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
Romansh language "Banitsch" 'cart used for moving dung', and "Pon" 'container made of wood'. In areas where Romansh either is still spoken or has disappeared recently, Romansh words are even more common in the local dialects of German. The influence of German has been seen in different ways by linguists and language activists. The Italian dialectologist Ascoli for instance described Romansh as "a body that has lost its soul and taken on an entirely foreign one in its place" in the 1880s. This opinion was shared by many, who saw the influence of German as a threat to and corruption of Romansh,