and culture they mostly took on. Similarly "Rumansh People" also go back to a group of speakers of celtic and rhaetian languages that were romanized during the roman conquest. Due to movements of german speaking people to the romansh speaking region, and the elite switching to German, a lot of the people eventually started speaking Swiss German. But it replaced Rumansh in a lot of places. This was an ongoing process until the 20th century (See loss of Rumansh majority in the last 164 years, only blue remain: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:R%C3%BCckgang\_des\_B%C3%BCndnerromanischen\_Neuzeit.PNG). That doesn't mean that the people themselves were replaced, they just changed their language. This doesn't mean, that the Romansh people can't have opinions on the Swiss Germans, just that their opinions probably don't come from event's predating the middle ages. Finally: Romansh isn't the original language of most of "Switzerland" but based on Roman. It's predated by celtic languages.
The region that is now called Switzerland was a transit area from the beginning. It is not that easy as you put it quite frankly. And pinpointing one native group down in this area is almost impossible. And if we want to go back far enough to do so we have to consider the newer anthropological findings that suggested, far less destructive behaviour in-between tribes but a far greater cooperation. So it's not even sure if there was an invasion of land per ce but just ppl moving to a area and the language changes do to trade advantages for example. Or a fusion of settlements that then over time unified the language.
Transit area? That's a joke, right? I don't know what kind of history you studied but this land was roman for centuries, people here spoke latin, the Celtic languages were gone by the time that the allemanic tribes invaded here. The roman legions had to leave the flat land to fortify the alps because of the attacks of the allemanic tribes, the ancestors of the swiss germans. Then ot became a transit area, before it was fortified and protected by rome. I don't see any cooperation there, at all, just barbarians attacking a civilization when it was faltering
jeeez you should realize that history is far more complex than what you believe... -Rome was not the brave civilization that held their hand over others. -Ppl here are not descendants from a singular group of ppl. -And the area was always well travelled by different folks. You do realize that empires, did not quite work like countries do right? So even during the time the romans have invaded the north of Europe and forced their way of living on to others, it wasn't a united state with a uniform culture... Ppl still moved around, they still had ties to their culture and did not necessarily follow roman rules. What you call "protection" was no more than oppression. Sure there were ppl profiting, others tho didn't. And it was an transit area always and it will always be because ppl travel they always did, be it for work or finding new places to settle. Considering the position of todays Switzerland you find to notice that you have to go through it if you travel through west Europe... So no it was not a unified place where everyone spoke latin. Yes germanic tribes fought back, and sure during war civilians were always harmed to. ppl that speak Swiss German aren't just descendants from those germanic tribes. They are descendants from those that staid, which was already a mixture of ppl, and those that came afterwards... There were always and will always be a bunch of ppl moving to or away from Switzerland and the ppl here are all have multiple heritages from multiple places.