Rhaeto-Romanadj.n.

1850 Methodist Rev. Oct. 543 They [sc. the Rhaetians] lost their original language during the Roman dominion, and now speak the Churwelsch or Rhæto-roman, a language of Latin derivation.

1915 Amer. Jrnl. Philol. 36 7 How great a diversity may exist within a narrow field..is shown by the situation in the Rhaetoroman dialects, where the favorite expressions for ‘speak’ represent..seven different words.

1933 C. D. Buck Compar. Gram. Greek & Latin 29 The Rhaeto-Roman dialects in parts of present Switzerland and northeastern Italy are a series of numerous dialects which cannot be reckoned as either French or Italian dialects, and of which some are used locally as written languages, as Romansh, Upper and Lower Engadine, Ladin, Friulian.

1998 C. Baker & S. Prys Jones Encycl. Bilingualism ii. 208 A Swiss organization named Lia Rumantscha was founded in 1919 to maintain and promote the Rhaeto-Roman language and culture.

1889 L. Brough tr. F. Umlauft Alps xvi. 481 The Alemanni remain to the present day pure German, or else..have assimilated the foreign elements of the Rhæto-Roman and Sclav nationalities.

1903 Amer. Hist. Rev. 8 441 The fusion of the two races, the introduction of the Rhaeto-Roman into the rank of possessors, some as owners, but the majority as coloni, tends to loosen the kinship bond.

1968 Hispanic Rev. July 211 The savage women are called in the Rhaeto-Roman part of the Alps selvatsch (from Latin silvaticum).

1980 S. Rokkan in J. Gottman Centre & Periphery ix. 176 The most important of these linguistic ‘isolates’ within the old empire were the Rhaeto-Roman populations in the Grisons in Switzerland and in Friuli on the border between Italy and Yugoslavia.

1886 Handbk. Schools & Courses 1886–7 (Columbia Coll., N.Y.) 62 Courses, philological and literary, in old French, Provençal, Catalan Portuguese, Wallachian, and Raetoroman.

1915 L. Wiener Comm. Germanic Laws & Mediaeval Documents 134 Considering..the vit, voet, vueit in Raeto-Roman, it is not strange that Italian has vuoto.

1962 Dædalus 91 545 Rhaeto-Roman, a national language in Switzerland, although spoken by only one percent of the population.

1992 D. Goyer & G. Draaijer Handbk. National Population Censuses 460 Mother tongue traced speakers of German, French, Italian, Rhaeto-Roman, and other languages.

1921 Catholic Hist. Rev. Oct. 379 Another theory claims that he was a Rhaeto-Roman (Ladino).

1942 K. W. Deutsch in J. A. Fishman Readings Sociol. of Lang. (1968) 601 Rheto-Romans found their ancient language introduced on a basis of full equality into the administration of Switzerland.

1998 H. C. E. Midelfort tr. W. Behringer Shaman of Oberstdorf xviii. 149 The Rhaeto-Romans were themselves a mixed population made up of Romanized Rhaetians, Celts, and others who moved in from the Roman provinces.