Romansh Tuatschin

The term Romansh denotes a set of Romance languages with important Germanic lexical and grammatical influence, mostly spoken in the canton of the Grisons in South-Eastern Switzerland. Although Romansh is considered one of the four official national languages of Switzerland, the term Romansh covers in fact a variety of languages and dialects with significantly differing features. The dialect we focus on in present paper corre- sponds to a previously undocumented dialect of the Romansh Sursilvan variety called Tuatschin. It is spoken by approximately 1,500 speakers in the Val Tujetsch area. Contrary to the neighbouring main Sursilvan dialect, which is also the main language in local schools, Tuatschin is at this point an unwritten language. It is however still natively spoken and transmitted both in the local area and within families who have left and settled in larger cities within the country. Speakers promote their language and culture through a local cultural association and occasional publications in the local newspaper.