Romansh language 17th century, after which it became entirely German-speaking because of the Counter-Reformation denunciation of Romansh as a "Protestant language". When Grisons became part of Switzerland in 1803, it had a population of roughly 73,000, of whom around 36,600 were Romansh speakers—many of them monolingual—living mostly within the Romansh-speaking valleys. The language border with German, which had mostly been stable since the 16th century, now began moving again as more and more villages shifted to German. One cause was the admission of Grisons as a Swiss canton, which brought Romansh-speakers into more frequent contact with German-speakers. Another factor was the increased
Romansh language the beginning, and virtually all schools switched entirely to German as the language of instruction by 1900, with children in many schools being punished for speaking Romansh well into the 1930s. Early attempts to create a unified written language for Romansh include the "Romonsch fusionau" of Gion Antoni Bühler in 1867 and the "Interrumantsch" by Leza Uffer in 1958. Neither was able to gain much support, and their creators were largely the only ones actively using them. In the meantime, the Romansh movement sought to promote the different regional varieties while promoting a gradual convergence of the five varieties, called