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 is markedly different from Sursilvan and is referred to as "Tuatschin". Additionally, the standardized variety Rumantsch Grischun, intended for pan-regional use, was introduced in 1982. The dialect of the Val Bregaglia is usually considered a variety of Lombard, and speakers use Italian as their written language, even though the dialect shares many features with the neighboring Putèr dialect of Romansh. As these varieties form a continuum with small transitions from each village to the next, there is no straightforward internal grouping of the Romansh dialects. The Romansh language area can be described best as consisting of two widely divergent varieties,