Re: CHAT: weird names,was Re: conlanging,the ultimate feminist

grandsire wrote:

> [...] a
> language I don't know the name in English but in French we call it
> "romanche" (spoken in Switzerland).
It's called "Rhaeto-Romance", and it's generally believed to include
Ladin and Friulian, spoken in Italy, as well.  Admittedly, Friulian
is R-R that has been mugged by Italian, whereas Swiss R-R has been
mugged by German (it's verb-second, for instance).

> Catalan is recognized as the
> official language of Catalunia, with Spanish
There is even a valley in Catalonia where Occitan is official, although
it is not official anywhere in France itself.

> but they are the only
> ones to have a status as the official language of a state (one of the
> offical language of the state in the case of Romanche which shares this
> place with French and other languages, maybe German and another one I
> don't remember).
Italian, in canton Ticino/Tessin.  Unless things have changed
recently, R-R is not official in Switzerland as a whole, but only
in canton Grisons/Graubunden. Swiss federal documents are not
translated into it, but it is recognized as a "language of the
nation".

--
        John Cowan      http://www.ccil.org/~cowan      cowan@ccil.org
Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis um dies! / Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau,
Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau / Und trank die Milch vom Paradies.
                        -- Coleridge / Politzer