Romansh language develop. During the 19th century the area where the language was spoken declined, but the Romansh speakers had a literary revival and started a language movement dedicated to halting the decline of the language. In the 2000 Swiss census, 35,095 people (of whom 27,038 live in the canton of Grisons) indicated Romansh as the language of "best command", and 61,815 as a "regularly spoken" language. In 2010, Switzerland switched to a yearly system of assessment that uses a combination of municipal citizen records and a limited number of surveys. Based on this yearly system, the number of people aged 15
Official language Official language An official language is a language given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically a country's official language refers to the language used within government (judiciary, legislature, administration). Since "the means of expression of a people cannot be changed by any law", the term "official language" does not typically refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government. About half the countries of the world have declared one or more official languages. The government of Italy officialised Italian only in 1999, and some nations (such as the