Vallader dialect

Vallader
vallader
Sgraffito in Guarda. Translation: We build such pretty houses and know that we not stay forever. But about the place we will go to forever, we think only rarely
Pronunciation[vɐˈlaːdɛr] ⓘ
RegionLower Engadine, Val Müstair
Latin script
Language codes
ISO 639-3–
Glottologlowe1386
IETFrm-vallader[2]
Historical distribution of the dialects of Romansh, German, and Italian in Grisons:
  Sursilvan
  Tuatschin
  Sutsilvan
  Surmiran
  Putèr
  Vallader
  Jauer
The newspaper Engadiner Post / Posta Ladina although published in the Upper Engadine, uses Vallader in most of its Romansh-language articles

Vallader (Vallader, Sursilvan, Puter, Surmiran, and Rumantsch Grischun: vallader [vɐˈlaːdɛr] ⓘ; Sutsilvan: valader) is a variety of the Romansh language spoken in the Lower Engadine valley (Engiadina Bassa) of southeast Switzerland, between Martina and Zernez. It is also used as a written language in the nearby community of Val Müstair, where Jauer is spoken. In 2008, schools in the Val Müstair switched from Vallader to Rumantsch Grischun as their written language, but switched back to Vallader in 2012, following a referendum.

The name of the dialect is derived from val 'valley'. It is the second most commonly spoken variety of Romansh, with 6,448 people in the Lower Engadine valley (79.2%) naming Romansh as a habitually spoken language in the census of 2000.[3]

Romansh can be separated into two dialect groups: Rhine dialects (Sursilvan, Sutsilvan and Surmiran) and Engadine dialects (Vallader and Puter).[4]

A variety of Vallader was also used in Samnaun until the late 19th century, when speakers switched to Bavarian. The last speaker of the Romansh dialect of Samnaun, Augustin Heiß, died in 1935.[5]

For a long period of time, the oldest written form Puter held much prestige with its name. It was used as the language of the aristocratic Engadine tourist region near St. Moritz (San Murezzan). It was used most widely in the 19th century. Vallader has since become more important.[6]

The dialect Jauer, is actually a variety of Vallader spoken in Val Müstair. It is almost only spoken there, and is virtually never written.[7]

  1. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian (2022-05-24). "Romansh". Glottolog. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Archived from the original on 2022-10-07. Retrieved 2022-10-07.
  2. ^ "Vallader idiom of Romansh". IANA language subtag registry. 29 June 2010. Retrieved 15 October 2018.
  3. ^ Gross, Manfred (2004). Romanisch: Facts & Figures (PDF). Translated by Evans, Mike; Evans, Barbara. Chur: Lia Rumantscha. p. 31. ISBN 3-03900-037-3. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-11-04. Retrieved 2021-09-23.
  4. ^ Kotliarov, Ivan (2010). "The Elision of Unstressed Vowels Before the Latin Sequence /ka/ in Western Romance Languages". Folia Linguistica Historica. 44 (Historica vol. 31). doi:10.1515/flih.2010.004. S2CID 170455631.
  5. ^ Ritter, Ada (1981). Historische Lautlehre der ausgestorbenen romanischen Mundart von Samnaun (Schweiz, Kanton Graubünden) [Historical phonology of the extinct Romansh dialect of Samnaun (Switzerland, Graubünden canton)] (in German). Gerbrunn bei Würzburg: Verlag A. Lehmann. p. 25.
  6. ^ Posner, Rebecca; et al., eds. (1993). Bilingualism and Linguistic Conflict in Romance. Berlin: Moulton de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-011724-X – via Google Books.
  7. ^ Hack, Franziska Maria; Gaglia, Sascha (2009). "The Use of Subject Pronouns in Raeto-Romance: A Contrastive Study" (PDF). In Kaiser, Georg A.; Remberger, Eva-Maria (eds.). Proceedings of the Workshop "Null-Subjects, Expletives, and Locatives in Romance". Konstanz: Fachbereich Sprachwissenschaft, Universität Konstanz. pp. 157–181.