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 Engadine, many of these Italian words fell out of usage (such as "contadin" 'farmer' instead of "paur", "nepotin" 'nephew' rather than "abiadi", "ogni" 'everyone' instead of "inmincha", "saimper" 'always' instead of "adüna", and "abbastanza" 'enough' instead of "avuonda"), while others persisted as synonyms of more traditional Ladin words (such as "tribunal" 'court' alongside "drettüra", "chapir" alongside "incleger", and "testimoni" 'witness' alongside "perdütta"). Aside from the written language, everyday Romansh was also influenced by Italian through the large number of emigrants, especially from the Engadine, to Italy, the so-called Randulin. These emigrants often returned with their Romansh speech influenced by Italian.