Romansh language change, speakers will slowly become fewer and fewer with each generation. He also concludes however, that there are still enough speakers to ensure that Romansh will survive in the long term at least in certain regions. He considers the Romansh-language school system to be the single most crucial factor in this. Romansh has up to 26 consonant phonemes. Two are only found in some varieties, and one is found only in loanwords borrowed from German. Notes: The voiced obstruents are fully voiced in Romansh and voiceless ones are non-aspirated, in contrast to Swiss German with which Romansh is in extensive
Romansh language such as the Engadine and the Surselva, where the pressure of German was equally strong, Romansh was maintained much better and remained a commonly spoken language. According to the linguist Mathias Kundert, one important factor was the different social prestige of Romansh. In the Heinzenberg and Domleschg valleys, the elite had been German-speaking for centuries, so that German was associated with power and education, even though most people did not speak it, whereas Romansh was associated with peasant life. In the Engadine and the Surselva by contrast, the elite was itself Romansh-speaking, so that Romansh there was "not only the