Romansh language and above reporting Romansh as their main language was 36,622 in 2012. Spoken by around 0.9% of Switzerland's 7.7 million inhabitants, Romansh is Switzerland's least-used national language in terms of number of speakers and ranks eleventh in terms of most spoken languages in Switzerland overall. The language area and number of speakers of Romansh have been continually shrinking, though language use remains vigorous in certain areas. Romansh is divided into five different regional dialects (Sursilvan, Sutsilvan, Surmiran, Putèr, and Vallader), each with its own standardized written language. In addition, a pan-regional variety called Rumantsch Grischun was introduced in 1982, which
Romansh language since it gave the Romansh an advantage when learning other Romance languages. In 1807, for example, the priest Mattli Conrad wrote an article listing the advantages and disadvantages of Romansh: In response however, the editor of the newspaper added that: According to the testimony of experienced and vigilant language teachers, while the one who is born Romansh can easily learn to understand these languages and make himself understood in them, he has great difficulties in learning them properly, since precisely because of the similarity, he mixes them so easily with his own bastardized language. [...] in any case, the conveniences