Rhaeto-Romanic Languages

Rhaeto-Romanic Languages, also termed Rhaetian languages, small group of three Romance languages, including Romansch (the official written form of which is called Grischuna), spoken in Graubünden (Grisons) Canton in south-eastern Switzerland; Ladin, spoken in northern Italy, or in the Alto Adige region and to the east in the Dolomites; and Friulian, spoken in the Friuli region of Italy, east of the Alps, and in some parts of Slovenia as a second language. The Rhaeto-Romanic languages once covered a larger area; opinions differ on their relation to one another, but they are thought to have developed independently. Of about half a million Rhaeto-Romanic speakers, around 90 per cent speak Friulian; less than 1 per cent of Swiss citizens speak Romansch as a mother tongue, one of Switzerland's four official languages. Romansch, Ladin, and Friulian have thriving local literatures.

Selected statistical data from Ethnologue: Languages of the World, SIL International.