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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4434 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 25 of 109 20 December 2013 at 11:28am | IP Logged | ||
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Although concentrating on Russian the last few months, I nevertheless have continued to spend some time now and then on Romansh, my favourite Romance language at the moment. I got the idea of making a Romansh Language Review, like the ones you find on the HTLAL main website and in the collaborative writing room, and I think it is now complete enough to post here. I might still work on it though, adding new info as it occurs to me. So here it is, the first Romansh Language Review:
Romansh Language Review Popularity: Not popular at all, most people have probably not even heard about it. Difficulty: For an English speaker, probably about the level of French. Introduction Spoken by some 60.000 persons, Romansh is one of the least spoken Romance languages. Nevertheless, it is one of the four national languages of Switzerland and an official language in the Swiss canton of Grison (Graubünden). For a small language, it has a rich literature and a distinct culture. There are five main dialects to choose between, each with its own written tradition, and on top of that, a common written standard called Rumantsch Grischun, which today is used in official correspondence and is slowly being introduced in schools. However, there has been opposition to it, as some fear that the children will not be able to write properly in their own variety of Romansh. Usefulness It can hardly be considered a useful language, unless you plan to go and live in one of the small villages where Romansh is still spoken by the large majority. However, if you visit this part of Switzerland, Romansh-speakers will be very positively surprised and flattered by the fact that you are learning their language. Chic factor Probably a higher "geek" factor than chic factor, as most people will not even have heard of the language. However, within the narrow circles of Romance language academics and enthusiasts, it is certainly chic to know Romansh. Countries Predominantly in parts of the Swiss canton of Grison. A few thousand speakers in other part of Switzerland and possibly the odd one elsewhere in the world. Speakers According to the latest available statistics (the Swiss census of 2000), there are about 60 000 regular speakers of Romansh. Travel The beautiful valleys and mountains of Grison, with its small picturesque villages are well worth a visit. Some of Switzerland's most upmarket ski resorts are in the Engadine area, although there you will hardly find many Romansh speakers. Better to go smaller villages and places where Romansh is very much alive. The local gastronomy is excellent, and the Alpine air can only be good for you. Variations There are five main dialects, each one with its own written language: Sursilvan, Sutsilvan, Surmiran, Putér and Vallader. Of these, Sursilvan is the most spoken dialect with approximately 18.000 regular speakers in Surselva according to the Swiss census 2000, and Vallader the second most spoken with about 7.000 speakers in the Lower Engadine valley. In addition, there is a common written standard, called Rumantsch Grischun, which is used in official communication and is promoted by the organisation Lia Rumantscha. I would recommend that as a beginner, one starts learning Sursilvan, as there is more learning material and more literature available for this version of the language. Once you reach a decent level in Sursilvan, it is fairly easy to spot the differences in the other dialects, and it is also quite easy to read a text in Rumantsch Grischun. Culture Literature has played a central role in maintaining the language and asserting Romansh as a distinct culture. The first examples of written Romansh can be found in documents from the 11th century, but it was only with the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation that a literary tradition became established. In the second half of the 19th century there was a "Romansh Renaissance" which saw the first non-religious texts appear mainly in Surilvan and Vallader. In modern times, there is a relatively rich literary output, with notable authors such as Ursicin G.G. Derungs, Iso Camartin, Gion Deplazes and Arno Camenisch, the latter writing in both Romansh and German. Choir song has a long tradition in the Romansh-speaking areas. In modern times, several pop and rock singers and groups have made a name for themselves in Switzerland, notably ils Furbaz, who represented Switzerland in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1989. Difficulties From an English speaker's point of view, Romansh is about as difficult as French or Italian. Pronunciation The pronunciation can best be described as somewhere between Italian and German. It is actually surprisingly similar to Catalan. It should be noted that the dialects do not share exactly the same sounds. Vallader and Puter have the sounds corresponding to German "Umlaut" ü and ö, but these sounds do not exist in the other dialects. Romansh is also rich in consonant clusters, which some linguists attribute to Germanic influence. Grammar The grammar is clearly Romance, but has a few particularities that no other Romance language shares with Romansh. Sursilvan is the only Romance language to use subjunctive in indirect speech, something which is probably due to influence from German. Sursilvan also has a particular form of the masculine singular of the adjective when it is used as a predicate. For example "In carstgaun malsaun" - A sick man "malsaun" is "sick", but "Il carstgaun ei malsauns" – The man is sick. Some linguists think that this final -s is a remnant of the nominative form of latin. Vocabulary The vocabulary is mostly of Latin/Romance origin, but there are numerous words of Germanic origin as well. Spelling The spelling is mostly regular, and words are pronounced as they are written. Time needed If you know Italian, Spanish or French, you should be able to learn to read and understand Romansh within a few months. If you aim at being able to use the language for communicating, you would need at least a year, and a stay in Grison would be strongly recommended, as it will be extremely difficult to find people to speak with elsewhere, unless you are really lucky. Ressources ¦ Books ¦ Schools ¦ (to be completed) Edited by Ogrim on 20 December 2013 at 12:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4434 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 26 of 109 13 January 2014 at 2:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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Italiano:
Questa settimana ho ricominciato a leggere "Il Nome della Rosa" d'Umberto Eco. Dico "ricominciato" perché ho letto questo libro due volte: La prima volta quando si pubblicò in norvegese nel 1984, e poi ho letto la versione originale in Italiano, sarebbe nel 1989. Fu il primo romanzo scritto da Umberto Eco, e penso che sia il meglio libro che abbia scritto. La storia è affascinante, è molto ricco in dettagli storici, e i personaggi sono credibili. Non è un libro facile, ma quando ho un po' di tempo, prima di dormire, provo a leggere qualche pagina. (I've started to read "the Name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco. It is the third time I read this book, I first read it in Norwegian in 1984, and then in the original version around 1989. For me it is the best book Umberto Eco has ever written, it is fascinating and very rich in detail. It is rather a challenge, but I try to find some time before going to sleep in order to read a few pages.) Spanish: Celebramos Navidad en Valencia, donde tenemos un piso. Llevamos tiempo queriendo reformar el piso, porque todo está viejo, y por fin hemos empezado con la cocina. Como no vivimos allí dependemos de otros para hacer la obra, que va a ser importante, y estuvimos un par de días mirando opciones. Me dio la ocasión de aprender un vocabulario que hasta ahora desconocía, aunque hablo el español casi a diario desde hace más de 15 años, a saber los términos técnicos de instalaciones de agua, electricidad, gas, materiales de suelo, paredes etc. Si me pongo a pensar no creo que pueda traducir muchos de estos términos al inglés, y ni siquiera a noruego. Ahora, no tengo piso ni en un país anglófono ni en Noruega, así que tampoco voy a necesitar ese vocabulario en estas lenguas. Te das cuenta de que ni en tu propia lengua sabes todas las palabras que existen, lo que me parece bastante lógico. Uno no puede ser experto en todo. (We spent Christmas in Spain, where we have a flat, and as it is very old we have decided to renovate, starting with the kitchen. This gave me the opportunity to learn a whole new range of vocabulary, namely all the technical terms related to water, gas and electricity installations, materials for floor and wall covering, names of kitchen furniture etc. I don't think a would be able to translate many of these terms into English or even Norwegian, but then again I do not have a flat to renovate in Norway or an English-speaking country. You do realise that even in your native tongue, you do not know all the words that exist, something I guess is quite logical. You cannot be an expert on everything.) Romontsch sursilvan: La jamna vargada hai jeu tadlau in'emissiun da Radio Romontsch che plidava dil piertg e la relaziun denter quel animal e las religiuns. Il redactur dall’emissiun, Clau Lombriser, ha explicau co il piertg seigi in animal impurtont nel Grischun, che il piertg seigi vegnius domesticaus dapi pli da treimelli onns, e il ha tentau de far cumprender perquei ils cristians possien magliar la carn dil piertg e perquei quei seigi scumandaus als gedius e musulmans. Jeu hai buca tut capiu, aber avunda per entellir la pli gronda part dall'emissiun. (Last week I listened to a programme on Radio Romontsch which was about the pig and this animal's relation to religions (or vice versa). The editor explained how the pig was domesticated more than three thousand years ago, how it is important to people in Grison, and he tried to make you understand why Christians are allowed to eat the pig, but Jews and Muslims are not. I cannot say I understood every single word, but enough to make sense of the programme, so I am very pleased with that.) Edited by Ogrim on 13 January 2014 at 5:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4434 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 27 of 109 15 January 2014 at 1:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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I just noticed I've got a third gold cup to my name :-)
I am actually at home with a throat infection and generally not feeling very well, so I try to do some studying, but I get tired quickly. However, I do try to read as much as I can. Français: Je suis en train de lire "Voyage au centre de la terre" de Jules Verne. Quand j'étais petit j'ai lu quelques livres de Jules Verne, mais des versions adaptées (plus courtes) et en norvégien bien sûr. Or, il se trouve que ma fille a comme devoir de lire ce roman et elle aura une épreuve à l'école dans deux-trois semaines, donc pour lui aider à préparer j'ai décidé de le lire moi-même. Je pense que ce texte est vraiment un peu trop difficile pour des enfants de 12 ans qui ne sont pas francophones, mais le prof est très ambitieux et il aime beaucoup la littérature classique. En ce qui concerne ce roman, je peux comprendre pourquoi Jules Verne est considéré un grand écrivain, mais je dois dire que parfois je m'ennuie un peu. L'histoire avance très lentement. Cela dit, les observations qu'il fait sur la nature et les personnes en Islande sont assez intéressantes. (In addition to all the other books I'm reading, I have also started on "Travel to the Centre of the Earth" by Jules Verne. My daughter has to read it as homework and she will have a test in a couple of weeks time, so in order to help her I thought I should also read it. It is quite difficult for a 12-year old who is not a native speaker. The book is quite good I think, although sometimes I get a bit bored as it advances very slowly. However, there are some interesting descriptions of nature and people in Iceland. Edited by Ogrim on 15 January 2014 at 2:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| prz_ Tetraglot Senior Member Poland last.fm/user/prz_rul Joined 4654 days ago 890 posts - 1190 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish | Message 28 of 109 15 January 2014 at 3:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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Romansh! Oh man, you rule!
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4434 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 29 of 109 23 January 2014 at 2:48pm | IP Logged | ||
Thanks for the compliment. Engraziel fetg! To tell the truth, writing about Romansh sometimes makes me feel like a "lonely wolf howling in the desert". It seems that even on this forum I am the only one having listed Romansh as one of my lanugages, when I studied it at university I was the only student, and as far as I know I am the only Norwegian ever to have sat a university exam in Romansh. It's not like native Romansh speakers are all around to practise with, so basically one is left with books and, fortunately, Radiotelevizun Svizra Rumantscha for audio. That being said, my interest in Romansh, apart from the linguistical aspects, is very much tied in with my interest in regional and minority languages in Europe in general. Sociolinguistics and language policy was a subject I very much enjoyed at university and which continues to fascinate me. In that sense, Switzerland stands out as a "model country" in their attitude to Romansh. It was declared a national language already in 1938, and a majority of the Swiss voted to make it an official language in a referendum in 1996, thus giving it a place in the constitution. I compare this to the situation in France, which has still not ratified the European Charter for Regional Languages, currently under debate in the French national assembly (a verbatim report can be read here). There has been a small upswing for some regional languages as regards its teaching in schools, like Alsatian and Breton, as (this article in Le Figaro shows, the truth is that they have hardly any literary tradition and hardly no presence in the media. It will be interesting to see the result of the vote in the French Assamblé, but even if they ratify the Charter, the future of France's regional languages does not look too bright. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6498 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 30 of 109 24 January 2014 at 2:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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Actually Romansh is more like a dialect bundle (or even a language bundle) than a unified language, and as far as I remember Friulian is the variant with most speakers - at least according to some resources which I consulted in connection with an earlier thread. Or maybe it is Friulian, I am not sure right now.
You may indeed be the only one here to study any of the variants systematically, but I have sometimes read through texts in various kinds of Romansh. I remember that the Romance institute library had at least one metre of thich annual reports from some Rhätoromanisches Gesellschaft in Switzerland. But since then I have only found few printed texts in any kind of Romansh. At home I have got one single booklet with fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen in Romansh, and I have to admit that it is hovering on the limit of what I can deal with without a translation and/or a dictionary. But interesting stuff indeed. And an interesting thread you have got here! I like to read something beyond dry inventories of books or pages read or hours spent, and I like that your thread is multilingual. Edited by Iversen on 24 January 2014 at 2:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4434 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 31 of 109 24 January 2014 at 2:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you for your remarks Iversen. I am glad if someone find this log interesting. I am not surprised that you have read various texts in Romansh. Is there any language you haven't touched upon in your life??
I guess texts in Romansh aren't easy to come across outside of Graubünden, but one can always order books from Lia Rumantscha, and there are a few sites on the internet with texts in Romansh. I won't argue with you about Romansh being a dialect/language bundle, but just not to confuse terminology, I think that normally "Romansh" refers to the dialects spoken and written in Switzerland, while Friulan is considered a "cousin" belonging to the same Rhaeto-Romance family, the third "cousin" being Ladin. I have not done any serious study of Friulan, but from the little I've read it seems distinct enough not to be considered a continuum of the Swiss Romansh dialects, but a separate, but closely related language. Anyway, I am not too bothered with these questions, in my view the definition of a language vs. a dialect is often arbitrary. As for unification, in Switzerland they have been trying to do something about it through the creation of the common written standard Rumantsch Grischun. It is still quite controversial though. There is actually a very good description of how it has been received by Romansh-speakers in this article on Wikipedia. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4434 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 32 of 109 29 January 2014 at 2:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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FR:
L'assemblée nationale de la France a adopté avec une large majorité le projet de loi constitutionnelle pour permettre la ratification de la Charte européenne des langues régionales ou minoritaires. 361 députés ont voté pour, 149 ont voté contre. Je trouve que c'est une très bonne nouvelle! Le gouvernement français a signé la Charte déjà en 1999, mais le processus de ratification a été gelé après une décision du Conseil constitutionnel estimant qu'elle était contraire à l'égalité devant la loi de tous les citoyens d'une part et au fait que "la langue de la République est le français". La proposition de loi constitutionnelle, si adoptée également par le Senat, permettra une modification de la Constitution qui fera possible la ratification de la Charte. Donc même si le jacobinisme est toujours présent dans la vie politique française, au moins il y a un mouvement vers l'acceptation d'un plus grand pluralisme linguistique dans le pays. Pour ceux qui défendent la promotion du breton, l'alsacien, le basque, le catalan etc. sur territoire français, une telle modification de la constitution sera sans doute une reconnaissance importante de leur travail. (The French national assembly has adopted by a large majority a bill proposing a modification of the French Constitution which will allow for the ratification of the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages. The French Government signed the Charter already in 1999, but the French constitutional court declared the Charter to be in conflict with France’s Constitution, which says that the language of the Republic is French. If the French Senate also adopts the bill, it will pave the way for the ratification of the Charter. This is good news for all those who defend and promote Breton, Alsatian, Basque, Catalan etc. in France. Although there are still plenty of Jacobins in French politics, at least there is some movement towards an acceptance of a greater linguistic pluralism within the country.) IT: Continuo a leggere "Il nome della rosa" d’Umberto Eco. Ho letto 150 pagine, dunque ci sono soltanto 450 pagine da leggere ancora! Quando lessi questo libro per la prima volta, mi piacque la storia perché si poteva leggere come un romanzo giallo. Adesso m'interessa soprattutto per il suo contenuto storico ed erudito. Quando finisco con questo libro, ho l'intenzione di leggere l'ultimo romanzo scritto da Eco, "Il cimitero di Praga". Lo stilo d’Eco non è troppo difficile, ma a volte i frasi sono molto lunghe, e devo ricercare 4-5 parole per pagina. Con il dizionario integrato nel mio Kindle questo è facile e non bisogna molto tempo. (I am continuing with "The name of the Rose", and I am 150 pages into the story, so just another 450 to go. The first time I read the book I enjoyed it as a crime mystery, but today I appreciate more its intellectual and historical content. Once I am done with this book I want to read the latest of Eco's novels, "The Prague Cemetery". Eco's style is not too difficult, although sometimes the sentences are very long, and I have to look up 4 to 5 words per page. Luckily that is pretty easy on the Kindle with the integrated dictionary.) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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