Romansh language Grisons, the language borders largely stabilized in the 16th century and remained almost unchanged until the 19th century. This language area is often called the "Traditional Romansh-speaking territory", a term introduced by the statistician Jean-Jacques Furer based on the results of the Swiss censuses. Furer defines this language area as those municipalities in which a majority declared Romansh as their mother tongue in any of the first four Swiss censuses between 1860 and 1888. In addition, he includes Fürstenau. This represented 121 municipalities at the time, corresponding to 116 present-day municipalities. The villages of Samnaun, Sils im Domleschg, Masein, and
Romansh language by cantonal officials on the grounds that all Romansh speakers are perfectly bilingual and able to understand and speak German. Up until the 1980s it was usually seen as a provocation when a deputy in the cantonal parliament used Romansh during a speech. Cantonal law leaves it to the districts and municipalities to specify their own language of administration and schooling. According to Article 3 of the cantonal constitution however, the municipalities are to "take into consideration the traditional linguistic composition and respect the autochthonous linguistic minorities". This means that the language area of Romansh has never officially been defined,