Autonomous Province of Bozen - South Tyrol – Abteilung Generic

History

The common linguistic roots of Ladin and Romansh – which are not undisputed among philologists – date back to over 2000 years. In this period of time, Celtic and Rhaetian tribes populated the south-eastern parts of today’s Switzerland as well as the adjoining Alpine valleys in the North-East of Italy. In the year 15 BC the Romans conquered the above mentioned territories and affiliated them to the Rhaetia Province (later called Rhaetia prima).
From a political point of view, the territories and the settlements of the Romansh-speaking people and the Dolomite Ladins underwent very different developments after the fall of the Roman Empire. Only many centuries later more intense contacts between the two linguistic groups started to occur, namely at the end of the 19th century.
In that period of time, philologists dealt with the similarities of the two languages and, moreover, also the increasing threat of the two minority languages lead to an approach of the two linguistic groups. In the Grisons, the linguistic movement “Renaschientscha Rumantscha” became active and culminated in the recognition of Romansh as forth official Suisse language in 1938. Ladinia, which had so far belonged to the Hapsburg Empire, was affiliated to Italy after the second World War and thus came into the maelstrom of Fascism in the 20s: Ladin was declared an Italian dialect, the linguistic area subdivided in three provinces. This division still exists today.
The second half of the 20th century brought an improvement of the political-linguistic situation for both linguistic groups. In this context, the cornerstone for the Trentino-Alto Adige Region was the first statute of autonomy in 1948, which officially recognised the Ladin ethnic group. Later, in 1951, the Ladins were officially defined a linguistic group in a decree by the Italian Head of State. With the execution of the statute of autonomy, the so-called parithetic school system was introduced in Val Badia and Val Gardena. It bases on equal language teaching in German and Italian with some hours of Ladin. With the second statute of autonomy in 1972, the rights of the ethnic group were improved even more. Important milestones for the Romansh-speaking people were the revisions of the Federal Constitution (1996/2000) and the Cantonal Constitution (2003) as well as the entry into force of the cantonal Language Law (2008). Currently, there's a Language Law in elaboration on the federal level. Great support is also offered by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ratified by Switzerland in 1997 and signed by Italy in 2000). Despite all political-linguistic efforts, the populations of the two linguistic groups are decreasing (in 2000 there were approx. 60.000 Romansh-speakers and approx. 30.000 Ladins). This development is partly linked with general demographic trends, but it also clearly shows the need for up-to-date measures of maintenance.