Romansh people language for the first time as one of Switzerland's four national languages, though only for use within the canton, not at the federal level. The Romansh people appeared to be mostly satisfied with this status until the 1980s when debate arose over Switzerland's relationship with the greater European continent and the concept of the European Union began to form. The Romansh people advocated heavily for Switzerland's membership in the Union, but the referendum to join it was narrowly defeated in 1992 by the German majority and Switzerland remained a nation apart with the Romansh people a nation apart within it
Romansh language be found: Romansh schools, bilingual schools, and German schools with Romansh as a subject. In the Romansh schools, Romansh is the primary language of instruction during the first 3–6 years of the nine years of compulsory schooling, and German during the last 3–9 years. Due to this, this school type is often called the "so-called Romansh school". In practice, the amount of Romansh schooling varies between half and 4/5 of the compulsory school term, often depending on how many Romansh-speaking teachers are available. This "so-called Romansh school" is found in 82 municipalities of Grisons as of 2001. The bilingual school