Alpenromanen

The Alpine Romans are a summary of all Romansh-speaking members of minority peoples living in the Alps, especially Romanshs in Switzerland and Friulians and Ladinians in Italy.

These peoples are Romansh, but not Italian, even if they were subjected to strong Italianization pressure in the first half of the 20th century. Whether their idioms are actually related to each other and dialects of a common Romansh language is the subject of the questione Ladina.

Most of the Roman inhabitants who had been Romanized in antiquity and the last citizens of the defeated West Roman Empire had been evacuated to Italy by Odoaker and Hunulf in 488, where they were Italianized. The few novels remaining in sheltered alpine valleys were isolated from Rome and became under Swiss influence at the latest since 1512.

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