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Rhaeto-Romance

Proposed branch of Gallo-Rhaetian consisting of Friulian, Ladin, and Romansh

Also known as Rhaeto-Romance languages · Rhaetian · Rhaetian Romance

Subclass of: Gallo-Rhaetian

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

Rhaeto-Romance, Rheto-Romance, or Rhaetian, is a purported subfamily of the Romance languages that is spoken in south-eastern Switzerland and north-eastern Italy. The name "Rhaeto-Romance" refers to the former Roman province of Raetia. The question of whether these languages actually form a subfamily is called the Questione Ladina. The Italian linguist Graziadio Ascoli, writing in 1873, found them to share a number of intricacies and believed they formed a linguistic group. The Rhaeto-Romance languages differ from Italian in their evolution from Latin by having passed through a stage with phonemic vowel length, undergone certain consonant developments, and possibly developed a pair of central rounded vowels. If the subfamily is genuine, three languages would belong to it: Romansh in Switzerland, and Ladin and Friulian in Italy. Their combined number of speakers is about 660,000; the large majority of these speak Friulian.

Overview

Works in this language

2 linked to Rhaeto-Romance in Wikidata

All data

29 statements · 10% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Linguistic typology: subject–verb–object
Short name: Rhaeto-Romance
Different from: Romani
Romance
Members / parts: Friulian
Ladin
Romansh

On other databases

19 identifiers linking Rhaeto-Romance across the web's reference databases

Data quality

statements

10%

externally sourced

Source last edited November 14, 2026. AIDb refreshes this page daily.

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AIDb. (2026). Rhaeto-Romance (Q515593). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/rhaeto-romance-Q515593